Interview With Daisy Madaan, The Author of ‘The Art of Baking – Homemakers to Bakers’.

About Author: Daisy Madaan is an Engineer by Qualification, QA Lead by profession, Women Entrepreneur and now an author by Passion. She has worked for about fifteen years in the corporate sector and quit her high-profile job after the birth of her daughter. Sitting at home she realized there are many women like her who are restricted to home after having kids. Their families and home routines take priorities over their dreams and their passion. These things kept haunting her and she started looking for women who have paved their way in entrepreneurship despite all odds and are an inspiration for many. So she challenged herself and took it as a mission to inspire women around her.

To start with, she wrote the book, ‘The Art of Baking – Homemakers to Bakers’. It is an inspirational book that narrates the stories of successful home bakers who converted their passion to profession.

Ravi: What’s your favorite short story?

Daisy Madaan: Now a days, Ramayan stories as I have to narrate to my little daughter every night 😊

Ravi: The Best piece of writing advice?

Daisy: Choose your niche and just start writing. Ideas will keep pouring in once you start.

Ravi: Where do you write?

Daisy: Google docs as file is shared between laptop and phone. So sometimes ideas come and I do not have access to laptop. During that time I open the google docs on my phone as phone is always accessible and write the notes or articles.

Ravi: Where do you get your ideas?

Daisy: I usually refer other books and blogs that how my article would be made interesting to read.

Ravi: Does writing energize or exhaust you?

Daisy:Hmm…mostly both…Because when I write my mind is full of thoughts or new ideas so it exhausts…but when I read whatever I have written it gives me energy to write more.

Ravi: How long on average does it take you to write a book?

Daisy: I had to write stories of other entrepreneurs, for that I did telephonic interviews of those ladies. From my personal experience, I used to take 2 days to make notes out of the recorded conversation. The conversation was usually of 1 hour 30 mins to 2 hours. So listening, pausing and taking notes was time consuming task. And then I used to take 4-5 days for making article out of those notes. I targeted for 1500-2000 words for each article.

Ravi: If you had to do something differently as a child or teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would you do?

Daisy: I would read a lot and lot. To become good writer, first you should be good reader too.

Ravi: What is your favorite childhood book?

Daisy: As a child I was very good in studies so had couple of favorite course books. But I did not have much inclination towards reading beyond my course books.

Ravi: What was your hardest scene to write?

Daisy: One question was common to all artists that what was the most challenging situation they faced. Many shared their personal experience when things went wrong unknowingly and it was THE testing time for them. For them it was easy to narrate the story and share how they felt at that time, but to put it in words, so that readers could feel that it was really tough situation what they faced.

Ravi: Do you Google yourself?

Daisy: Rarely before my book was published, frequency increased after the book was released and now after my interview, I will search more 😊

Ravi: Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Daisy: Not exactly. Since this is my debut book, I have written in very simple words so that that readers can relate easily.

Ravi: Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?

Daisy: Oh yes for sure. That’s is one thing we are always hungry for 😊 . Good reviews give me satisfaction and encouragement and bad reviews are the ones that help to make us better. I always welcome bad reviews as scope of improvement. And I do understand that reviews depend on the readers interest too. So every author can have good and bad reviews depending who is reading the book.

Ravi: What did you edit out of this book?

Daisy: I did editing of the chapters individually and once it was final did not remove any thing.

Ravi: How many hours a day do you write?

Daisy: Usually 2 to 3 hours.

Ravi: How long were you a part-time writer before you became a full-time one?

Daisy: As of now I am part time author but I write for my blog.

Ravi: What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

Daisy: I had researched almost a month about what chapters I will be writing and about whom I will be writing.

Ravi: What’s the best way to market your books?

Daisy: I am using all digital media.

Ravi: How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

Daisy: As of now one is published and idea of two books is in my phone and mind 😊

Ravi: What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

Daisy: Yes I have friends who are authors too. I kept pinging them for small small queries that I had in my mind about different aspects of book that included cover page, foreword, reviews of the book, about the book, about the author, how to market the book, when to share with friends that my book will be published, etc. Their timely advice had helped me a lot. Few things were not in my mind but after discussion with friends, I became aware of that. Also I read and referred books of few authors who are not my friends but still I know them through any reference.

Ravi: Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

Daisy: I have tried to deliver the real challenges and journeys of home bakers. So every word of the book was original and based on personal experience.

Ravi: What advice do you have for writers?

Daisy: Well since I have just begun my journey so I cant give advice to experts. But yes who are aspiring to become author, I would say keep it simple and straight so that people can connect with you.

Ravi: What are the most important magazines for writers to subscribe to?

Daisy: At different stages of life, I had subscribed to different magazines based on my interest and situation and what I was working during that period.

Ravi: Tell me about your recent book to our Ravi Reads Blog Readers?

Daisy: My recent book is “The Art of Baking – Homemakers to Bakers”. The book is dedicated to womanhood and particularly home bakers. It is an inspirational book with the crux - passion to profession. I had interviewed top 9 and 2 aspiring home bakers from different cities of India. Have tried to share their struggles and journey that how they got motivated to take baking as a career along with have listed their achievements in baking industry. All came from different profession and now have specializations in different fields of baking. Also I have listed the challenges that generally home bakers face and book is ended with few tips of upcoming home bakers.

This book presents strong women and shows us that women can do everything. I love a story that empowers women and gives them the recognition that they deserve rather than writing a character about a female as a damsel in distress.

The book has been foreworded by Famous Nita Mehta who is Indian celebrity chef, author, restaurateur and media personality,TEDx speaker, celebrity judge on Master Chef (2011), and also featured in the book 'Millionaire Housewives' for her inspirational journey.

The book has reviews of famous home bakers and artists whose stories I could not cover in my book due to various reasons.

To Know more about Daisy's The Art of Baking check out this link.

Thanks to Daisy Madaan for agreeing to this interview! If you know of an author who’d like to be featured in an interview (or you are an author who would like to be featured), feel free to email me at the address on my contact page.