Sales at Hachette Book Group rose 4.1% in the first quarter ended March 31, over the comparable period a year ago.
HBG parent company Lagardere reported that total sales in its publishing division increased 6.1%, to €440 million ($447 million), in the first quarter. The rise in total sales included the addition of €18 million ($19.5 million) in revenue from the publishing division of Perseus which HBG bought in March 2016.
According to Lagardere, the increase at HBG was due to solid sales in its Center Street division, led by good performances of Trump’s War and The Shack. The 4.1% gain at HBG excludes revenue from Perseus as well as Yen Press; HBG sold a majority stake in the imprint to Kadokawa last April.
Other strong sellers cited by HBG including Make Your Bed, Never Never, No Man’s Land , The Black Book, The Chemist, and You Are a Badass. "We've had an exciting start to the year," HBG CEO Michael Pietsch said in a statement.
The biggest sales gain in the quarter at Lagardere’s worldwide businesses came in the U.K., where revenue increased 8.1% over last year’s first quarter. Sales there were driven by various J.K. Rowling titles and the Bruno Vincent’s Famous Five series.
E-books’ share of overall Lagardere Publishing revenue represented 10.0% of all sales in the quarter, down from 10.4% in the first three months of 2016.
