Hachette Book Group

Social selling may be the new frontier for trade publishers. Today HarperCollins announced a partnership with Twitter to promote the film tie-in edition of Insurgent in conjunction with the movie's release. Twitter Commerce allows Insurgent fans to purchase the book with one click, direct from HarperCollins, without leaving the social media site. HarperCollins and Twitter will promote the campaign and send targeted offers to users who are tweeting about the new film.

As the date of the Book Business Live: Executive Summit on Digital Publishing draws closer, we are excited to confirm an impressive roster of speakers. Executives from Cengage, McGraw-Hill Education, The Perseus Books Group, Rodale Books, and more will join Book Business on March 31^st at The Union League in New York City.

HBG revenues were down 4.9% compared to 2013, and HBG's annual sales accounted for 24% of Hachette Livre's overall sales last year (versus 25% in 2013). CEO Michael Pietsch said, "Hachette came through a challenging year having achieved many successes

Recent years have brought publishers greater access to data, and with it, more nuanced insight into everything from the topics that certain demographics are interested in to the completion rates of specific books. While most publishers may not aspire to replicate the latest literary fad to the farcical extent that Homer does, some in the industry have expressed concerns that an overreliance on data in service of reducing risk could stymie the creative aspects of title acquisition and diminish the vibrancy of the industry

"Know your audience" is a common maxim among writers, one that pushes them to deliver the most useful or entertaining content they can for their readers. Yet knowing one's audience in a precise way has been a difficulty for book publishers up until fairly recently. Except

Before the emergence of the ebook, data about in-book reading behavior was not easily available to publishers. With ereaders and reading apps, though, reading habits can be captured and analyzed on a large scale, tracking how quickly readers complete books and where they lose interest. Yet few publishers are using this behavioral data to inform their decision making. "Reading behavior data is probably actionable in some business models, and it might actually be actionable for us," says Jim Hanas director of audience development at HarperCollins

I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. Chances are you do, too.

I used to feel pretty good about the e-tailer. Now, increasingly, I feel a little dirty every time I patronize it. For one thing, its nearly yearlong price-setting war with Hachette -- which quietly wrapped up in December with Amazon more or less folding and allowing the book publisher to determine its own e-book prices -- still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

In light of Amazon’s growing dominance in the book market and its recent and very public negotiations with Big 5 publisher Hachette, Intelligence Squared -- a global forum for debate -- hosted a live stream event on Thursday, January 15, 2015, asking four panelists to support or reject the statement, “Amazon Is the Reader’s Friend.”

The issue of moving units vs. literary culture in publishing has taken on a more urgent and more public and seemingly more complex immediacy. A long confrontation between Hachette publishers and Amazon has ended, but not before a huge group of writers banded together to form Authors United, which sided with Hachette and took strong exception to the retailer's policies and conduct. And not before another significant, opposing, mainly online cohort excoriated publishers and writers for their (our) complaints.

Hachette Book Group CIO Ralph Munsen wants to move IT to the front of the office. Early this month, he plans to start embedding IT analysts throughout the firm in an effort he hopes will give the publisher more time to focus on the creative projects that make up its lifeblood.

IT "will actually sit with the people who use the tools and support them," Mr. Munsen said in an interview. Ten business analysts will be assigned to functions including finance, digital, sales and marketing, and production.