Penguin Random House India takes pride in publishing the most pathbreaking, diverse and quality voices through our year-on-year eclectic list of books. We aim to take these voices to all the readers in the country, to the best of our efforts via different channels like bookstores, e-commerce platforms, literary festivals, etc. In short, all the places where you would find a reader, searching for a book.
However, we wanted to take a step forward and spread the #JoyOfReading in our local region too, to those who might not be able to find time to search for a book in their fast-paced lives or maybe do not have the privilege to buy one. Thus, as we turned 35, as part of our Penguin@35 celebrations we started taking our books to the places where these readers are…
#JoyOfReading is a community outreach program that aims to create a social impact by spreading the joy of reading to everyone, everywhere. The idea is to give away books to people across, for them to enjoy the read and pass on to spread the joy. It is also a digital campaign that we run along with our partners on our social media platforms. We have and are taking books to the readers who are offline or digital, internal or external, avid readers or first-generation readers, out of your home or in your cozy nook.
We have been fortunate to find partners to identify with our cause and help spread the #JoyOfReading:
BooksOnTheDelhiMetro : A non-profit venture, that works with DMRC to keep books at random metro stations through their Book Fairies, with an idea for someone to pick, read and give forward. We have partnered with them twice in sharing 100+ books with DMRC travelers in NCR region. The joy of finding these books was evident on the face of the lucky pickers..
SLEEPY OWL : Coffee and books are a match made in heaven, as nothing beats the feeling of a cozy-comfy corner with a freshly brewed coffee and a dear book to go along with.. Thus, to spread the #JoyofReading, we brewed something with Sleepy Owl Coffee. We surprised all their website ordering customers by adding something special extra for a special weekend. As part of this campaign each and every customer who placed an order, irrespective of order value, was given a Penguin book free to add on to their coffee experience and enjoy the #JoyOfreading. The campaign saw close to 100 books being received by the lucky readers.
APPOLLO HOSPITAL: In order to celebrate World Book Day, we partnered with Apollo Hospitals to celebrate the #JoyOfReading! As part of this initiative, we sponsored 600 books on Health and Overall Well-being which were gifted to the in-house recovering patients. The idea was to support their path to recovery with some informative reads and provide them with a friend to hold on to.. The Apollo staff and doctors went around interacting with patients, creating a lot of smiles! Here’s a small glimpse:
SALAM BALAK TRUST: Our book wagon made its way to the libraries of Salam Balak Trust, an NGO dedicated to improving the lives of kids working on the streets. We reached their libraries in Delhi-NCR with our exciting and engaging reads to help support the NGO’s literacy efforts and spread some more #JoyOfReading among the kids. We sponsored 200 books to make the libraries the place to be!
THE COMMUNITY LIBRARY PROJECT: PRHI has a steadfast commitment to ‘The Community Library Project’ (TCLP), an initiative that embodies our vision of education, inclusivity, community upliftment and spreading the #JoyOfReading quality books. We have been actively sharing books to keep the library engaging. Recently the Delhi floods caused a lot of damage to their books, and that’s where we stepped in to run a social media campaign to bring readers together to comment/like3 to show support. We are matching the likes count, taking employee gifted books, and contributing more that sum of the former as organization from the TCLP wishlist. This not just ensures #JoyOfReading for their beneficiaries but also gives us a lot of joy as a Publisher.
If you too have a partnership idea for us, please reach out to the People team.
