Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography to be published in 8 languages

Pune: Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography "Playing It My Way", initially published in English, will be printed in eight Indian languages, starting with Marathi, over the next six months, a top official said Wednesday.

Publishing firm Hatchette India has tied up with Pune-based Mehta Publishing House to bring out the autobiography in Marathi, said the latter's founder-chief Anil Mehta.

"Currently, we are in the process of translating the book and we hope to hit the stands in March 2015," Mehta told reporters.

The company expects a huge response for the Marathi version of the book and is hoping to sell around 50,000 copies soon after the launch, he said.

The response to the book, released globally Nov 6, has been expectedly phenomenal, said Hatchette India managing director Thomas Abraham.

"The book has already broken all hardback records for any adult book across fiction and non-fiction, eclipsing books from authors like Dan Brown, JK Rowling and the top non-fiction hardback-seller Steve Jobs," Abraham told reporters Wednesday.

"The paperback edition will be out next year, as is customary, but the date is not yet finalised. Apart from Marathi, it will be published in other Indian languages (Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil and Gujarati) between January-July, 2015," Abraham added.

He said the first printing last month comprised 1,02,000 copies even as orders had touched over 2,00,000, and the next couple of print runs will take the count to around 230,000 copies.

Mehta also said that the proposed Marathi version will be similar to the English edition with matching content and images.

"We are happy to get the first language rights of the book and expect a huge market, around 50,000 initially, with a tentative price of Rs.600 per copy," he said.