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Hachette and Penguin Random House have become the first of the big publishers to donate to Patrick Ness’ fundraising effort for Syrian refugees.
Penguin Random House is giving £15,000, while Hachette has donated £10,000, with another £10,000 pledged when the public total for the fundraiser reaches £1m.
Author Paula Hawkins also today pledged £10,000, and the Bellacqua Charitable Trust, administered by author Philip Pullman, has also donated £5,000.
So far, including Gift Aid, in excess of £500,000 has been raised in under five days.
The fundraising began on Thursday (3rd September) when Ness said he would match £10,000 in donations made to Save the Children via a Virgin Money Giving page he set up.
Since then dozens of authors have matched public donations of £10,000, and people across the publishing industry have also donated via a variety of fundraising efforts.
The Big Green Bookshop has been collecting donations of books to be sent to the library set up at the Calais refugee camp known as the Jungle.
The bookshop has said it has received thousands of books, and knows it will “be getting at least three times as many this week too”.
It is also expecting more than 150 parcels sent via Amazon after an author set up a wishlist on the online retailer where people could buy books and donate them directly.
And the bookshop has also gathered more than £2,500 online for books and other goods.