News for Authors

What is Tumblr?

Tumblr is both a blogging platform and a social network. It’s a network of over 165 million blogs, and a great place to build a readership for your books or just share your daily thoughts. Your posts get distributed, liked, and reposted just like on Twitter—but instead of displaying 140 characters, you can display unlimited text, images, animated gifs, photo sets, audio files, videos, and more. You can follow whomever you like and get a beautiful dashboard that streams the content you’ve selected throughout the day.  (more…)

Watching videos online has become a major national pastime. YouTube is the third-most-visited site on the web (after Google and Facebook). 78 percent of all adult Internet users report watching online videos; 31 percent have also uploaded them. Many authors have used video to great effect. In this article, we’ll give you some simple ideas for videos you could make, and teach you how to upload content you may not realize you already have.

As we ring in 2014, we are excited to begin our first full year as Penguin Random House. Our primary goal for the new year continues to be the one we announced on our first day: to bring your books to the largest and most diverse possible audience. It gives us great pleasure and pride to support and advance your work, as we look forward to building upon the publishing achievements of the year past. (more…)

If you’re not already on Pinterest, it’s time to consider sharing your voice and increasing your reach through this fast-growing community. Since we last explored Pinterest, they have gained over 53.3 million users (source: Comscore) and have added exciting new features such as article pins, which allow users to discover and collect articles from around the web. Pinterest also released their first set of APIs (application programming interfaces) to Random House and other select partners, allowing us to create new ways for readers to discover your books online.

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As the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear, we’re taking a look at the world of Special Markets at Random House. This team ensures your books are just an impulse purchase away via more than 20,000 nontraditional booksellers nationwide, such as Buy Buy Baby, Cracker Barrel, Williams-Sonoma, and even Country Inns & Suites. This group of sales professionals also seeks out new opportunities for books through flash-sales sites, monthly subscription boxes, mail order catalogs, and any other burgeoning nontraditional retail channels.

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Lately it seems that we spend a lot of time talking about social media, and much less time on email. But with the rise of smartphones and tablets, email is more accessible than ever before. Is email still a worthwhile tool for communicating with readers? If so, how do we get the most out of it?

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Random House is teaming up with Twitter this holiday season to help you spread good cheer and fight hunger with haikus! From December 12 through 31, Random House will donate one dollar (up to 2,000 dollars) to City Harvest for every holiday haiku shared on Twitter. City Harvest is a nonprofit that provides meals to hungry New Yorkers. Be sure to include the hashtag #holidayhaiku to make your tweet count.

Need some ideas? Create a haiku about a favorite holiday memory, tell friends and family how much you love them, or share a message of peace to everyone, everywhere.

Teenagers are bombarded with choices over how to spend their free time, with many forms of entertainment now available on-demand. What does this mean for books, reading, and libraries?

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Your writing may be a winner, but talking to the media can be a whole different ball game. Follow these tips to take your interview performance to the next level.

How have globalization, technology, and eBooks impacted the world of children’s illustrated books? We sat down with Rachael Cole, art director for Schwartz & Wade, to find out more.