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Penguin

Is it ghostwritten? Does it matter?

15 December 2014

There's been quite a lot of talk about ghostwriting this last week.  Read more

The year ends with a surprise

31 December 2012

December ended with a piece of news combining the two big news stories of the year - the continued rise of the ereader market and the efforts of Pearson to work out a future for itself.  Read more

More merger talk

12 November 2012

Things are settling around the idea of Random House and Penguin merging, but there are plenty of dire predictions. Some think it will change the nature of publishing as we know it, others that it will lead to further consolidation.  Read more

Launch of We give books

24 May 2010

The Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation have launched an interesting new charitable venture, designed both to get children reading and to encourage them to become charitable givers. When a child reads a book online, they are able to donate another book to be sent to a reading charity and can choose from four options as to where their this book is sent.  Read more

Penguin to cut 100 jobs

13 July 2009

The London book world was shocked last week by Penguin's announcement of 100 redundancies, 10% of the workforce. The company had seemed to be relatively unscathed by the recession and to lead a charmed life when other large companies in the UK, such as HarperCollins and Random House UKPenguin Random House have more than 50 creative and autonomous imprints, publishing the very best books for all audiences, covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s books, autobiographies and much more. Click for Random House UK Publishers References listing, were announcing 5% redundancies.  Read more

Decibel Penguin forced to back down

22 January 2007

Following the recent furore relating to the Decibel Penguin Prize, the organisers have been forced to back down. This scheme to encourage writers from an Asian, African or Caribbean background started with the best of intentions.  Read more

China's booming book market

4 September 2006

The Beijing International Book Fair, running from 30 August to 2 September, has provided a fascinating window on a booming book market. China is the largest publisher of books, magazines and newspapers in the world. Its book trade is at last opening up to foreign publishers, presenting significant opportunities which mirror those available in other industries.  Read more

Penguin in trouble

7 March 2005

The Penguin Group worldwide suffered a 41 per cent fall in profits in 2004. Its parent company Pearson saw an improvement in results both for the Financial Times and for its core educational business, fuelling probably unfounded rumours that Pearson might be looking to sell the 70-year-old publisher.  Read more

Will authors threaten legal action?

1 November 2004

As everyone in the British book trade knows, Penguin UK's disastrous move to a new warehouse using the latest software system has already cost the company dear in terms of lost sales.  Read more

InsideSessions Runs into Difficulties

17 June 2002

A recent piece by Katharine Mieszkowski in Salon (www.salom.com) has put the spotlight back on Penguin Putnam's InsideSessions, a joint venture between the US publisher and Universal Music Group. InsideSessions' Internet-based learning programme claimed, for a fee, 'to teach you everything you need to know to transform your passion for writing into a published work'.  Read more

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7 October 2019 - What's new

October 2019
  • ‘Before the actual placing of words on pages, The Testaments was written partly in the minds of the readers of its predecessor, The Handmaid's Tale, who kept asking what happened after the end of that novel. Thirty-five years is a long time to think about possible answers, and the answers have changed as society itself has changed and as possibilities have become actualities.
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'What happened after the end of that novel'

7 October 2019

‘Before the actual placing of words on pages, The Testaments was written partly in the minds of the readers of its predecessor, The Handmaid's Tale, who kept asking what happened after the end of that novel. Thirty-five years is a long time to think about possible answers, and the answers have changed as society itself has changed and as possibilities have become actualities.  Read more

‘If you know exactly what you are going to say in a poem, that poem will be a failure. Besides, there is no interest or fun, in saying what you already know.'

— Ciaran Carson

30 September 2019 - What's new

September 2019
  • 'I only really care about my readers. But I've always been irritated by the lazy assumption among critics that what I do is somehow easier than what ‘literary' novelists do. It's actually quite the reverse - to write something to please millions is obviously harder than doing something that only has to please thousands. I also think that genre writers have a greater responsibility.
  Read more