" Maya Makes Money" by Diya Garg

High Schooler Diya, launched her graphic “Maya Makes Money” on Amazon worldwide and it has sold over 100 copies and has become a bestseller.

The book follows the story of a young girl named Maya who embarks on a journey to earn money herself. 

“Maya’s stroll through the market led her to a beautiful purple bicycle. She really wants it, but alas, her parents can’t afford it. She starts brainstorming ideas to earn money by involving her helpful friend, Neha, and her enthusiastic brother, Mohan. Learn financial concepts with Maya as she embarks on an entrepreneurial journey of ups and downs while trying to earn money to buy the bicycle.

Will Maya succeed in achieving her goal?”

I wanted to maximize the knowledge that readers gain from reading this book so over 20 financial concepts are introduced in the story.

We talked to her to get to know a bit more about her journey!

How did you come up with the idea to write this book?

Ever since I was introduced to economics and finance, I’ve always enjoyed reading and learning more about them. I was very surprised to find out that only 27% of Indians are financially literate and I started to think about ways in which I can contribute to increase this. Art, particularly sketching, has been a creative outlet for me since I was young and I thought that I could combine this interest with my interest in finance to develop a graphic novel that teaches financial literacy to children. My goal was to make learning this skill fun and easy for children and I thought that the best way to do this would be in the form of a graphic novel.

What was the process of the creation of the book?

After coming up with the main idea of what the book will be about, I created a detailed outline and character sketch of each character. Since it is a graphic novel, I had to become familiar with a lot of different software such as Procreate, InDesign, and Photoshop. This was quite a learning curve as I did not have much experience in digital art. As I practiced, it became easier and I got a hang of using these tools. It took me more than a year to develop this book and this process made me gain a lot of skills. One of the most important skills that I learnt was time-management as I had to balance school work, assignments, and other projects while creating this book. However, the long journey made the end result all the more rewarding. The book went through many revisions and additions. Even though it was a lot of work, I was really glad with the way it turned out in the end.

Where is the book available?

The book is available on Amazon worldwide in both the Kindle and paperback versions.

Amazon India Link: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0B712SZHY

Well done Diya!