HBG in the News

The 2017 Anthony Award nominees have been announced, including the following Little, Brown and Company and Mulholland authors: YOU WILL KNOW ME by Megan Abbott (for Best Novel), RED RIGHT HAND by Chris Holm (for Best Novel), and IQ by Joe Ide (for Best First Novel).

The 2017 Bouchercon organizers announce the Anthony Award Nominations. The Anthony Awards are given at each annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention with the winners selected by attendees.  The Anthony Award is named for the late Anthony Boucher (William Anthony Parker White), well-known writer and critic from the New York Times, who helped found the Mystery Writers of America. The winner in each category will be announced immediately following the Sunday Brunch on October 15 in Toronto.

The 2017 Locus Award Finalists have been announced and seven Orbit titles are on the list:

• Best Science Fiction Novel: TAKE BACK THE SKY, Greg Bear (Orbit US; Orbit UK) 
• Best Science Fiction Novel: BABYLON'S ASHES, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Best Fantasy Novel: THE OBELISK GATE, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Best Fantasy Novel: THE NIGHTMARE STACKS, Charles Stross (Orbit UK)
• Best Horror Novel: FELLSIDE, M.R. Carey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Best Young Adult Book: REVENGER, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz; Orbit US 2017)
• Best Collection: SHARP ENDS, Joe Abercrombie (Orbit US; Gollancz)

The full list of nominees is here. Winners will be announced at the Locus Awards Weekend in Seattle, Washington, June 23-25.

New York, NY—May 11, 2017

Ben Sevier, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Grand Central Publishing (GCP), announced today that Karen Kosztolnyik will return to GCP as Vice President and Editor-in-Chief.

As Editor-in-Chief for GCP’s hardcover line, Kosztolnyik will lead the group’s acquiring editors in both fiction and nonfiction and will be responsible for implementing GCP’s editorial vision across the list. Reporting to Kosztolnyik will be editors Millicent Bennett, Maddie Caldwell, Wes Miller, Suzanne O’Neill, Lindsey Rose, and Gretchen Young, along with their support teams. Kosztolnyik will acquire and edit books for GCP in her areas of interest, most prominently in commercial and literary fiction.

New York, NY, May 8, 2017 — President Bill Clinton and bestselling author James Patterson are working together on a novel, THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING, which will be published jointly by Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Company in June 2018. The announcement was made today by Sonny Mehta, Chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, and Michael Pietsch, CEO of Hachette Book Group. Mehta and Pietsch acquired world rights to the book including Canada – but excluding the UK and Commonwealth where it will be published by Century (Century also has European rights for the English language edition) – from Robert Barnett of Williams & Connolly. Terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.

THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING will offer readers a unique amalgam of intrigue, suspense and behind-the-scenes global drama from the highest corridors of power. It will be informed by insider details that only a President can know. “Working on a book about a sitting President – drawing on what I know about the job, life in the White House, and the way Washington works –has been a lot of fun,” said Clinton. “And working with Jim has been terrific. I’ve been a fan of his for a very long time.”

Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey (Little, Brown and Company) is the winner of the 2017 Sami Rohr Prize in Fiction - the annual award recognizes the unique role of contemporary writers in the transmission and examination of the Jewish experience. It is intended to encourage and promote outstanding writing of Jewish interest.  Each year, the prize of $100,000 aims to reward an emerging writer whose work has demonstrated a fresh vision and evidence of further growth.  Recipients must have written a book of literary merit that stimulates an interest in themes of Jewish concern.  Fiction and non-fiction books are considered in alternate years.

Little, Brown and Company authors Michael Connelly (The Wrong Side of Goodbye) and Megan Abbott (You Will Know Me) have been nominated for the 2016 Strand Critics Award Best Novel, and Mulholland Books's author Joe Ide has been nominated for the 2016 Strand Critics Award Best Debut Novel. 

Recognizing excellence in the field of mystery fiction, the Critics Awards were judged by a select group of book critics and journalists from news venues such as the Associated Press, NPR, TIME, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and several other daily papers. The awards will be presented at an invitation-only cocktail party in New York City, hosted by the Strand on July 12, 2017.

