Amazon acquires publishing business of Westland

Amazon has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the publishing business of Westland., a Trent Limited subsidiary and one of the leading publishing houses in India. The acquisition will enable Westland's authors to grow their physical and digital book businesses in India as well as expand their reach to customers globally, and continues Amazon's commitment to innovate on behalf of customers in India.

Westland is one of the largest and fastest growing publishing houses in India. The publishing lists of Westland, its imprints Tranquebar and EastWest, and imprint extension Mikros include bestselling authors Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Rashmi Bansal, Rujuta Diwekar, Preeti Shenoy, Devdutt Pattanaik, Christopher C Doyle, Anand Neelakantan, Anuja Chauhan , Ravi Subramanian, BKS Iyengar and Savi Sharma, among others.

"In just three years we have built India's largest online store that customers can trust to find, discover and buy anything online. Our acquisition of Westland continues our commitment to India -- enabling Amazon to bring Westland's highly talented authors and their books to even more customers in India and around the world," said Amit Agarwal, Vice President and Country Manager at Amazon India.

Westland has a history of over 50 years in retail, distribution and publishing. Westland is an amalgamation of two companies, Westland Books Pvt. Ltd. & EastWest Books (Madras) Pvt Ltd. Under CEO Gautam Padmanabhan’s guidance, Westland is now one of the largest English language trade publishers in India.