Leaders People Love by Yeo Chuen Chuen and The American Boyfriend by Ivy Ngeow win at the Singapore Book Awards 2024
Singapore, 24th July 2024: Penguin Random House SEA (PRH SEA), one of the leading publishing houses in the region, is excited to announce that its publications Leaders People Love by Yeo Chuen Chuen and The American Boyfriend by Ivy Ngeow won at the Singapore Book Awards 2024. Leaders People Love won Best Professional Title and The American Boyfriend won Best Marketing Campaign.
Leaders People Love features a host of accessible leadership lessons. Undergirded by a contemporary and relevant mindset, these strategies consistently yield excellent results and prove a point: becoming an effective and well-loved leader is possible if you know how.
The American Boyfriend is a page turning thriller about a forty-three-year-old single mother with a dead-end job in Southwark who goes to Florida to meet her long distance boyfriend. Everything that comes after makes her question her safety.
Talking about her big win, Yeo says, ‘It takes partnerships to make any book a success. I’m grateful to the team at Penguin Random House SEA, and the distributors for their advice and support. Most importantly, I’m thankful to my readers and leaders who support my cause to elevate leaders at every level. This Asian woman is on her way to change the world, one workplace at a time!’
Ivy shares her thoughts by saying, ‘All I wanted was for my book The American Boyfriend to find readers, and for them to find me. It seemed such a simple but unattainable aim: how would I as an individual reach a worldwide audience? And how would they know of me? Winning the Best Marketing Campaign in the Singapore Book Awards 2024 proved what we could, would and did achieve together as a team. The relentless efforts of Penguin’s publicity, PR, sales and marketing teams exceeded my expectations. I am forever grateful for their unbelievable hard work round the clock, and most of all belief in me and my book. As such, this Award is so much bigger than us. Guys, we made magic happen.’
Nora Nazarene Abu Bakar, Publisher, Penguin Random House SEA, is elated about the wins and says, ‘WE WON! WE WON! Singapore Book Awards awarded us Best Professional Title for Leaders People Love by Yeo Chuen Chuen and Best Marketing Campaign for The American Boyfriend by Ivy Ngeow. Although optimistic, I did not think we would walk away with anything, so did not prepare any speech. I accepted the first award all dignified but for the second, I just went crazy when the winner was announced. Last year we won Best Professional Title and this year we’ve won it again. So maybe next year we’ll just submit for Best Professional Title.’ ‘Thank you first and foremost to our amazing author who has written about agile and authentic leadership to bring out the best leader in us. As a woman leader, I’m incredibly proud of this book because [Yeo] is an authentic Asian female voice, whose work is also read by people in the west, both men and women. After all, we’re all about bringing voices from this region out to the world. Thank you to the team at PRH SEA and to SBPA. And thank you to our distributors Times Distribution and Alkem.’
‘I really really really really wanted to win [Best Marketing Campaign] because it is high time we recognise that what happens after a book is published is just as important as what happens before.’
‘I’m not taking anything away from editors-you will always do great work. But nowadays, marketing is 50% if not 60% of what makes a book. So l urge all publishers to invest as much as you can in marketing. This is a sweet win.’
About Penguin Random House SEA
Penguin Random House SEA was established in 2018 to discover and publish local and international voices across English-language adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction formats for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and Myanmar. As part of Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade book publisher, the newly established company is also dedicated to its mission of nourishing a universal passion for reading by connecting authors and their writing with readers. Headquartered in Singapore, Penguin Random House SEA will bring the spotlight on local authors from the region and simultaneously open the Southeast Asian market to diverse international titles. In its first year of operations, the publishing house is bringing stories from across the region and publishing authors such as children’s writer Eva Wong from Singapore, Malaysian novelist Tunku Halim, award-winning author and journalist from the Philippines Criselda Yabes, Indonesian poet, essayist, and award-winning novelist and food writer Lakshmi Pamuntjak and author and journalist Akshita Nanda from Singapore, to name a few.