New York, NY, April 25, 2017—Reagan Arthur, publisher of Little, Brown and Company, announced today the acquisition of OBAMA: An Intimate Portrait: The Historic Presidency in Photographs, by Pete Souza, chief official White House photographer during the Obama presidency. This essential book will contain more than 300 of Souza’s iconic images spanning the eight years of President Obama’s time in office, including many of Souza’s personal favorites. The photographs will be paired with Souza’s stories and captions providing behind-the-scenes context for each, and will offer insight into the special relationship Souza and the president forged during their time together. Michael Szczerban, Executive Editor at Little, Brown and Company, acquired North American rights. Pete Souza was represented in the negotiation by David Black, of the David Black Agency, and the book is slated for publication in November 2017. 

New York, New York – April 24, 2017 – Center Street Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, announced today that it will publish a book entitled BE FIERCE: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back by acclaimed television journalist Gretchen Carlson on the subject of sexual harassment and empowerment.  When Carlson, a former Fox News Channel host, decided to speak up about sexual harassment in the workplace, it led to a new calling: empowering women to reclaim their power against injustice and abuse.

Two Little, Brown and Company authors were among the winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.

Wesley Lowrey's They Can't Kill Us All won the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Fiction. A Times review said his book read like an “anatomy of a national uprising in the wake of extraordinary black pain — a forced reconciliation with an already deep distrust of the police by black America and a justice system that is meant to protect and serve us all.”

Adam Haslett’s novel Imagine Me Gone was honored in the fiction category, telling the story of what happens when a woman must decide between marrying a man she discovers suffers from depression or leaving him — and how far someone will go to save a family member. “Imagine Me Gone” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

Four HBG titles are finalists for the Southern Book Prize:

• Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland Books) in the Thriller Category
• Deep Run Roots by Vivian Howard (Little, Brown and Company) in Cooking
• Truevine by Beth Macy (Little, Brown and Company) in Creative Nonfiction
• The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stuart (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) in the Juvenile Category

Formerly known as the SIBA Book Award, the Southern Book Prize features an expanded list of categories–including seven different fiction and three nonfiction categories. Finalists were chosen by Southern independent booksellers from the long list ballot. The finalist titles will be sent to juried panels of booksellers, who will then decide on the winners in each category. Winners will be announced on July 4.

New York, NY - April 13, 2017   Grand Central Publishing (GCP), a division of Hachette Book Group, is excited to announce the acquisition of an as-yet untitled book by acclaimed comedian, actress, writer and singer Rachel Bloom. Suzanne O’Neill, VP, Executive Editor at GCP acquired world rights from co-agents Richard Abate of 3 Arts Entertainment and Marc Gerald of United Talent Agency (UTA). The book is tentatively scheduled for publication in hardcover print, e-book and audio editions in the Spring of 2019.

New York, April 6, 2017 – The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today the names of 19 writers who will receive the 2017 awards in literature, which will be presented in New York City at the Academy’s annual Ceremonial in May. Little, Brown and Company's Ayad Aktar and Luis Alberto Urrea are among eight writers to be honored with a $10,000 Arts and Letters Award in Literature for exceptional accomplishment in literature in any genre. The other winners include Paul Beatty, Chris Bachelder, Kathleen Graber, Jennifer Haigh, Dominique Morisseau, and Richard Sieburth.

The literature prizes, totaling $265,000, honor both established and emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry.  The Academy’s 250 members propose candidates, and a rotating committee of writers selects winners.  This year’s award committee members were John Guare (chairman), Thomas McGuane, Anne Tyler, Rosanna Warren, and Joy Williams.

Work by the winners will be featured in the 2017 Exhibition of Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards, which will be on view in the Academy’s galleries on Audubon Terrace from May 18 to June 11.

NEW YORK, NY (March 29, 2017) - Nation Books has acquired rights to publish the upcoming book by CNN correspondent Tanzina Vega, UPPITY: Women, Race and Class in America. Alessandra Bastagli, editorial director of Nation Books, acquired world rights from Amy and Peter Bernstein at the Bernstein Literary Agency.

Gary Younge, editor-at-large for the Guardian and an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Nation Institute, has won for ANOTHER DAY IN THE DEATH OF AMERICA: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives (Nation Books), which tells the stories of the lives of childrens and teens lost during a single day to gun violence. The judges called it "An...intimate, affecting and urgent portrait of ten young lives ended due to gun violence during a period of 24 hours in cities across America. Younge’s masterful reporting indelibly illustrates the, as Younge puts it, “collateral damage” of gun deaths happening every day “in a society where these deaths are uniquely possible and that has a political culture apparently uniquely incapable of creating a world in which they might be prevented.”

