After selling a mino­rity sta­ke in books and mu­sic reta­iler Landmark to private equity fund TVS Shriram Growth Fund-I, the Ta­ta Group are stepping up focus on the book publishing business run under Westla­nd, a subsidiary of Landmark.

“We are marketing and distributing almost 100 titl­es this year, of which about half are licensed titles while the rest are original titles that we are bringing to the market,” said Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO, Westland.

In addition to stabilising the number of titles launc­hed at around 100 a year, the Tata group company is now stepping up focus on marketing, distribution and promotions so as achieve much higher print-runs of each title as well. This will help the firm improve profitability of each title introduced in the market as revenues rise faster than costs.

“We will be better focused on promotions with authors to achieve higher print runs after doubling of the number of titles over the previous fiscal year,” said Padmanabhan.

The company, which is ultimately controlled by the BSE-listed Trent, aims to be amongst the top five book publishers in India in the next three years, alongside the likes of Penguin India, Harper Collins and Random House. It has come out with original books in the ‘Chicken Soup’ series such as Chicken Soup for the Indian Armed Forces Soul and Chicken Soup for the Indian teenage Soul series. The business aims to increase average sales per title from around 2,000-5,000 copies to around 10,000 copies per issue.

The house is focussing on new titles across genres such as fiction, maternity, healthcare and non-fiction by Indian authors. These include Gita Arjun’s Passp­ort to Healthy Pregnancy and Sunil Robert’s I will survive: Comeback stories of a Corporate Warrior, Ch­ai-Chai etc. Westland is also reprinting international titles such as the Hannah Montana series in India

The Tatas used to have a JV with the McGraw-Hill Companies called Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Private – that was one of the market leaders in educational books. The Tatas subsequently sold off their stake, to the US partner.