Can Penguin Books Survive the AI Revolution?

Описание: In 1934, the young publisher Allen Lane was in Exeter, waiting for a train. He had been visiting his friend Agatha Christie and was in search of a good book to keep him occupied on the long journey home. There was nothing suitable in the station — only trashy novels with lurid covers. So he had an idea: people should have access to good quality books in paperback form, costing no more than a packet of cigarettes and available to buy in newsagents, from vending machines and in train stations. His goal, he later said, was “missionary and mercenary”.

READ MORE: https://www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

The result of that idea, Penguin Books, was launched the next year and is now the most famous publishing house in the world. Its authors include George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Marian Keyes and Philip Pullman. The global brand, Penguin Random House, recorded revenues of €4.9 billion last year, 10 per cent of which came from British sales. Of the top 100 bestselling books in the UK last year, recorded by Nielsen, Penguin published 47.

It has been a remarkable success story, and Penguin has gone all out for its 90th birthday. It has opened a selection of book boxes round the UK — “90 Little Book Stops” — as well as a Nothing Like a Book festival held in London and an exhibition at No 11 Downing Street. A huge birthday bash at the Design Museum in London welcomed some of the biggest literary names.

But the celebrations may have been dampened by news of a different nature. On July 5, The Observer ran an investigation into The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, which was published in 2018 by the Penguin imprint Michael Joseph. Key elements of the story — how Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, became homeless and the severity of Moth’s disease — appeared to have been fabricated or exaggerated.

Penguin responded to say that it “undertook all the necessary due diligence” and that the book’s contract included “an author warranty about factual accuracy” — in other words, that the blame lay with Winn. This month the publisher announced that it had postponed the October publication of Winn’s next book, On Winter Hill, “to support the author”.

Read the best of our journalism: https://www.thetimes.com/
Subscribe to the Times Originals YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_...
Find us on Facebook:   / timesandsundaytimes  
Find us on X: https://x.com/thetimes
Find us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetimes?lang=en
Find us on Instagram:   / thetimes  

#ai #penguinbooks #publishing #books