Commitment to fairness and quality
The Penguin Group


Penguin has a proud history of protecting freedom of speech and finding the authors able to define an age or reflect modern ideas of contemporary society – from D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart or Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, right through to Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, Hannah Pool's My Father's Daughter or Al Gore's The Assault on Reason. We are the premier sponsor of the 2009 PEN (poets, playwrights, essayists, editors, and novelists) PEN in New York. We adhere to high standards of publishing around the world, taking care to protect the efforts of our authors and our copyright and trademarks. Our strong commitment to diversity in publishing means we support a range of initiatives in several countries aimed at promoting diversity in the book world and seek out new titles and imprints that will also appeal to particular cultures and age groups. We support and encourage local publishing, especially in local languages, extending our commitment to making great literature accessible to as wide an audience as we can. We're also working hard to bring titles by writers from countries such as India and South Africa to the European audience. We've continued our efforts to make books and reading available to as many people in as many formats as possible: our inroads into the world of digital print have moved forward further in 2008, with our eBook titles supplying the ideal mobile format for travelling readers.

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Activity summary

Many of our authors, of fiction and non-fiction, chose to raise awareness of contemporary regional and global crises and events in 2008, such as three-time Pulitzer prize-winning author Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded, and Panic! The Story of Modern Financial Insanity from the international bestselling author and ex-trader Michael Lewis.


We achieved the first simultaneous global release of a Chinese novel in English in March 2008 when Man Asian Literary Prize 2007 winner Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong was published.

Wolf Totem

Penguin Canada, UK and US have signed on with Ingram Digital Group for the warehousing and distribution of eBooks and eAudiobooks in Canada, setting the stage for future growth in digital publishing. We plan to publish 70 indigenous books in 2009.

Snapshots

Celebra imprint Penguin US launched this new imprint, which will translate one-third of its list into Spanish for those authors with strong platforms in Spanish language media. The new imprints will publish books for mainstream readers that will also resonate with the large Hispanic population in the US.

Extraordinary Canadians Penguin Canada unveiled the most ambitious set of biographies ever published in the nation, featuring original cover art by leading Canadian artists and illustrators. The series will draw attention both to key historical Canadian figures and to contemporary writers and artists, and the jackets have been acknowledged for potential inclusion in a future National Portrait Gallery in Canada.

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Penguin 2.0 Penguin Online launched this new digital publishing programme with Penguin Personalized and Penguin Mobile in December 2008. The collection of services allows readers to customize and access material in new ways online.

Penguin 2.0

Focus on: MULTI-FORMAT RELEASE

As time goes on, people, particularly the younger generations, are becoming comfortable reading and learning in a multitude of formats. For a smooth product release in multiple formats, a fair number of people need to be creative, agile and to work well together to tight deadlines. One example of our success in this area is the iPhone Developer's Cookbook.

iPhone Developer's Cookbook

This title released first in e-format in early October 2008, initially as an eBook without Digital Rights Management technology (i.e. transferable to all eReader formats), then through Safari Books Online, then in Kindle, and soon thereafter in print. A summary of what happened in the first few weeks of publication follows below.

As a stand alone eBook sold on Pearson Technology Group (PTG) websites:

We sold 1,301 copies of the eBook direct from Inform IT in first six days of publication

We took back orders of 80 copies of the print book direct from Inform IT in same time. It was the #1 eBook for PTG for 2008, despite only being released in October

As a Kindle edition on Amazon

It was #182 of all Kindle books at Amazon

It was #1 in the computer category

As a print book at Amazon, in popularity

It was #308 bestseller for all books at Amazon

It was #1 in Computers and Internet -> Mac OS category

It was #1 in Computers and Internet -> Networking -> Telephony

As an online book at Safari

It was #1 most popular book in Safari for all titles

FAST FACTS

The workforce at Penguin Australia offers the highest level of editorial and design support in the country, winning a record number of awards – 120 shortlistings with 50 winners. Pearson Education US is helping to fund the Access Text Network – a comprehensive, national online system that will make it easier for students with print-related disabilities, such as blindness, low vision, and cognitive or physical impairments, to obtain the textbook files they need for their college courses.

A few words from... Rob Grimshaw

"FT readers want a 'trusted guide' through the turmoil of the credit crisis and the FT has been able to fulfil that role in print and online. FT.com has brought the story to life in a number of innovative and accessible ways, with a redesigned FT.comand new video, mobile and multimedia channels."

Rob Grimshaw

Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com