At Penguin Random House UK our goal is to lead the industry to make publishing more inclusive. We want our new hires and the books we acquire to reflect UK society by 2025.
To achieve this goal we are taking action in a number of ways, including removing the need for a university degree from all our jobs, offering paid work experience placements and training colleagues to recognise unconscious bias and how it can affect the decisions we make. Through our WriteNow programme we are also working with regional writer development agencies to find, mentor and publish new writers from under-represented communities across the country.
To understand whether our actions are making a difference we need to have a measurable way of tracking our progress – which is why we are asking authors and illustrators for personal information including their gender, ethnicity and sexuality.