The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize recognizes superb examples of nonfiction writing that exemplify the literary grace, the commitment to serious research, and the social concern that characterized the distinguished work of the award's namesake, J. Anthony Lukas. Judges: Charlie Conrad (chair), Nina Burleigh, Richard Joyce. 

March 13, 2017 (SEATTLE, Washington) – Storytime App Novel Effect (www.novel-effect.com) and Hachette Book Group (www.hachettebookgroup.com) have announced a pilot program to create immersive read-aloud experiences for select children’s books from HBG’s Little, Brown Books for Young Readers division. Interactive soundtracks, including custom theme music and sound effects, will be produced for these titles and distributed within the Novel Effect App, which is currently available free for iOS users. The initial launch will include four titles from bestselling LBYR authors, on March 13, and will be expanded through 2017.

March 14, 2017 (New York, NY) - In a new partnership, global multiplatform entertainment company Wattpad has teamed up with leading publisher Hachette Book Group to bring Wattpad stories to life as audiobooks. Over the next year, Hachette Audio will produce 50 audiobooks based on Wattpad stories written by people from all over the world. Hachette Audiobooks: Powered by Wattpad will be available beginning summer 2017.

Hachette Book Group (HBG) is dedicated to protecting the environment and to the responsible use of natural resources. We are committed to publishing this annual report on our progress toward the goals laid out in our environmental policy.

To view HBG's environmental policy for 2017-2020 please visit our Corporate Social Responsibility page.

Reducing Climate Impacts
HBG pledged to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions linked to publishing operations by an average of 5% annually through 2015, for a cumulative 50% reduction in the six years since we established our policy. We achieved this 50% goal last year, and will continue to optimize wherever possible to reduce our carbon footprint, with an annual reduction goal of 2.5% for the 2017–2020 period. We will share 2016 carbon footprint results when those figures are available in March 2017.

Increasing Certified and Recycled Fiber
We achieved our goal to have 90% of the company’s paper be FSC (Forest Stewardship Certified) by the end of 2015. Through October 2016, our FSC usage was 88.8% (a 3% improvement over prior year). HBG’s SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) usage was 11% (down 3% from prior year). Combining FSC and SFI, 99.9% of HBG’s overall paper usage in 2016 came from certified fiber, on par with last year.

We have an aggressive target for recycled fiber, with a goal of increasing recycled fiber to 20% of our overall paper use by 2016, from a 3% benchmark in 2008. To date, HBG’s recycled fiber was 8.9% of our overall paper usage, a slight decrease over the prior year. Despite serious challenges with sourcing of recycled fiber, including scarcity, low quality, and high cost, we continue to push for improvements in recycled usage.

Fiber Testing
HBG began fiber testing in the second half of 2016. We will continue to test semiannually and will share results in our annual environmental reporting.

Protecting Endangered Forests
Our goal in this area is to continue HBG’s diligent oversight of our supply chain to ensure that we avoid using any controversial sources of paper fiber, and require our paper to be free of unacceptable sources as defined by FSC’s controlled wood standard. We regularly discuss paper sourcing with our suppliers and remind them of their strict adherence to HBG’s paper and environmental standards.

Monitoring and Reporting
HBG’s environmental initiatives span many different areas, including paper sourcing, office recycling, energy usage, product transportation, and packaging. We are guided by our industry‐leading environmental policy, and our commitment to communicating consistently about our progress on our green goals.

Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch said, “We made encouraging progress against our environmental targets in 2016, and we also began fiber testing this year to ensure that our supply chain is adhering to HBG’s green policy.  Our new goals for 2017-2020 will keep us focused on continued improvement, with particular emphasis on production, paper sourcing, and energy efficiency in our facilities. HBG’s green efforts have dovetailed nicely with those of our parent company Hachette Livre, which holds social and environmental responsibility as one of its core values."  

New York, NY – November 30, 2016 Eleven audiobooks published by Hachette Audio have been recognized for excellence by the National Parenting Publications Awards in 2016. These audio editions are adapted from books available in print and ebook formats from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers & JIMMY Patterson Books—Sherman Alexie, Cressida Cowell, James Patterson, and Jewell Parker Rhodes are among the honored Hachette Audio authors.