This is how Penguin rolls

 

 

 

Eat your heart out Amazon. Not everything is going online in the book business.

Not, at least, if the New York-based Penguin Group, publisher of a number of major book imprints, has anything to say about it. Call it quaint if you like, but the Penguin Group will debut its first mobile bookstore Thursday at the annual American Booksellers Association convention in New York City.

Brick and mortar bookstores may be going the way of the Dodo, but Penguin hopes to keep the gloriously old-fashioned notion of the bookstore alive — in somewhat miniature fashion — with its new Penguin Book Truck and accompanying pushcart. Pushchart? Even more quaint!

The Penguin Truck, a traveling bookstore on wheels that resembles the food trucks now dotting street corners, just debuted in New York City. But the truck is coming to Chicago in late June for the annual American Library Association conference from June 27 through July 2.

Susan Petersen Kennedy, president of the Penguin Group, described the new truck as a "moveable feast of today's great books." Indeed the truck at any one time will offer for sale more than 1,100 Penguin Group titles from its various imprints, including Viking, Dutton, Gotham Books and others.

As if its bright orange (the Penguin brand color) paint job weren't enough to make this moveable book feast stand out, the new bookmobile is designed with LED lighting to create a colorful effect at night. There's also an awning that can be extended from the side of the truck to provide a protected setting for authors who might show up to help market their wares wherever the truck is located. Or for other fun, book-related events.

After departing Chicago in early July, Penguin's new book truck will head for Oklahoma and finally a stop in California, where it will help celebrate the 75th anniversary of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" at the National Steinbeck Center. Then it will head back to NYC, where it will be parked outside the Delacorte Theater for the annual Shakespeare in the Park season of plays in Central Park.

The Penguin Group spokeswoman said that for now, Penguin considers its sole book truck a prototype. If all goes well with it over the next several months, Penguin could roll out additional trucks.

 

Source: www.bizjournals.com