On the occasion of the release of his sixth novel, 'Half Girlfriend', Firstpost decided to measure the success of India's number one novelist. How does Chetan Bhagat the brand stack up against the rest?

On the occasion of the release of his sixth novel, 'Half Girlfriend', Firstpost decided to measure the success of India's number one novelist. How does Chetan Bhagat the brand stack up against the rest?

Yes, he's social media god, but of the minor deity kind

While his Facebook page has over 5.8 lakh likes ( Salman Rushdie just managed to secure 87,000 likes), his Twitter followers stand at a whopping 3.24 million and counting. But despite this fan following, Bhagat has not been able to beat corporate India's once poster boy Vijay Mallya, who has over 3.27 million Twitter followers. But get this: Bhagat's got a bigger following on Twitter than the new Bollywood favourite and porn star Sunny Leone!

And even though Bhagat made his debut as a screen writer with Kick, which entered the Rs 200 crore club within two weeks of the movie's release, Sallu Bhai still kicks Bhagat's ass with over 8.4 million followers.

Now let's take a look at Pinstorm's ranking for the most influential Indians on Twitter: Bhagat, despite his 3.2 followers, is less popular than Shashi Tharoor ! Hell even singer Sonu Nigam is more influential.But with a ranking of 23, Bhagat is more popular than our PMO but not more popular than the PM itself. ( View the entire list here )

The Chetan Bhagat USP: Read it and weep, Jhumpa Lahiri fans

He is no Jhumpa Lahiri (who won the Pulitzer Prize for her “Interpreter of Maladies”) or Salman Rushdie (who won the Booker Prize for his “Midnight’s Children”) -- sins his critics are loathe to forgive -- but with more than a million copies Bhagat novels sold in a year, he clearly doesn't care. Bhagat knows his audience and how to target them, which is why perhaps his name has been included in the list of ’100 most influential people in the world’ by TIME magazine. Even the The New York Times has called him the 'the biggest selling English language novelist in India's history'. And though his critics, may hate him,the numbers for his books essentially mock these same very critics.

And even his non-fiction book 'What Young India Wants', released in 2012, has sold over 5 lakh copies till date. Little wonder that Bhagat's publishers, Rupa, have already released a million copies of Half Girlfriend to bookshops while Flipkart bought the most expensive newspaper space to advertise its exclusive online retail the book for a month from release).

Brand Bhagat: more popular than the vagina but not as much as heartthrob Ranbir

Also, did we mention what a great salesman Bhagat is? The year his book Two states released, Bhagat turned to matchmaking too when he became the brand ambassador for shaadi.com. Even though, he drew flak for it, Bhagat's first TV spot became Youtube's most watched ad video in India (for the month of June 2013. )



The ad as of today has more viewers than the ever so famous 'vagina tightening ad ( I feel like a virgin?) but couldn't beat Bollywood heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor, whose Ask me ad had over 2.6 million views in just three months, whereas Bhagat could only manage 326,509 in the last one-and-a-half years.

The ultimate blockbuster novelist: Bigger than Shakespeare or Ruskin Bond

Complain as we may about his literary merits, there is little doubt about his popularity with the aam aadmi and aurat -- especially India's youth whose dreams, aspirations, struggles his books reflect, albeit in somewhat filmy prose.

While Bhagat may not be as popular as Kapoor, Bollywood definitely loves Bhagat. Not only have all his books been made into movies,but even before the launch date for Half Girlfriend was released, Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures announced a movie based on the book, which would be directed by Mohit Suri and released in summber 2016.

But when you compare movies based on Bhagat's books with others whose work were later made into movies, the former wins hands down, at least when it comes to the mulla. Never mind the content!

Despite these riches, Forbes India had last year pegged Bhagat's net worth art just Rs 3.29 crore. Brand experts argue that Rs 10 crore is a better measure. But as a national figure who entertains, provokes, and annoys, Chetan Bhagat remains priceless.