Profile Books
Profile Books is a British independent book publishing firm founded in 1996. It publishes non-fiction subjects including history, biography, memoir, politics, current affairs, travel and popular science. Distributed in the UK by Random House and sold by Faber & Faber, and is part of the Independent Alliance.
Profile Books
- Founded
- 1996
- Headquarters
- London
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Profile Books is a British independent book publishing firm founded in 1996. It publishes non-fiction subjects including history, biography, memoir, politics, current affairs, travel and popular science. Distributed in the UK by Random House and sold by Faber & Faber, and is part of the Independent Alliance.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Profile Books. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q7248254 · wikipedia · Profile Books
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Founder — Andrew Franklin • Country — UK • Headquarters — London • Distribution — The Book Service (UK) Consortium Book Sales & Distribution (US) • Publications — Books • Genre — Nonfiction, fiction • Imprints — Serpent's Tail, The Clerkenwell Press, Tindal Street Press • Url — profilebooks.com/
History
History
In 2002 the company acquired the HarperCollins UK business list. The list now includes works by Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday, and Shoshana Zuboff. In 2003 the company published Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss which was the bestselling non-fiction title for 30 weeks and the Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2004, at which the company also won the Small Publisher of the Year award. In January 2007 Profile Books acquired Serpent's Tail, bringing together two small publishers in London. In 2008, Profile set up an ethical imprint GreenProfile under the direction of Mark Ellingham, the founder of Rough Guides. In 2012, Profile launched a new list with Wellcome Collection, designed to showcase writing about medicine, the body, and the human condition. Authors on the list include Val McDermid, Atul Gawande and Gavin Francis. In October 2012 Profile acquired Birmingham-based independent Tindal Street Press. Since 2014 Profile has published a boutique list of Tuskar Rock, editorially selected by Colm Tóibín and Peter Straus, which includes works by László Krasznahorkai and Chris Kraus (American writer). In 2017 the first books were published in the new Pursuit Books imprint, a list showcasing writing on cycling.
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself. Institutional cataloguing adds that profile Books is associated with United Kingdom. The same evidence establishes that profile Books is recorded from 1996.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
- United Kingdom
Notable publications
Notable publications
Authors include Anjana Ahuja, Alan Bennett, Susan Hill, Ian Stewart (mathematician), Jonathan Dimbleby, Sandi Toksvig, Simon Garfield, Robert Greene, Richard Mabey, Simon Jenkins, Margaret MacMillan, David Harvey, Federico Varese and Francesca Simon. The company publishes all of The Economist books. Jay Bahadur • Deadly Waters (2011) Alan Bennett • The Lady in the Van (1999) • Four Stories (2006) • The Uncommon Reader (2007) • A Life Like Other People's (2009) • Smut (2011) • Keeping On Keeping On 2017 Timothy Brook • Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (2009) Oliver Bullough • Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World (2018) • Butler to the World: How Britain became the servant of tycoons, tax dodgers, kleptocrats and criminals (2023) Shaun Bythell (of Wigtown bookshop) • The Diary of a Bookseller Eugenia Cheng • How to Bake Pi • Beyond Infinity Jonathan Dimbleby • Destiny in the Desert (2012) Simon Garfield • Just My Type (2010) Atul Gawande • Being Mortal Robert Greene • The 48 Laws of Power (2000) • Mastery (2012) • The Laws of Human Nature (2018) David Harvey • The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (2011) • Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (2014) Susan Hill • The Man in the Picture (2007) • The Small Hand (2010) • Howards End is on the Landing (2010) • Dolly: A Ghost Story (2012) • Printer's Devil Court (2014) • The Travelling Bag (2016) Simon Jenkins • A Short History of England (2011) • England's 100 Best Views (2013) Tracy Kidder • Mountains Beyond Mountains (2011) Patricia and Robert Malcolmson, Nella Last • Nella Last in the 1950s (2010) James A Robinson, Daron Acemoğlu • Why Nations Fail (2013) James Ward • Adventures in Stationery (2014) Richard Wrangham • Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009) • The Goodness Paradox (2019)
Publications and programmes
Catalogued output
Publications and programmes
The following works and productions are recorded by name or by count.
Where the work is held
Collections and holdings
Institutional holdings are recorded as follows.
Prizes
• Anquetil, Alone by Paul Fournel was shortlisted in two categories in the Sports Book Awards 2018 • Being Mortal by Atul Gawande was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2014 • Catching Fire was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2010 • Eats, Shoots & Leaves was Book of the Year at Specsavers National Book Awards 2004 • Frugal Innovation by Navi Radjou and Jaideep Prabhu won the CMI Management Book of the Year Award 2016 • Just My Type won Best British Book at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2011 • Moneyland was shortlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize and named The Sunday Times Business Book of the Year 2018 • Mountains Beyond Mountains won a BMA Medical Book Award • Nella Last in the 1950s was shortlisted for the Portico Prize in 2012 • Railways was The Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2015 • The Small Hand won a Best Jacket / Cover Design award at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2011 • Vermeer's Hat won the Mark Lynton History Prize in 2009 • Why Nations Fail won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2012 Profile Books has won the "Independent Publisher of the Year" awards three times. In 2017 The Essex Serpent (published in the Serpent's Tail imprint) was named the Fiction Book of the Year, the Book of the Year, and won Publicity Campaign of the Year Award at the British Book Awards.
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Publishers and printers
5,459 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Prism Leisure Corporation PlcOrganisation
- Privateer PressOrganisation
- Process MediaOrganisation
- Professional Aviation Maintenance AssociationOrganisation
- Progress PublishersOrganisation
- Project Gutenberg AustraliaOrganisation
- Prometheus BooksOrganisation
- Prometheus UitgeverijOrganisation
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own an object connected with Profile Books?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.