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Motilal (UK) Books of India founder Ray McLennan to retire after LBF 2026
The founder of Motilal (UK) Books of India Ray McLennan is set to retire after London Book Fair 2026 and is looking to either appoint a new CEO or sell his business. The company promotes Indian-published books to the world’s book trade outside of India, distributing them around the globe. Today Motilal (UK) Books of India has seven employees in its St Albans-based facility and seven employees in its Delhi-based offices, and procures around 98% of all titles requested from all over India. The Delhi office sends around 900kg of books weekly by air and a sea shipment for bulk orders every six-to-eight weeks.
In his time, McLennan has negotiated more than 700 distribution agreements registered with Indian publishers and imprints and these days has been focusing on fully enhanced listings with Onix, now approaching 40,000 titles going out worldwide. Motilal is adding roughly 200 new titles on Onix, Amazon and Gardners every month, he added.
McLennan is also known as "Mr India", due to his "extensive knowledge and experience of the Indian publishing scene", with English titles in particular. He grew up in New Zealand, before qualifying as a teacher and then travelled the world, "surfing, hitchhiking and reading all the philosophy, political thinking and opinion leaders of the ’70s he could get his hands on".
He first visited India in 1975, after reading Bhagavad-gītā: As It Is, from the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, and visited a number of pilgrimage sites. He followed that by moving into a Hare Krishna Ashram in London, and became the head of book sales for the Hare Krishna Temple with a team of 40 full-time book sellers. He then became head of publishing from 1984 to 1998, and published more than 93 million books and magazines, and set up an international mail order business.
In 1998, he purchased a small Oxford-based company called Motilal Books. Since he took over, Motilal has grown to more than 110,000 Indian-published titles, and included English titles from Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
In 2005, the publisher began supplying Amazon UK, and then Amazon.com in around 2009. McLennan is also a former winner of the London Book Fair’s market focus award in 2014.
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McLennan said: "I have taken Indian publishing out of India to the world over the past 30 years, and its penetration has greatly increased. We hold around 10,000 titles in our UK stock, with Gardners and Amazon on both sides of the pond. Major Indian branches of international brands such as HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Bloomsbury, Hachette, OUP, Macmillan, Pearson all have extensive publishing with world rights for us to represent, plus there are a good number of strong domestic publishers, such as OM Books, Rupa, Pentagon, PB computer books, Jaico, and Westland, [which] are just some of the top-quality publishers we have exclusive UK distribution rights with."
The company has an annual turnover of £1m in the UK and £350,000-£400,000 in India. McLennan added: "I am very satisfied with the growth and direction of Motilal Books currently, and we are exhibiting our service at the New Delhi World Book Fair in January for the first time, but I now want to find new young energy to take the company forward, whether it is through sale or new management."
He continued: "I am in my 76th year and have a wonderful holiday home in Cornwall I want to spend more time in, for both reading and hopefully writing a book or two drawing on what has been a wonderful life to date. The last quarter of my life is best spent with internal development, and as I am not this body, I am not too bothered with its inevitable decline and limitations."
On his trips to India, he added: "I have seen all the major wildlife parks and their residents, walked much of the magnificent Himalayas and promoted what I have found to be the richest cultural and literary treasure chest available to mankind anywhere on this wonderful planet. If I do have to take birth again, I pray that life follows a similar path, in similar places, in the same noble industry."
