Parent company Hachette Livre CEO David Young (Jan 2006–) Founded 2006 | Key people Michael Pietsch (CEO) Country of origin United States of America Parent organizations Hachette, Hachette Livre | |
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Headquarters location 1290 Avenue of the AmericasNew York City, New York Official website hachettebookgroup.comhachettebookgroup.biz Subsidiaries Profiles | ||
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Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the third largest trade and educational publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Group. HBG was formed when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner on March 31, 2006. Its headquarters are located at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hachette is considered one of the big-five publishing companies, along with Holtzbrinck/Macmillan, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. Each year HBG publishes around 800 adult books, 200 young adult and children's books and 300 audio books.
Contents
History
The earliest publisher to eventually become part of the Hachette Book Group was Little, Brown and Company, founded in 1837, acquired by Time Inc. in 1968.
Warner Communications had acquired the Paperback Library in 1970 to form Warner Books. In 1982, CBS Publications sold off Popular Library to Warner. In April 1985, Warner Books relaunched Popular Library starting out with five other books plus the reprint of Question of Upbringing continuing each month with the follow volumes from A Dance to the Music of Time series by Anthony Powell. Also, two books would be issued per month from Popular's new imprint, Questar, for science fiction.
Time Warner was formed in 1989 by the merger of Time and Warner. Publisher Macdonald & Co. was bought in 1992 to become part of the Time Warner Book Group UK, and in 1996 the various branches merged to become Time Warner Trade Publishing, later renamed as Time Warner Book Group. In 2003, Time Warner attempted to sell the Book Group but failed to get high enough bids. In March 2006, Time Warner completed the sale of Book Group to Lagardère, which placed it under its Hachette Livre book publishing arm. Warner Books subsidiary was renamed Grand Central Publishing, which launched a more literary imprint, Twelve, under former Random House editor in chief Jonathan Karp. On February 5, 2010, Hachette announced that it would adopt an agency pricing model for its e-books.
In April 2012, the United States Department of Justice filed United States v. Apple Inc., naming Apple, Hachette, and four other major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for e-books, and weaken Amazon.com's position in the market, in violation of antitrust law.
In June 2013, Hachette announced it would acquire Hyperion Books from Disney Publishing Worldwide. In March 2014, Hyperion was renamed Hachette Books.
In December 2013, a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims, in which Hachette and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers who had overpaid for books due to the price-fixing.
In May 2014, Amazon.com announced it was no longer taking pre-orders for Hachette books, stating a breakdown in negotiations over profit-sharing arrangements. According to Hachette, Amazon had also stopped discounting its books, sending prices of Hachette titles in the U.S. to more than twice what they were selling for in the UK. Amazon published a letter in August 2014 asking authors and readers to email Hachette's CEO Michael Pietsch and ask for lower e-book prices. Pietsch reportedly replied to each message he received.
In June 2014, the company in conjunction with Ingram Content Group, and Perseus Books Group, announced a three-way deal whereby Hachette would buy Perseus and then sell that company's client services businesses to Ingram. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The deal was called off in August 2014.
Current imprints
Hachette Book Group operates a number of publishing brands aimed at different markets, and these brands themselves contain sub-imprints that are used to publish to an even more targeted audience. Imprints include:
Inactive imprints
Many imprints have been acquired by the Hachette Group and the companies that were merged to form the group; some are no longer active.