Established in 2012, Duckbill publishing house has been recently acquired by Penguin Random House (PRH), India. This leading independent publisher of books and digital products for children and teens was headed by Sayoni Basu and Anushka Ravishankar.
“We have had seven exciting years discovering new authors and experimenting with different kinds of books, but we have felt the challenges of being a very small house selling books in a very large world. With Penguin Random House India’s amazing sales and marketing network, we hope Duckbill books will reach many new readers,” said Anushka Ravishankar of Duckbill Books.
Duckbill was recently awarded the coveted position of ‘Publisher of the Year 2019’ at the Publishing Next awards. With a range of their books winning national and international awards, Duckbill was once also shortlisted for the London Book Fair International Excellence Awards in 2015. The titles of their bestselling books are Moin and the Monster by Anushka Ravishankar, Queen of Ice by Devika Rangachari, Timmi in Tangles by Shals Mahajan, Year of the Weeds by Siddhartha Sarma and Akbar and the Tricky Traitor by Natasha Sharma, to name a few.
The acquisition includes titles and Duckbill’s backlist of non-fiction and fiction books across variety of categories. Now, the Duckbill brand will be published within Penguin Random House India’s children’s publishing group division.
The new development will have Sohini Mitra, who heads the children and young adult publishing program for Penguin to work fearless books produced by Duckbill. She says, “Duckbill has fearlessly addressed many topics that are relevant for this day and age and the recognition that they have received is supremely well deserved. I have always admired Duckbill books and am excited that these will share the same home with us now. We welcome their talented pool of authors, series and titles to our catalogue and look forward to bring more path-breaking work to the fore.”
According to Gaurav Shrinagesh, CEO, Penguin Random House India and South-east Asia, says, “We are so excited to bring in Duckbill into the Penguin Random House India family. It is a true value add of an acquisition and we are looking forward to taking the wonderful world of storytelling that Duckbill team has built to a wider audience. Children’s publishing is one of our biggest assets, and as a company we would like to bring in good literary work that establishes new readers, generation after generation.”
