How to use this Page

Anthony Goff has been promoted to senior vice president of content development and audio publisher at Hachette Book Group.

In his new role, Goff will continue to lead product development for Hachette Audio. He will also head up product development for books, apps, games, teaching materials, videos and other original content.

Goff joined the publishing group in 2003 and has led the audio division since 2006.  Under his direction, the Hachette Audio division has won six Grammy awards. Goff has also served as a president of the Audio Publishers Association in the past. He is currently vice president of the association.

Hachette UK has revealed a number of staff changes to its international division.

Simon McArt has been promoted to head of sales for India and North America. Matt Cowdery has relocated to London where he will act as head of sales to Africa and the Middle East. This position includes overseeing the Dubai office and managing sales to South Africa. Abigail Mitchell has been promoted to the head of sales, Europe. Each of these people will continue to report to Hachette’s Group International sales director Ben Wright.

Laura Ricchetti, international sales executive, will report to Mitchell.

Hachette UK has acquired Nicholas Brealey Publishing in a deal whose terms were not disclosed.

Nicholas Brealey is a 24-year-old British publisher known for its business, professional development and travel titles. Nicholas Brealey Publishing will become an imprint of John Murray Publishing.

The publisher has offices in London and Boston. The employees in the U.K. office will move into Hachette’s office. Three of Nicholas Brealey’s employees will move into Hachette Book Group’s Boston office this summer.

“I am absolutely delighted that the imprints, the many titles and the whole team on both sides of the Pond are all joining the distinguished and vibrant publishing house of John! Murray Press,” stated Brealey.

Southern cooking show icon Paula Deen has joined forces with The Hachette Book Group (HBG).

The Emmy award winner and author of 14 cookbooks revealed that HBG will distribute all Paula Deen Ventures (PDV) titles worldwide in print and digital formats. This includes a new book coming out in September called Paula Deen Cuts the Fat.

“We are very excited to be partnering with industry-leading publisher Hachette Book Group. This is a perfect fit for many reasons, including Hachette’s philosophy regarding clients: treating each one as if it’s part of the Hachette family, while providing an incredible level of dedicated sales and operational resources,” stated P.J. Tierney, Vice President of Publishing at PDV.

The Hachette Book Group’s full year net revenues dropped 4.8 percent in 2014 as compared to 2013. The publisher attributed the decrease in revenues to an unusual 2013, “which benefited from releases of films tied to novels published by the Group, and a backdrop of trade tensions with Amazon,” said the company.

Digital sales (which includes eBooks and downloadable audiobooks) made up 30 percent of the publisher’s net sales during the year, down from 33 percent in 2013. eBooks owned 10.3 percent of Hachette Livre’s net sales in 2014.

In 2014, the publisher had 240 titles on The New York Times bestseller list. Book with strong sales in 2014 include: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, The Target by David Baldacci, The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling), Hope to Die by James Patterson, I am MALALA by Malala Yousafzai.

Hachette Book Group will soon begin selling books directly within Twitter, thanks to a new partnership. Technology provider Gumroad is facilitating the publisher with the tools to sell items natively without leaving the social network.

Begining on December 11, the publisher will be selling print books by Amanda Palmer, Chris Hadfield and The Onion on Twitter. These items will be available for sale for a specific time period and in limited quantities. They will come with an exclusive bonus item. Readers can find these items listed for sale within the authors’ tweets, where promotional buy buttons will appear.

Amanda Palmer’s book The Art of Asking, Chris Hadfield’s You Are Here, and The Onion’s The Onion Magazine: The Iconic Covers That Transformed an Undeserving World are the launch titles of this pilot program. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Collective Digital Studio will develop a five-part animated web series inspired by James Patterson’s forthcoming book, House of Robots. The story follows a fifth grader named Sammy and his robot named E (which stands for “Error”).

Here’s more from the press release: “It was never easy for Sammy Hayes-Rodriguez to fit in, so he is less than thrilled when his genius mom insists he brings her newest invention to school: a walking, talking robot he calls E—for ‘Error.’  The web series brings to life several scenes from the book as Sammy discovers the amazing secret E holds that could change him and his family forever…if all goes well on the trial run!”

The video embedded above features the House of Robots book trailer. The first episode will debut on the FЯED YouTube channel on November 28th. Each subsequent installment will be posted on Fridays.

