Our publishing

What we publish

We publish over 1,500 titles every year across a wide range of categories and genres, including fiction and non-fiction, adult and children’s, and commercial bestsellers and literary classics.

These come in several different formats – physical books, ebooks and audiobooks – and we work with retailers and suppliers across the UK and around the world to get these into as many readers’ hands as possible.

We seek out and enable talented people from all walks of life to tell their stories, and we make sure they are heard. Our books are by some of the world’s best authors and illustrators, as well as journalists, comedians, academics, chefs, scientists, business gurus, politicians, doctors, sports stars, philosophers, celebrities and many, many more. We’re always on the hunt for brilliant new voices as well as bringing you the writers that you already know and love.

Whatever, and however, you like reading, we’ll have a book for you.

Our publishing houses

Penguin Random House UK is made up of a collection of nine different publishing houses, all of which have their own creative and editorial autonomy. Each has their own teams of editors, publicists, marketers and designers, supported by central experts in Sales, Rights, Production, Legal, and beyond.

Find out more about each of our publishing houses below.

Our Classics

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. The Penguin Classics list represents a vast range of literature (nearly three thousand titles) that spans thousands of years and represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines.

Penguin Classics is an ongoing and evolving project, and in recent years the list has benefitted from the addition of works by writers such as Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, James Baldwin and Ishmael Reed.  By its very nature, the Penguin Classics list will never be complete but will continue to change to reflect the world around us, as well as ongoing critical conversations with academics, translators, writers and readers.

Find out more about our classic publishing.

Our editorial choices

Across our nine publishing houses we have over 200 editors who are acquiring and publishing all different kinds of books, offering diverse views and perspectives across the political and social spectrum. Our editors’ expertise, training and instincts have formed the basis of our publishing for nearly ninety years.

We understand the profound role that our authors can play in shaping culture, policy and society, and the impact our books can have. Making the editorial choices behind these books is a privilege and responsibility. We fulfil them by working with the best authors, employing the best people in the business and trusting them to do great work.

To support our publishing teams, we have some established and rigorous processes in place, which they draw upon every day at each stage the journey of a book’s publication. These ensure all our books are published with due care, consideration and in line with our responsibilities as a publisher, and are based on a common set of principles:

1. A determination to publish responsibly and for the widest possible audience. This goes as far back as Allen Lane’s founding purpose for Penguin in the 1930s, when he wanted to publish good-quality books at a price everyone could afford. Today we say our mission is to make books for everyone, because a book can change anyone.

2. A deep and enduring commitment to freedom of expression and a plurality of voices. We believe that books have a vital role to play in a diverse, vigorous and respectful economy of ideas.

3. A duty of care around content that could cause serious harm, for example in relation to depictions of suicide and self-harm; to abusive or discriminatory treatment; and in books for children.