Books have the power to connect and sustain us, particularly in times like these. Your mission—to create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire—and our mission—to connect those stories with readers everywhere—are more important than ever.
The Penguin Random House publishing, sales, marketing, and publicity teams continue to do everything we can to connect with readers everywhere. As Madeline McIntosh, CEO of Penguin Random House U.S., wrote recently, the Penguin Random House #BooksConnectUs campaign has been established to bring us together even more closely by uniting readers around their shared love of books. Books Connect Us LIVE, which debuted at the end of March, uses established Penguin Random House channels to promote the author-reader connection by aggregating and amplifying the virtual experiences set up by our imprints’ marketers and publicists.
Additionally, our two children’s divisions, Random House Children’s Books and Penguin Young Readers, launched READ TOGETHER, BE TOGETHER, a nationwide initiative celebrating the importance and power of reading to and with young children. As part of READ TOGETHER, BE TOGETHER, Penguin Random House is donating 750,000 books to First Book, our long-standing nonprofit partner that provides new books and educational resources to children in need. This donation will support opportunities for our books to directly reach children, educators, and communities. Our goal, as always, is to develop lifelong readers.
As ever, we are working to be the best partner, now and in the future, for our bookselling community, and we are especially focused on those retail partners who have been hit hardest by this crisis. Our commitment to protecting bookstores as special places that provide a source of comfort, information, and imagination to their local communities remains unshakeable. We are expanding our support with a new effort to donate 30% of the revenue from book purchases made on PRH.com to #SaveIndieBookstores. This initiative will directly benefit booksellers who urgently need financial help with medical bills, household expenses, and other essentials.
The true heroes at our company during this time are our colleagues leading and working in our three distribution centers. Because of them, we continue to be able to ship your books nationwide to those retailers who are able to sell them. The teams in each location have been following medical and governmental guidelines to ensure the continued health and safety of all our employees. They have reconfigured the times and staffing of their shifts, and are vigorously practicing social distancing. Our appreciation and gratitude for our colleagues at the Westminster, Maryland; Crawfordsville, Indiana; and Reno, Nevada, facilities simply cannot be overstated.
The depth, dedication, and talent across Penguin Random House help keep us strong and moving forward. We will continue to rely on and draw inspiration from our shared commitment and values as a company and community to serve you and our partners in the weeks and months ahead, as we navigate this difficult time together.
Thank you for your trust and support. You and your books are the reason we feel so privileged to do the work we do at Penguin Random House every day.