Even before The Star Ledger, the largest circulated newspaper in New Jersey with over a million readers, ran a full page feature on his book, 17-year-old Abhishek Seth decided he should work hard to sell the book. For, the East Brunswick High School senior has not written a novel or a memoir. He has published a collection of photographs titled Save My World with the help of his father, Puneet Seth, a New York Life senior partner who had found a publisher in India.
"I have to think of many ways to create awareness for the book," says Seth, who has been recognised in the past 12 months with awards in the Annual Shutterbug Photo Contest, The Star Ledger Photo Contest, and The International Library of Photography Photo Contest.
"I have a good network of friends," he says. Some of his friends have suggested that he sell the book at a number of Indian community conventions across the country.
"If I am going to do it, it will also mean that I will be speaking on the issue that is close to my heart," he says. "And that is about creating a better world by improving our environment." He has said that in keeping with his goal of raising awareness of human global impact, whatever money he will make from the book will go to environmental charities. He is also seeking organisations for partnerships to sell the book. "I would also like to see this book creating awareness among Indian-American teenagers about the environment," he adds.
Save My World is a collection of photos from across the world that Seth has taken during the past four years. "With each photograph, I am offering an environmental fact or tip related to the subject in the picture," says Seth. The inspiration for the book came when he chanced to see at an airport Al Gore's book An Inconvenient Truth.
"As teenagers we are drawn to many things," Seth says. "We want to do good our own way. Gore's book made me think even deeper about the environment and how we have been ruining it".
Seth, a Teen Scene correspondent for Home News Tribune, is an active member of his school's environmental club, Students Against Violating the Environment, or SAVE, and a graduate of the Hugh N Boyd Journalism Diversity Workshop at Monmouth University. The workshop is a summer program for New Jersey high school students who love to write. It offers 13 days of hands-on experience in news writing and reporting, editing, photojournalism, layout, news design and production. "The program helps aspiring journalists focus on what we want to do," Seth says. His interest in environmental reporting would not have grown but for programs like the one offered at Monmouth, he feels
'Although littering, deforestation, exploitation of fresh water and other environmental issues are just as important, Global Warming (or The Climate Crisis) has dominated the news,' he writes on his Web site.
'According to the majority of the world's leading scientists and countless reports and studies, we are contributing to the climate crisis.'
'Ironically, our generation seems to be ignorant of what is going on,' he muses. 'As a result of our iPods and AIM, cell phones and Facebook, we barely leave our rooms anymore, let alone the house'.
'But then again, our lack of knowledge isn't completely our fault,' he continues. 'We do not receive the most consistent information on this topic. It's sometimes politicised, embellished and even belittled. And for this reason, we may not even know what the real problem is, even if we wanted to be a part of the solution'.
