Amazon is shutting down Westland Books

on Feb 01, 2022

Publishing house Westland Books, acquired by Amazon in 2017 is shutting down, officials confirmed. Westland Books had been the topmost publishing company that had bestselling authors like Chetan Bhagat, Devdutt Pattanaik, Rujuta Diwekar, Amish Tripathi, and many similar others. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed in an email to Mint Lounge which stated, “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.” The company, named as East West Books previously, was founded in 1962 and was owned by Amazon in 2017. It is one of the biggest English language trade publications in India. Its bestselling authors include bestselling Indian authors. A fully owned subsidiary of Amazon Eurasia Holdings SARL, Westland is one of India’s major publication house of fiction and non-fiction. It launched its own imprint ‘Context’ in 2018, which publishes literary fiction. Amish Tripathi, India’s bestselling author had been India’s most renowned and bestselling writer of the mythological fiction series The Shiva Trilogy, confirmed that Amazon had informed him about the decision to shut down Westland. He also mentioned that he had yet to work out details of how this would affect the publication of his previous and forthcoming projects.

Karthika VK and Ajitha GS, the seniormost editors in the team, are well-known in the Indian publishing industry, having formerly worked with HarperCollins India shared, “Shocked to hear and this is a terrible blow to publishing in India. Westland and Karthika have published some amazing books and done stellar work. This decision is unfathomable and my heart goes out to Karthika and her wonderful team,” said Nalin Mehta, author of the recent book The New BJP.

Nisha Susan, author of The Woman Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories, a collection of short stories, said the company briefly revealed this news. There is not much clarity yet about what will happen to Westland's catalogue, she said. “I assume the rights will revert back to the author,” she said. “This is really sad. Not just for authors like me but for the publishing landscape in India. Westland has a small and extremely dedicated team of editors, publicists, etc and it has been a joy working with them,” she added.
The editors of Westland were told about the impending closure only very recently, a member of the staff at the publishing house said, requesting anonymity. While the company has not reached out to all its authors telling them about the impending move, some authors have been told and confirmed the news to Mint Lounge. “If it’s true, it’s very sad. They have been putting out really good books,” said Aakar Patel, whose book Price Of The Modi Years was published by Westland recently.