Penguin Books is taking advantage of the boom in business books by launching its successful US-based Portfolio imprint on the international market.The first books will appear in all its main Commonwealth markets, including New Zealand, later this year.Por
Penguin Books is taking advantage of the boom in business books by launching its successful US-based Portfolio imprint on the international market.
The first books will appear in all its main Commonwealth markets, including New Zealand, later this year.
Portfolio has become one of the world’s strongest and fastest-growing business book imprints, Penguin chairman and chief executive John Makinson says.
“Business publishing is increasingly global in reach. It will enable us to develop authors and serve the demands of readers both locally and globally, across all print and digital formats,” he says.
The business books sector has proved to be resilient in the face of economic uncertainty, with UK sales up 10% in 2009 (Nielsen BookScan).
This trend is reflected around the world, fuelled by the internet and the growth of English as the language of business.
Portfolio Penguin will feature topical narrative non-fiction and books on leadership, careers, finance, sales, marketing and life skills. It will launch with five titles in the northern autumn, expanding to around 20 new books a year by 2012, both in print and digital formats.
The first titles are:
Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work & Life, by Stuart Diamond (Sept). Stuart Diamond settled the Hollywood writers’ strike
Secrets of the MoneyLab: Profiting From The New Frontiers Of Psychology And Economics, by Kay Yut-Chen and Marina Krakovsky (Oct). Kay Yut-Chen is the chief experimental economist at Hewlett Packard.
Get the Job You Really Want, by James Caan (Jan 2011). The UK Dragons’ Den star made his fortune in recruitment consultancy.
The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume, by Josh Kaufman (February 2011)
Other launch titles are: Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results, by Bill Jensen and Josh Klein (Oct 2010); Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink: Why 40% of Your Business is Unprofitable and How To Fix It, by Jonathan Byrnes (Nov 2010); and The Wisdom of Bees: What the Hive Can Teach Business About Leadership, Efficiency and Growth, by Michael O’Malley (November 2010).
Paperback editions of bestsellers appearing under the Portfolio will include: What They Teach You At Harvard Business School, by Philip Delves Broughton; The Greatest Trade Ever, by Gregory Zuckerman; The Go-Giver and Go-Givers Sell More, by Bob Burg and John David Mann; Madoff by Erin Arvedlund; and Seth Godin’s two classics, Purple Cow and Small Is The New Big.
