In a six-month period during which Hachette Book Group underwent significant restructuring, parent company Lagardère reported big gains in sales and profits in its book publishing division. Total revenue rose 5% in the first half of the year, to €1.31 billion ($1.42 billion), and earnings jumped 48%, to €113 million. HBG was a major contributor to the increase, with sales up 7.7%. Lagardère’s other major English-language market, the U.K., saw sales rise even faster, up 8.4%. Still, the U.S. and Canada accounted for 32% of total revenue in the first half of the year, compared to 20% from the U.K..
In its announcement, Lagardère attributed the overall sales increase to solid sales of frontlist and backlist print titles, as well as to strong growth in downloadable audiobook sales in both the U.S. and U.K. The jump in earnings was attributed to the strong performance in the U.S. and U.K., a favorable sales mix of backlist and audio titles and “cost saving measures.” Lagardère did not make direct reference to the HBG reorganization, but did report a one-time charge of €7 million “mainly reflecting severance and reorganization costs in the United States and Spain.”
In prepared remarks, David Shelley, the Hachette UK CEO who took the reigns at HBG as well late last year, called Grand Central, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit, and Hachette Audio “key contributors” to the better financial performance in the U.S. Among the company’s bestselling titles were Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson, Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez, Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand, and Caldecott Medal winner Big by Vashti Harrison.
The HBG release did not address the reorganization, other than pointing to the return of Reagan Arthur as senior VP and publisher at Grand Central Publishing. The restructuring began in February with the appointment of Sally Kim to replace Bruce Nichols as president and publisher of Little, Brown, where Kim subsequently dismissed a number of longtime, high-profile figures at the imprint and has since made several hires. Concurrently, HBG laid off a number of salespeople as part of a revamp of its sales department.
The restructure culminated last week with the further integration of Workman Publishing, which HBG bought three years ago, as well as a host of other changes, among them the shuttering of Hachette Books and Hachette Go and the absorption of the Algonquin adult and children’s imprints into Little, Brown. A source said that last week’s changes are the last ones planned for 2024.
