HBG Big News This Week: October 21-25, 2019

Following is a recap of major news at Hachette Book Group for the week of October 21-25, 2019:

Bestseller news:  Chris Colfer’s A Tale of Magic… (LBYR) remains at #1 on the NYT Middle Grade Hardcover list for the third consecutive week. Debuting on the NYT list this week are LB’s Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow (#2 on both Print Hardcover Nonfiction & Combined P+E Nonfiction),  Hachette Books’ Home Work by Julie Andrews & Emma Walton Hamilton (#5 Print Hardcover Nonfiction & #6 Combined P+E Nonfiction), Twelve’s Resistance (At All Costs) by Kimberley Strassel (#15 Combined P+E Nonfiction), and GCP’s Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks (#3 Trade Paperback Fiction) and In Pieces by Sally Field (#11 Paperback Nonfiction). Overall, HBG has 20 titles on the NYT list this week; our client publishers have five books on the list. See attached recap for all of our NYT, USA Today and ABA Indie bestsellers.

Hachette Nashville: Rolf Zettersten, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Hachette Nashville, has decided to retire this Fall. Michael Pietsch writes in the announcement to staff on Wednesday, “I want to thank Rolf for leading the Nashville division to reach remarkable heights with their publishing programs – selling more than 100 million copies since the division’s inception.” Today, we announced that Daisy Blackwell Hutton will join Hachette Nashville as VP, Publisher on November 11.

Major launch: Twelve announced a major new addition for Fall, A Warning by Anonymous, the author of the explosive New York Times op-ed piece last year, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” The book, which will publish on November 19, hit #1 on Amazon within 24 hours of its announcement thanks to a frenzy of media coverage – CNN’s Jake Tapper and The Washington Post broke the news, with pickup on multiple TV outlets including NBC Nightly News and The Today Show and publishing pieces appearing in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.  Additional coverage rolled out on Politico, Fox News, CNN, CBS News, ABC News, CNBC, USA Today, LA Times, and NPR (syndicated to 100+ stations). And this morning, AXIOS revealed exclusive first words from the book and announced that the author will sit for “at least one interview.”

Travel Journalism Award: Moon USA National Parks won the gold prize for Best Guidebook in the Society of American Travel Writers’ Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, the most prestigious honor in travel writing. This is the second year in a row that an Avalon Travel title has won the gold prize – congratulations, Avalon team!

Thurber Prize: Simon Rich’s Hits and Misses (LB) is the winner of the 2019 Thurber Prize for American Humor. “Far and away the funniest of the selections,” said Patricia Lockwood, the 2018 Thurber winner and one of three judges who selected this year’s winner.

Media storm: major media launch this week for Secretary David Shulkin’s It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve Your Country (PublicAffairs), with interviews on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Hardball with Chris Matthews, All In with Chris Hayes, and Velshi & Ruhle; CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, Erin Burnett OutFront, and Amanpour & Co; Fox and Friends Weekend (Saturday), NPR’s Morning Edition, and NPR 1A; Associated Press (picked up widely), Newsweek, Washington Post, Stars & Stripes, a Time Magazine excerpt, and NYT podcast “The Daily”.