PRH's Shona Abhyankar joins Amazon Publishing

Amazon has appointed Shona Abhyankar, currently head of PR at Penguin Random House Children’s and formerly senior publicist at Ebury, as publicity lead of Amazon Publishing.

Abhyankar will start in her new role at Amazon Publishing on June 5th. As PR head of PRH Children's, Abhyankar was on secondment from Ebury, covering maternity leave for Lucy Mann.

Amazon Publishing launched in 2009 and its imprints include AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, and 47North. Eoin Purcell, former editorial director of New Island Books in Dublin, was appointed to lead the London Amazon Publishing team in 2014.

The publisher acquired two new and unseen titles by the late novelist Catherine Cookson, including a memoir, last October. The month before it signed three UK authors up through agents in September: Carol Mason, Andy Jones and Greg Keen. Meanwhile self-published author Adam Croft was snapped up for a publishing deal by one of its imprints, Thomas & Mercer, in June of last year, after releasing what he described as the biggest-selling book (Her Last Tomorrow) by a self-published author in 2016.