A piece of shocking news to those lovers of books, Amazon, the America born multinational technology company, has decided to shut down its publishing division. Founded in 1962 and acquired by Amazon in 2017, Westland is one of the largest English-language trade publishers in India that has published massive hits in the past.
Westland’s bestselling authors include bestselling authors like Chetan Bhagat, Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Devdutt Pattanaik, Ashok Banker, Rujuta Diwekar, Rashmi Bansal, Anita and Harsha Bhogle and Preeti Shenoy. Apart from printed books, Westland published e-books as well as Kindle short reads where the genres range from popular and literary fiction to business, politics, biography, spirituality, health and cookery. Since Nielsen has started their Bookscan in India — which tracks bestselling books across the country — Westland has consistently had a strong presence in the top 50 bestselling books charts.
“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,” said a spokesperson reacting to the news.
Soon after the decision came out. lovers of books have started pondering over the possible reason behind the shutting down of such a successful publishing house. As it is a publishing house that has published books such as Modi’s India, India’s undeclared emergency, Price of the Modi years etc. there were even speculations that it is Narendra Modi led union government behind the decision of Amazon. However, no reports have confirmed the role of the government behind the decision.
The decision of Amazon to shut down the publishing arm has disappointed book lovers in India, however, they also believe that it will land up in safer hands from where Westland will once again rise like that of a phoenix.
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