'Wooing a bestselling author is about keeping promises'

Gautam Padmanabhan CEO Westland LtdIt isnt very surprising when Gautam Padmanabhan CEO of Westland Ltd tells us that one of his fondest childhood memories involves a large carton of books that newbook fragrance wafting through the brown paper wrapping and his then11yearold self tearing the consignment apart to find Agatha Christies Alistair MacLeans and other thrillers insideGautam Padmanabhan CEO at Westland Ltd at the ITC Grand Central hotel Parel PicShadab KhanBooks ran in my family I dont remember my childhood without them My father had set up East West Books in 1962 in Delhi and the company distributed science and business books mdash they were called general books back then In the 1960s after the IITs were set up American publishers got subsidies and that brought the first wave of McGraw Hill and the likes to India Padmanabhans own interest in selling books however peaked only after his father began dealing in general books in the early 80s I remember telling my father that I wanted to work with books I was only a teenager then he smilesInto books and musicPadmanabhans father of course turned him down The family had moved to Chennai in 1975 and Padmanabhan began studying at the University of Madras in 1987 Padmanabhan who was a single child continued to be occupied by books but also developed a keen love for music I was a John Lennon fan and loved the Beatles and other classic rock music Id say my taste was eclectic and it was further developed in college because we had a great music sceneIt was by sheer serendipity that Padmanabhan was introduced to a sport which would come to enthrall him in the coming years mdash quizzing A friends brother was a gifted quizmaster and after he introduced me to it I collaborated with him as quizmaster on the Landmark Quiz also called the Open Quiz in Chennai between 1988 and 2000 he says He also coauthored several Penguin Landmark Quiz books with his mentor or sortsLike any other sport emphasises Padmanabhan the more you immerse yourself in quizzing the better you get Winning a quiz is not about knowing it all It is about having a knack of knowing what you will quizzed on It is about reading the quizmasters mind and knowing his interests in and outOnce Padmanabhan designed a question which required a contestant to guess what was common to the Rajinikath film Baba and the visual cue of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock The answer Baba was inspired by Rajinikanths spiritual guru Swami Satchitananda who had also delivered a memorable speech at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 it was the festivals first edition at New York At another instance the publisher asked a contestant to guess how the Rishi Kapoor directorial debut Aa Ab Laut Chalein and the 1965 classic The Sound of Music were connectionIs there a connection reallyOf course says Padmanabhan In the Hindi film one of the scenes was shot at the Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont USA he chucklesThe bigger questionsQuizzing was such a large part of Padmanabhans personality that he believes it held him in good stead even at work as a publisher In 2001 when the tsunami hit the subcontinent I remember reading about a book by William Manchester based on a similar incident in the island of Krakatoa in 1883 A volcano had exploded and it had an impact across the world dark clouds had spread till France I was part of Westland then and immediately imported the book because I thought readers would be interested and they were Had I not come across this fact during quizzing I would have never taken that decisionLest one feels quizzing is all fun and games Padmanabhan offers a word of caution The very credibility of a quiz depends on its quizmaster he points out Imagine getting a question wrong when big money is riding on it He remembers the show Koteeswaran the Tamil equivalent of the popular quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati Padmanabhan worked as research assistant on the show and formulated a question based on the fact that Tranquebar was a Danish settlement The Tamil Nadu tourism board however complained soon after claiming it was a Dutch colonyThey were wrong but it tells you how a quizmaster cannot rely even on socalled official sources of information In another instance we got a question wrong ndash it was about the birthplace of superstar Sivaji Ganesan I had researched the Oxford University Presss Encyclopedia on Cinema which they release in association with the British Film Institute Even they had got it wrong So you really have to be careful how keenly you crosscheck your sources says PadmanabhanPublishing in IndiaThe publishing scene in India says Padmanabhan truly changed when Penguin arrived in 1987 and when Hemu Ramaiah set up Indias first Landmark store at Chennai in the same year I still remember that sprawling 5000 sq feet space mdash no one thought it would work chuckles Padmanabhan But Hemu believed her dream My father supported the store and it was a success adds the publisherPadmanabhan remembers how in the 80s and 90s when it came to publishing India was Westlooking and most people who read in English were into bestsellers such as Enid Blyton for children and Agatha Christie for adults but that was about it The rest consumed literary fiction from the UKThe first wave of Indian writing in English was brought in by authors like Salman Rushdie but our tastes were largely dictated by the West We looked up to the books on the Times bestseller list simply because we didnt have a bestseller list of our own says Padmanabhan Not many American publishers had stepped upon the Indian soil yet because few had visited the country often enough to publish their titles hereExpanding horizonsPadmanabhans own world truly merged with the larger more imaginative world of publishing only after he attended a book expo at Los Angeles in 1994 Jeff Bezos founder of Amazoncom was there too It was a whole new world with books unlike any I had seen before There were publishers we knew but titles we had never had in India says Padmanabhan the awe palpable in his voice even todayIn 1996 East West Publishing and Landmark joined hands and Westland was born it was only in 2005 that the Tata group invested in landmark bought over East West Publishing and merged them Today at Westland Ltd Padmanabhan knows better than to indulge his personal tastes in the books he publishes My preferences marketdriven manuscripts previous records mdash they all belong outside the door when I decide to publish a book I read as the reader does and readers dont care about these things They care only about the book they hold in their handsPadmanabhan considers it quite an achievement to have imported then offbeat graphic novels to India for the first time Apart from DC and Marvel comics Westland imported The Dark Knight Maus and Persepolis which only had US editions Even their UK editions came much later he remembersLuring Anuja ChauhanAt the moment Westland Ltd is basking in the glory of having lured bestselling author Anuja Chauhan to their camp Essentially it all boils down to whether a publisher can deliver the marketingrelated promises she makes to a bestselling author which we did The publishers philosophy at Westland today is to publish fewer titles as compared to other publishers but market them aggressively We publishers in India are yet to crack the distribution and marketing success formulae and I think this is one way to do it feels Padmanabhan The true gamechanger in the publishing industry he feels would be how publishers exploit nontraditional outlets to sell booksPadmanabhan defines his leadership style as one which trusts people to fulfil their roles in a flat organisational structure I extend the same openness to Westlands authors and I find that it works He is also quite dismissive of fancy degrees and feels they dont always matter Look at me mdash I got into publishing after a Bachelors degree in commerce I didnt chase an MBA degree because they can be quite the con job What truly matters is your passion for your workWhen Padmanabhan isnt thinking books he spends time with his wife and 10yearold son who he says has taken love for music to a level higher than Padmanabhan ever did mdash he learns the guitar and the piano and has been taken with the Beatles after attending a tribute concert on the greats My wife grumbles about how my musical gene passed on to our son but not her love for wildlife photography chuckles Padmanabhan