News

« Headlines

Penguin chief denies internet threat

22.10.07

Penguin said this week that the explosion in online and secondhand retailing has not caused the damage they were expecting and that the internet has in many ways been a boon for booksellers as a tool for marketing, experimentation and reaching out to the next generation of readers, reports Reuters.

"There is a lot going on in the music publishing industry that is not going on in the book industry. Consumers don't want albums they want tracks and in publishing people want books not chapters," Penguin chief executive and chairman John Makinson told journalists during a briefing earlier this week. He said that although sales of secondhand books, which appear on online auction sites shortly after release have posed a threat to hardback business as well as subsequent paperback releases, the impact has not been as great as expected. "The used book market doesn't seem to have made the inroads into the new book market we initially feared," he said.

Reuters

Penguin pearson John Makinson

See Also