• Meet the Department

Meet Penguin Young Reader’s School & Library Marketing Department | May 10, 2018

By Aneeka Kalia (Penguin Young Readers)

What does the School and Library marketing do? What is your role on the team? 

School & Library Marketing focuses on teachers and librarians and what they need in order to do their jobs. We create promotional materials, like educator guides and discussion guides, advertise in outlets that teachers & librarians go to for book recommendations, attend conferences, submit for both state and national awards, and just generally chat with gatekeepers about what they need for their students and patrons. I personally handle all of our advertising and state award submissions, as well as helping create our promotional items and attend conferences.

What is the most exciting part of your job? 

I love going to conferences. It’s the one place where you get to have really meaningful in-person conversations with the people our entire jobs are about. Spending time in the booth recommending titles to teachers & librarians based on their specific needs and giving them free materials is fantastic. Ultimately, we’re all a bunch of book nerds who want to gush about books and serve kids in our own communities!

What is the most difficult part of your job? 

The most difficult part is probably state awards – I have a real love/hate relationship with them. I love them because they actively get books into the hands of kids and really have an impact on the S&L business – it’s so nice to know that something I spend a lot of time on has a direct impact on sales! But, there are so many with all sorts of rolling deadlines and different criteria and it’s difficult to keep them all organized. Not to mention, I often don’t find out about award results until much later – so there’s a definite element of surprise!

What kinds of books are teachers, librarians, and the kids that they work with wishing for? 

The requests I get most often are for diverse books. Teachers & librarians are looking for books that represent the wide range of experiences that their students & patrons live through, so having books that depict diversity of all kids is a constant ask – I’ve lately gotten a lot of asks for books with characters with disabilities and LGBT stories that aren’t centered around men/boys. There’s also a lot of asks around diversity for younger students/patrons. YA and MG are getting more and more diverse, but it can be harder to recommend chapter books and picture books that are doing the same things – we’re definitely getting better, but we still need more!

What is one that that you want others to know about School and Library Marketing that they might not already know? 

We’re a department! I didn’t know anything about S&L until I got a call from Penguin’s HR asking if I wanted to interview for an internship in S&L back in 2013, but I instantly fell in love with it once I started working in the department. It’s really rewarding to help the men and (mostly) women on the front lines of schools & libraries get the things they need and learn about books that their kids will adore. It’s a great place to be and more people should know about it!