Penguin Group
| Parent company | Penguin Random House |
|---|---|
| Founded |
1935 (as Penguin Books) |
| Founder | Allen Lane[1] |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | London, United Kingdom |
| Key people |
John Makinson (chairman & CEO) |
| Publication types | Books |
| Revenue |
 £1.05 billion (2010) |
| Official website |
penguin |
The Penguin Group is a trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House. It is owned by Pearson PLC, the global education and publishing company, and Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann owning 53% of the joint venture, and Pearson controlling the remaining 47%.[2]
Penguin Books has its registered office in City of Westminster, London.[3][4]
Its British division is Penguin Books Ltd. Other separate divisions can be found in the United States, Ireland, New Zealand, India, Australia, Canada, China, Brazil and South Africa.
History[edit]
Penguin Books Ltd. (est. 1935) of the United Kingdom was bought over by Pearson Longman in 1970.
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. was formed in 1996 as a result of the merger between Penguin Books USA and the Putnam Berkley Group.[5] The newly formed company was originally called Penguin Putnam Inc., but, in 2003, it changed its name to Penguin Group (USA) Inc. to reflect the parent Pearson PLC's grouping of all the Penguin companies worldwide under the supervisory umbrella of Pearson's own Penguin Group division.
The different Penguin companies use many imprints, many of which used to be independent publishers.[6] Penguin Group (USA) Inc. also operates its own speaker's bureau that books speaking engagements for many of the publisher's authors. In 2011, the online writing and publishing community Book Country was launched as a subsidiary of Penguin Group USA.[7]
In April 2012, the United States Department of Justice filed United States v. Apple Inc., naming Apple, Penguin, and four other major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for e-books and weaken Amazon.com's position in the market in violation of antitrust law.[8] In December 2013, a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims, in which Penguin and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers who had overpaid for books due to the price-fixing.[9]
In October 2012, Pearson entered into talks with rival conglomerate Bertelsmann, over the possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Penguin Group and Random House. The houses were considered two of the Big-Six publishing companies, prior to the merger,[10] which became the Big-Five publishing houses upon completion of the combination. The European Union approved of the Penguin Random House merger on 5 April 2013; Pearson controls 47% of the publisher.
Imprints[edit]
Penguin Group imprints include the following:[11]
- Ace Books
- Alpha Books
- Avery Publishing[12]
- Awa Press[13]
- Berkley Books
- Companhia das Letras (45%)
- Dial Books for Young Readers
- Dutton
- Dutton Children's
- Firebird Books
- Frederick Warne & Co
- G.P. Putnam's Sons
- G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
- Grosset & Dunlap
- HP Books (found 1964, primarily an automotive book publisher)[14]
- Jove Books
- Ladybird Books
- New American Library (NAL)
- Pamela Dorman Books
- Pelican Books
- Penguin Books
- Penguin Classics
- Penguin Press (founded 2003, for literary nonfiction and fiction)[15]
- Perigee Books
- Philomel Books
- Plume
- Portfolio
- Prentice Hall Press
- Price Stern Sloan
- Puffin Books
- Razorbill
- Riverhead Books
- Sentinel
- Speak
- Jeremy P. Tarcher
- TarcherPerigee[16]
- Viking Press
- Viking Children's
See also[edit]
- The other "Big Five" English-language book publishers:
- Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
- Bertelsmann
- Pearson Education
- Pearson PLC
- Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v. American Buddha
References[edit]
- ^ Company history, Penguin Random House
- ^ Mark Sweney "Penguin and Random House merger to create biggest book publisher ever seen", The Guardian, 29 October 2012
- ^ "26. What is Penguin Books Limited's company registration number? Archived 11 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine." Penguin Books. Retrieved 28 August 2009.
- ^ "Maps Archived 5 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine.." City of Westminster. Retrieved 28 August 2009.
- ^ "Now for the Grann Finale". NYMag.com. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
- ^ "Penguin Group (USA): About Us".
- ^ "What's the Penguin About?". Bookcountry.com. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ^ Mui, Ylan Q. and Hayley Tsukayama (11 April 2012). "Justice Department sues Apple, publishers over e-book prices". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
- ^ Molina, Brett (25 March 2014). "E-book price fixing settlements rolling out". USA Today. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
- ^ Edgecliffe, Andrew (26 October 2012). "Penguin and Random House in deal talks". Financial Times. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ^ "Penguin: Publishers/Imprints".
- ^ "Avery – Publishers – Penguin Group (USA)". Us.penguingroup.com. 4 September 2001. Archived from the original on 5 January 2014. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ^ "Awa Press | Penguin Books New Zealand". Penguin.co.nz. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ^ "HPBooks – Publishers – Penguin Group (USA)". Us.penguingroup.com. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ^ "The Penguin Press – Publishers – Penguin Group (USA)". Us.penguingroup.com. Archived from the original on 13 February 2014. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ^ "TARCHERPERIGEE". penguingroup. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
- ^ "Who Are 'The Big Six'?". Fiction Matters. 5 March 2010. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