Chris Grabenstein, Patterson’s collaborator for the I, Funny and Treasure Hunters series, served as the co-author for House of Robots. Juliana Neufeld, the artist behind the Treasure Hunters series, created the illustrations for this new project. Little Brown Books for Young Readers will publish the book on November 24th.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres (pictured, via) has landed a deal with Grand Central Publishing to write a book about interior design.

According to the press release, “DeGeneres, who has bought and renovated over a dozen properties, most recently launched a line of home goods on QVC and will launch Ellen’s Design Challenge, a new show on HGTV, in January of 2015.” Home will be released in Fall 2015.

Deb Futter, the editor-in-chief of hardcovers at the imprint, negotiated the deal with Esther Newberg, a literary agent of ICM Partners. Karen Murgolo, editorial director of Grand Central Life & Style, will edit the manuscript.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hachette Book Group has established an agreement to acquire Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. The executives have designated Black Dog & Levinthal to be a new division at the Hachette Books imprint.

J.P. Leventhal founded the company in 1993; it specializes in publishing illustrated books and creative non-fiction titles. Hachette plans to retain the management team with Leventhal as publisher, Maureen Winter as associate publisher, and Rebecca Koh as editorial director.

Here’s more from the press release: “The impressive range and variety of the Black Dog & Leventhal list is evident in their recent bestsellers, which include The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, Skyscrapers, Take Me Out to the Ballpark, The Complete Front Pages of the New York Times, The Louvre: All the Paintings, Theodore Gray’s The Elements, as well as the more recent Molecules, which is currently on the New York Times science bestseller list. The company publishes 20 to 30 books per year, in the categories of art, history, science, humor, cooking, crafts, music, and theatre, as well as a selection of books for young readers.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hachette Book Group and Amazon have established a new multi-year agreement. The two companies have been locked in a dispute since April 2014.

This contract will dictate the terms and conditions for eBook and print sales within the United States starting in early 2015. Henceforth, Hachette will oversee and manage the consumer pricing for its eBooks.

Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch had this statement in the press release: “This is great news for writers. The agreement will benefit Hachette authors for years to come. It gives Hachette enormous marketing capability with one of our most important bookselling partners.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Who is the one who bakes? The Telegraph reports that “Walter Wheat” has been credited as the writer behind a Breaking Bad-inspired parody cookbook.

BuzzFeed has posted seven recipes from Baking Bad: Great Recipes. No Meth-in Around. The book trailer (embedded above) features the cook preparing a batch of “Meth Crunchies.”

Hachette Books released the American edition of this book on October 28th. The Orion Publishing Group will follow with the United Kingdom edition on November 6th.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Author J. Randy Taraborrelli has landed a deal to write a biography about Beyoncé Knowles. This project will be the the first comprehensive biographical profile on the Grammy Award-winning singer (pictured, via).

Grand Central Publishing, a division of the Hachette Book Group, will publish the not-yet-titled book in Fall 2015. President Jamie Raab negotiated the terms of the agreement with literary agent Mitch Douglas.

According to the press release, Taraborrelli conducted exclusive interviews with people who share important personal and professional relationships with the diva. In the past, he has written biographies on music icons including Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and Madonna.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It is commendable that recent Prime Ministers have continued the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards even though, as with some other literary prizes, its future has often seemed under threat. It is a prestigious national award amongst the also-important state and other literary prizes. And it is lucrative, with winners receiving $80 000 and shortlisted authors […]

Several high profile writers have agreed to join in Authors United’s fight against Amazon. The new members include Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul, Milan Kundera, and Ursula Le Guin.

The organization aims to convince the online retail conglomerate to end its dispute with Hachette Book Group USA. Last month, Authors United publicly posted a letter addressed to Amazon’s board members asking them to take a stand on this issue.

When asked about her participation in the group, Le Guin submitted this statement to The New York Times: “We’re talking about censorship: deliberately making a book hard or impossible to get, ‘disappearing’ an author. Governments use censorship for moral and political ends, justifiable or not. Amazon is using censorship to gain total market control so they can dictate to publishers what they can publish, to authors what they can write, to readers what they can buy. This is more than unjustifiable, it is intolerable.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Vanity Fair entertainment reporter Leslie Bennetts has landed a deal with Little, Brown to pen a biography about the late Joan Rivers. Rivers (pictured, via) died in early September 2014.

