PUBLISHING BOOKS
15,000 - 20,000 cases daily in the past week , even though the daily fresh case count has steadily come down from the daily average of around 50,000 in late January .
The KLF organizing committee firmly believes that to organize the KLF stripped-down or in a lesser form is a mediocre attempt . The weather conditions of Calicut in the upcoming summer months are not appropriate for an open-air event as the Kerala Literature Festival . Moreover , the holy month of Ramadan might not be the perfect time to conduct an on-ground event .
The 6th edition of the Kerala Literature Festival has already been rescheduled twice , first from February 2022 to January 2022 as it was coinciding with the Kochi Biennale and then to March 2022 owing to the third wave of the Coronavirus pandemic .
The decision to postpone the KLF has been taken keeping in mind the safety of the readers , authors , and literary enthusiasts along with the interests of the book publishing industry . n
– Priyanka Tanwar
Amazon ' s plans leave Indian publishing industry shocked
Westland Books to shut down
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Westland Books , an Indian publishing house Amazon acquired five years ago , is all set to call it quits from 31 March 2022 , according to sources . The publishing house was founded in 1962 , and was previously known to readers as East West Books . Amazon acquired Westland Books from the Tatas five years back in 2017 .
Westland is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon Eurasia Holdings SARL and launched its own literary fiction publishing arm in 2018 , known as Context . Other imprints included Tranquebar and Eka for regional Indian vernacular languages . Westand was considered to be one of the large-scale English publishing houses in the country and was a leading publisher of fiction as well as non-fiction titles . According to recent market estimates , Westland Books had a turnover of around Rs 30 crore annually .
Westland books published many renowned authors including Amish Tripathi , Devdutt Pattanaik , Rujuta Diwekar , Preeti Shenoy , Chetan Bhagat , Rashmi Bansal , among other well-known as well as debutant writers . It was doing well in numerous genres including history , food , spirituality , travel , health , selfhelp , and biographies .
Many authors , literary enthusiasts ,
Scramble to buy Westland books as Amazon announces its closure
and book lovers took to Twitter to share their disappointment regarding this heartbreaking news .
Journalist and author with Westland Books Nidheesh MK tweeted , “ Westland was my publisher . I stand to lose heavily by their closure . But it ’ s not that what is worrying me . It ’ s the loss for me as a reader . They gave us some of the sharpest non-fiction books in recent times . Until someone at Amazon got this weird idea that they should be profitable .”
Kavitha Rao , author of Lady Doctors : The Untold Stories of India ' s First Women in Medicine published by Westland Books shared her disappointment through a tweet , “ Westland is my publisher and did so much for me , taking a chance on a non-celeb author . The editors are the best in India and they brought out the best and most hard-hitting nonfiction you will see on the shelves .”
Author and historian Manu S Pillai , whose The Courtesan , the Mahatma , and the Italian Brahmin was published by Westland ' s imprint Context , shared via Twitter , “ Rotten news @ karthikavk and the team have run a great publishing house with a strong list of books . It has been a pleasure to work with Westland . Deeply troubling that a successful venture can be shut down this way from above , for god knows what reasons .”
The closure of a major publishing house has not occurred in the Indian publishing industry in the past many years . It has not yet been established as to what would be the future of the catalog of the publisher ' s books and how the literary rights would be transferred to authors .
Amazon or Westland have not issued any official confirmation as on 1 February 2022 . However , many authors , as well as employees , confirmed the news with the press . n
– Priyanka Tanwar
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Indian Printer & Publisher | 1 March 2022