HBG Big News This Week: August 5-9, 2019

Following is a recap of major news at Hachette Book Group for the week of August 5-9, 2019:

Bestseller news: Debuting on the New York Times bestseller list this week are Grand Central’s Smokescreen by Iris Johansen (#11 on Print Hardcover Fiction list) and Hachette Audio’s One Good Deed by David Baldacci (#7 on Audio Monthly Fiction list). HBG has 12 books on the NYT list and our distribution clients have seven books on the list. See attached recap for all of our titles on the NYT, USA Today and ABA Indie bestseller lists.

Big debut: Kira Jane Buxton’s Hollow Kingdom (GCP) went on sale this week, supported by amazing publicity and marketing campaigns and creative retail promotions to capitalize on the great buzz for this hilarious and thought-provoking novel. Watch the animated trailer here, and pick up the book or the audiobook on HOLLi and dive in this weekend! (If you’re unfamiliar with the Hachette Online Lending Library, find out how it works on the HOLLi page on Bookends).

Indie Next Picks: Redhook’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow has been chosen for the American Booksellers Association’s September 2019 Indie Next List. And LBYR has two books on the Kids Indie Next List, Oge Mora’s Saturday and Emily Lloyd-Jones’s The Bone Houses, see the full list here.

Romance Trailblazer: Total Bravery by Piper J. Drake (Forever) has been recognized as a Romance Trailblazer by the Romance Writers of America. The book is the first own voices Thai (Southeast Asian) romance, and this first was celebrated during the recent RITA Award ceremony. A full list of trailblazers by year can be found here.

Industry news: The big news this week in our industry was the finalization of the Barnes & Noble sale, with major stories on new CEO James Daunt in the Wall Street Journal  and New York Times (and typically astute analysis of the stories in Publishers Lunch).