Harper Collins ends JV with Living Media, to go solo in India

MUMBAI: News Corp-owned publishing company Harper Collins has ended its almost 10 year joint-venture with Aroon Poorie-promoted Living Media India to go solo in the growing Indian market.

HarperCollins India (HCI) has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of HarperCollins Worldwide, effective 30 November.

Taking full ownership of the Indian outfit, Harper Collins is keen to expand aggressively into the Indian market. More Indian writing talent will, thus, be made accessible to worldwide audiences while Harper Collins? US lists will see an increased arrival into the Indian market.

Said HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide President and CEO Brian Murray, "As the second-largest English-speaking country in the world, we see India as an area of growth both for titles from all our global imprints being published into the region, as well as for local Indian authors being published in other markets through our HarperCollins 360 program. This is yet another way to expand the reach of our authors? works."

Harper Collins has identified India as a growing market for the publishing business. HarperCollins UK and International CEO Victoria Barnsley said, "Our fruitful partnership with LMI over the last decade has firmly established HarperCollins India as a trusted brand and we have greatly enjoyed building the business together. At this time of enormous change, due to the increased possibilities of digital distribution, we are looking forward to this new chapter in our development in India, a very important growing market whose burgeoning audience has a great appetite for reading."

Added HarperCollins India CEO P.M. Sukumar, "It has been an exciting and immensely satisfying journey for us thus far. We now look forward to building further on the solid foundations provided by the partnership with LMI ? with increased focus on our local publishing program, and drawing on HarperCollins? global expertise in digital media to deliver our content to audiences in India and worldwide."

HCI is one of the foremost English-language publishers in India and also a renowned publisher in Hindi. It operated as a joint venture between HarperCollins and Living Media India since 2003.

The business has grown turnover tenfold since inception and has won a host of literary awards for local publishing including: The Man Booker Prize for Aravind Adiga?s White Tiger, The Hindu Prize for Manu Joseph?s Serious Men, The Commonwealth Writers? Prize for Solo by Rana Dasgupta, multiple awards including the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliott for Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph and the Pulitzer Prize for Siddhartha Mukherjee?s The Emperor of All Maladies.