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Amazon shuts down the ‘homegrown’ Westland Books: Is it an alarm bell for India’s publishing Industry, ask readers

Synopsis

Amazon has so far not given any reason for the sudden decision to close down Westland Books.

westland booksAgencies
Westland Books was a homegrown company which had a modest turnover of Rs 30 crore.
Amazon’s decision to shut down publishing company Westland Books – which it owned for the past five years – came as a rude shock to Indian readers on Tuesday. However, for the small and close-knit publishing community of the country it seemed like an alarm bell, a message from beyond the graveyard of publishing houses that had died slow and painful deaths in the West, saying that the digital apocalypse may be here and it is riding high on the pandemic wave. Or is it?

Amazon has so far not given any reason for the sudden decision to close down (or why they did not sell off the publishing company instead of shutting it). This is the first time in recent years that a major English publishing house has shut shop and speculations are rife on social media that the book company has been running in losses that Amazon isn’t willing to lug.

While these assumptions have netizens upset, many are turning the pointed fingers at readers themselves, and asking why are they not buying more books, if they want the publishing ecosystem to survive digitisation, and companies to not shut down suddenly?



Unlike its international counterparts like Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and the Hachette Group, Westland Books was a homegrown company which had a modest turnover of Rs 30 crore. But, it did have a roster of high profile authors like Chetan Bhagat, Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Devdutt Pattanaik, Ashok Banker, Rujuta Diwekar, Rashmi Bansal, Anita and Harsha Bhogle as well as Preeti Shenoy. If with a stellar line-up of clientele such as this, a publishing house has to shut down, then what does it say about the future of publishing in India, is the question on every book lover's mind, and on their social media status these days.

The news of Westland Books closure has definitely impacted the readers community as heartfelt messages poured in for the staff and editors of the company on social media. While Preeti Shenoy wrote that it is ‘hard to imagine’ a different home for her books, translator Arunava Sinha said that Westlands’ books and ‘their staff’ and us readers must find a way to move forward.



Westland Books was previously called East West Books and it ran as a Tata group subsidiary. According to a report in The Wire, the decision to shutdown was communicated to senior employees on February 1, by the company CEO Gautam Padmanabhan. The current publisher of the company is Karthika VK.

Media report also claims that the employees of Westland Books are likely to be absorbed within the Amazon ecosystem. However, it is still unclear what happened to the titles that the publishing company owned the rights of, or where do the authors go, but Amazon representative has said that they are working with all stakeholders during this transitory phase.

In an interview to Mint Lounge, an Amazon spokesperson said,“After a thorough review, we have made the difficult decision to no longer operate Westland. We are working closely with the employees, authors, agents, and distribution partners on this transition and we remain committed to innovating for customers in India.”

While Westland Books did publish very popular titles in the recent years, thanks to Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi, it also published some award-winning literary fiction books and socio-political non-fiction that grabbed attention and has the potential of going down in history.



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