Prior to her passing, Bennetts met Rivers several times. According to The New York Times, Bennetts explained in a statement that she was drawn to this story because “Rivers’s career was also enormously significant in American cultural history, breaking down barriers for women in television and comedy…”

To write the book, Bennets plans to conduct interviews with friends, other comedians, and business associates The publishing house has scheduled a release date for 2016.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Many members of the literary community have shown great concern about the Amazon vs. Hachette dispute. In an interview with the Financial Times weekend magazine, Malcolm Gladwell spoke out in disapproval of the online retail giant’s retaliatory actions.

While Gladwell did not voice an opinion about the actual feud, he objects to Amazon’s practice of making Hachette’s books unavailable for purchase and delaying order shipments. Gladwell “thought Amazon wanted to be nice to me. I thought their endgame was to woo authors. So, then why are they sabotaging us?”

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Peter Carey did not mince words in a rather juicy interview to Bookseller today where the two-time Booker-winning novelist discussed his forthcoming novel Amnesia, along with an alliterative list of other topics currently on his mind: Amazon, Assange and Americans up for Bookers.

On Julian Assange, Carey said that he was approached by his American editor Sonny Mehta and asked if he would like to co-write the book. “But I thought, no. Two control freaks? It wouldn’t work.”

Probably a wise move since we all know what happened to the unlucky fellow who did take up the offer, novelist Andrew O’Hagan.

Instead, Carey tapped his fellow Aussie for his own inspiration:  (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Musician Amanda Palmer has revealed the jacket of her forthcoming book. What do you think?

Grand Central Publishing will release The Art of Asking on November 11, 2014. Over at her blog, Palmer has shared several (NSFW) behind-the-scenes photos from the cover shoot.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hachette has called off plans to acquire Perseus. The publisher announced the transaction back in June, reporting that the deal was expected to close after regulatory approval.

However, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the publisher couldn’t come to terms with all of the issues required for the deal to close. Here is more from the report:

The distribution assets made the proposed sale a more complex transaction than simply acquiring a publishing house. As part of the agreement, Hachette, a unit of Lagardere SCA, was to sell Perseus’s print and digital distribution business to Ingram Content Group, a unit of Ingram Industries Inc. That element ultimately doomed the deal, said people familiar with the situation.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hachette Book Group’s net revenues were up 5.6 percent in the first half of 2014, as  compared to the first six months of 2013.

The company attributed the growth to the integration of Hyperion, along with strong titles including The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling, The Goldfinch by Donna Tarrt and James Patterson’s Unlucky 13.

“It is gratifying to have first half sales that exceed last year’s, especially in light of recent market challenges,” stated Michael Pietsch CEO of HBG.

The publisher counted 108 titles on The New York Times’ bestseller list during the six month period, as well as 43 titles on The New York Times’ eBook bestseller list.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As part of his battle with Amazon, Stephen Colbert has been promoting the book California by first time novelist Edan Lepucki.

His goal was to help Lepucki land on The New York Times bestsellers list – a rare occurrence for a first time novel – even though the book was not available for sale on Amazon due to fierce negotiations with her publisher Hachette. The push worked and the title has landed the third spot on the list, despite not being available through the nation’s largest online book site.

To celebrate the success, Lepucki was on The Colbert Show last night to discuss her success. On the show, she recommended the debut novel Sweetness No. 9 by Stephan Eirik Clark, another Hachette book that is currently not available on Amazon. We’ve embedded the clip above for you to enjoy.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

While Amazon’s latest offer in its ongoing dispute with the Hachette Book Group may look like they are trying to be more friendly towards authors, the Authors Guild isn’t buying it.

Essentially on Tuesday, Amazon told Hachette that they would restock their author’s books if the publishers promised to give the authors 100 percent of the revenues on eBooks sold until the dispute between the companies is resolved.

Richard Russo, novelist and co-Vice President of the Authors Guild, published an open letter to Amazon responding to the offer and calling the offer “highly disingenuous.” (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Amazon has made a controversial new offer to Hachette in its ongoing battle with the publisher. The retailer says that it will restock Hachette’s books and pay writers all revenues from the digital sales of their books.

However, there is a catch for the publisher. The Washington Post has the scoop:

“If Hachette agrees, for as long as this dispute lasts, Hachette authors would get 100 percent of the sales price of every Hachette e-book we sell,” Amazon said in a letter sent to authors and literary agents. “Both Amazon and Hachette would forego all revenue and profit from the sale of every e-book until an agreement is reached.”

Hachette has not agreed to this offer. The author-friendly proposal comes after Amazon has faced a huge backlash from authors and readers, including the “I Didn’t Buy It on Amazon” campaign launched by Hachette author Stephen Colbert.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.