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Sales at Hachette Book Group grew 7% in 2024, and Grand Central, Orbit, and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers "all delivered particularly exceptional results," CEO David Shelley said in comments made in conjunction with the release of financial results for parent company Lagardère.
Key titles included The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (Grand Central), Eruption by James Patterson and the late Michael Crichton (Little, Brown), Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand (Little, Brown), Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez (Grand Central), The End of Everything by Victor Davis Hanson (Basic Books), Quicksilver by Callie Hart (Grand Central), Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) as well as "ongoing success" for Rachel Gillig (Orbit), Holly Black (LBYR) and Jennifer Lynn Barnes (LBYR).
Backlist sales were "notably resilient" at Hachette. Shelley cited What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff (Workman), "celebrating its 40th anniversary and still selling extremely strongly."
Audiobook sales "continued to grow [with] more listeners than ever before for our authors' titles." The company's investments in "top-tier production and securing the best voice talent, audio is a core part of our publishing strategy." He added that "the continued expansion of digital distribution and the rising popularity of audiobook subscriptions" should help lead to more opportunities in this area.
Shelley noted that the acquisition last year of Union Square & Co. from Barnes & Noble added "exciting new voices and categories to our portfolio, reinforcing our commitment to adjunct publishing spaces, including stationery and gifts, as well as becoming the custodians of their exceptional children's list with Mo Willems as its centerpiece, as well as a great cookery list, a beautiful classics list and a burgeoning adult list."
He also pointed to the company's work on the Changing the Story pillar and "our aim to publish for the broadest range of readers." A highlight of these efforts last year was sponsoring the inaugural Latinx Kidlit Book Festival Storytellers Conference in New York City, which kicked off Hispanic Heritage and Latinx Heritage Month. "The historic event was the largest, in-person, national gathering of Latinx writers, illustrators, editors, and literary agents to date. And in January 2025 we hired Sara Munjack as our director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, a new position, joining the team of Carrie Bloxson who has been promoted to chief human resources officer."
Shelley characterized the 2025 publication schedule as "extremely vibrant." Besides publishing, a major focus this year will be the Raising Readers initiative, which aims to promote lifelong reading.