Financial results are in for the first nine months of 2023 for Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. Here’s how they’re faring so far versus 2022.
- HarperCollins: sales down about 2 percent
- Lagardère (parent company of Hachette): sales up about 1 percent
- Simon & Schuster: sales down about 1 percent
HarperCollins results are a marked improvement from earlier this year, when sales fell 6.5 percent. According to the CEO of News Corp (the parent company of HarperCollins), they’re “confident” that Spotify’s recent audiobook announcement will bring increased sales of the format.
According to Circana BookScan, print book sales are down 3.5 percent versus 2022 (as of Nov. 11). The biggest category declines are in juvenile nonfiction and juvenile fiction. The best performing category is adult fiction, which is running flat against 2022.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
