Amazon is acquiring publishing business of Tata-owned Westland

US-based e-tailer Amazon is buying the publishing business of Tata-owned Westland for an undisclosed sum that will enable authors of Westland, a subsidiary of Tata Group firm Trent, to grow their physical and digital book businesses in India as well as expand their reach to customers globally.

Notably, the online marketplace had acquired a 26 percent stake in the Tata-owned publishing company earlier this year,

"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," Amit Agarwal, vice-president and country manager at Amazon India told PTI.

“Since investing in Westland earlier this year, we have built a great relationship with the company and its authors. With this acquisition, we are very excited to take our relationship with Westland to the next level," he added.

With history of over 50 years in retail, distribution and publishing, Westland is an amalgamation of two companies, Westland Books and EastWest Books (Madras).

The publishing list 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, Anuja Chauhan and Ravi Subramanian, among others.