Hachette Acquires Union Square & Co. from Barnes & Noble

In another reworking of Barnes & Noble’s business under the direction of CEO James Daunt, the company has sold its publishing division to Hachette Book Group. Under the agreement, all staff, publishing assets, and trademarks of Union Square Publishing, formerly Sterling Publishing Co., will be transferred to HBG and the company take over distribution for all of Union Square's distribution clients. No sale price has been disclosed.

B&N acquired Sterling in 2003 and rebranded it as Union Square & Co. in January 2022, about one year after Daunt picked Emily Meehan to head the division with the mandate to reinvent the publishing program. Meehan will continue to head Union Square and will report to Ben Sevier, president and publisher of HBG’s Grand Central Publishing group.

“Union Square has been a tremendous success under Emily’s guidance,” said Daunt in a statement. “She and her team have transformed its publishing and, we began to realize, also to outgrow the infrastructure of a bookseller. Union Square will enjoy under Hachette the resources of a great publisher. As booksellers, we look forward to continuing our close relationship with Union Square.”

Sevier said he looked forward to using HBG’s resources to expand Union Square’s publishing program. He called the company—with its mix of four-color, illustrated, children’s, classics, and gift and specialty—a perfect complement to GCP’s six existing fiction and nonfiction imprints.

Union Square has a backlist of about 14,500 print and e-book titles. It is the home to adult imprints Union Square & Co., Puzzlewright Press, Sterling Ethos, and Spark Notes, as well the children’s imprints Union Square Kids and Boxer Books. The company also publishes gift and stationery items under the imprints Em & Friends and Knock Knock, which was acquired in April 2022.

The Sterling/Union Square acquisition is HBG's largest purchase since it bought Workman Publishing in 2021. The deal also follows a period of restructuring at HBG, which comprised further integrating Workman into HBG's existing organization, some layoffs, and the subsequent hiring of new staff members.