Penguin Books

When Penguin and Random House joined forces last year, the publishers brought together 10,000 jobs, 250 independent imprints, and $3.7 billion in annual revenues. The merged publisher left vague how it would handle combining two very distinct logos with long-running literary traditions.

The solution announced on Tuesday is an elegant, inclusive, and understated two-part branding system. Rather than choosing either a previous logo or trying to come up with something new, Penguin Random House will exist as a wordmark spelling out the company's name-think Coca-Cola (KO) or GE (GE)

Independent booksellers are being sent reinforcements in the battle against Amazon with a website that will support the dwindling band of high street traders, backed by the world's largest publisher . My Independent Bookshop, a social network for book lovers from Penguin Random House, launches on Thursday as an online space where anyone can review their favourite books and show off their good taste on virtual shelves.

Crucially, readers can also buy books from the site, with a small proportion of takings going to support scores of local independent book stores.

Half a century before e-books turned publishing upside down, a different format threatened to destroy the industry.

Here's a little perspective: In 1939, gas cost 10 cents a gallon at the pump. A movie ticket set you back 20 cents. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, the year's bestselling hardcover book, was $2.75. For a nation suffering 20 percent unemployment, books were an impossible expense.

But in just one day, Robert de Graff changed that. On June 19, 1939, the tall, dynamic entrepreneur took out a bold, full-page ad in The New York Times

LONDON: Penguin are pleased to announce the launch of imprint Penguin Now!, a ground-breaking new series re-packaging classic novels for a new generation.

For the first time, iconic books such as Albert Camus's The Stranger, Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment will remove all the instances of full stops in the original text, and replace them with exclamation marks.

Penguin Books has officially revealed a new identity for its relaunched Pelican imprint, home of many a non-fiction classic. Publishing May 1, cognitive scientist Bruce Hood's The Domesticated Brain is one of the first titles to be released...

Earlier today @PenguinUKbooks tweeted two 'reveals' of the redesigned Pelican logo, which is a continuation of the bird in flight designed by Edward Young and used on the series' covers when first launched in the late 1930s. (William Grimmond later refined the design of the logo.)

New Year's Day saw the launch of 365, a collaboration between Scottish writer James Robertson and Hamish Hamilton, a Penguin imprint. It sounded promising: one 365-word story to be published online every day, with a print collection at the end of the year. I was disappointed to find out Robertson wrote them all last year. The best thing about digital publishing is its immediacy, so it would have been nice to publish the stories as soon as they were written. That way, 365 could have been a gripping

Industry luminaries scry the spins ahead in the helter skelter revolution at the centre of their business.

Anna Rafferty, Penguin digital managing director
"I predict more digital for publishers in 2014.  I'm not being (completely) facetious, I mean more digitalness in all parts of the industry, not just in ebook product output. We're going to be using all of the creepy/fun/incredibly clever targeted and personalised marketing opportunities that our connected lives now afford to the smart marketer to reach, and then truly delight, relevant readers.

Penguin Random House has completed the purchase of South Africa-based Random House Struik.

Random House Struik was formed in 2008 following the merger of Random House South Africa and Struik Publishers. Times Media Group's New Holland Publishing held a 50.1% stake in the company, while The Random House Group owned 49.9%.

Following a deal completed on Friday (13th December) Penguin Random House now takes 100% ownership of the company.

Penguin is releasing a new business book in a range of formats with prices ranging from free to £10,000. The Curve by Nicholas Lovell, published by Penguin imprint Portfolio on Thursday (3rd October), argues that businesses must embrace free, and offer a range of products and price points that appeal to everyone from casual users to committed fans.

Penguin is echoing the message of the book in its publishing formats. A video, infographic and 9,000-word e-book, 10 Ways to Make Money in a FREE World, will be made available for free.

On July 31, HarperCollins Christian Publishing (HCCP) turns one year old. According to Ted Olsen of Christianity Today, a leading voice of the evangelical movement, HCCP controls 50 percent of the Christian publishing market, making it by far the largest player in the segment. Led by President and CEO Mark Schoenwald (above), the first year of HCCP has been a "mission" of sorts, one of uniting the two similar but distinct missionary directives of its constituent parts, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson. As Schoenwald and his team have transformed the organization, their mantra has been "One + One is greater than Two."