This summer, consumers will be fed up and looking for ways to adapt to broken societal systems, seeking meaningful understanding of the world and themselves through antiheroes, and seeking a slowed-down season to indulge in big and little pleasures as a respite from stress, climate change, and election noise. . . . Read on to learn more about the insights informing these shifts, and how this impacts the book industry and authors.
On Sunday, February 18, Penguin Publishing Group partnered with BLK Book Swap, a grassroots organization amplifying Black literature, to lead a book swap event in celebration of Black History Month! The community book swap was held at Aunts et Uncles, a Black-owned vegan cafe and concept shop in Flatbush, Brooklyn. More than sixty book lovers poured in to trade books and discover their next reads.
In this newsletter, we are pleased to share an in-depth marketplace analysis to help create a collective understanding around key 2023 marketplace developments and provide actionable analysis on what we can all do in the year ahead. Following an introduction from Nihar Malaviya, CEO of Penguin Random House, a member of our Sales team, Reid Welsh, Senior Director, Sales Analysis, shares trends and developments about our ever-evolving book marketplace. From the impact of publishing during elections to category growth drivers, this presentation explores the opportunities, realities, and myths of the current marketplace.
The nerve center and heart of Penguin Random House’s gold-standard supply chain, its Operations Centers, had an exciting and enormously productive and collaborative 2023. We collectively shipped more than 430 million books, receiving and shipping more than 11,000 truckloads across thousands of unique ISBNs. Getting books onto the shelves of bookstores around the world and into the hands of readers is what we do best—and we could not have done it without the help and skill sets of our more than 2,600 in-house associates.
As we ring in the new year, it’s a great time to look back on the many successes our talented authors achieved in 2023. We are excited to work closely with many of you in 2024, and to celebrate more coming accomplishments!
To showcase some of the biggest and buzziest books of 2023, Penguin Random House is thrilled to announce the continuation of our year-end campaign tradition, The Year in Books 2023: The Stories We Share, live now!
The Penguin Hotline, a beloved holiday gift-giving book recommendation service, finished its tenth season on December 8, 2023. This year’s theme was “Cheers to ten years”— because for a decade now, Penguin Random House employees have had the pleasure of writing personalized book recommendations for readers (and non-readers) across the world.
Ever wondered what goes into the making of a book cover? Earlier this year, we shared “Evolution of a Book Cover: The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.”, a video that shows Vi-An Nguyen, art director with Penguin Publishing Group, narrating the progression of her cover options for The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr., and how she arrived at the final choice. In case you missed it, the video, created by Jonathan Masino, senior video producer on the Consumer Marketing Creative Media team, can be seen below:
We’re excited to announce the launch of the new Penguin Random House Banned Books Site to address the sharp rise in book bans and challenges across the country. The site is a centralized destination featuring customized resources for everyone who is interested in taking action against book bans, from librarians and teachers to authors, illustrators, booksellers, parents, and students. Whether you have ten minutes or ten hours to dedicate to this cause, we outline clear ways to make a difference in your community.
We sat down with Christine Dillon and the rest of the Premium & Diversified Sales team, part of the Special Markets department at Penguin Random House, to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how they sell many of our authors’ books in unexpected venues.