Wednesday, 8th of February, 2006

Gawd almighty. From the latest Weekly Book Newsletter, Hachette Livre has wholly acquired the Time Warner Book Group. This makes them the third-largest trade publisher in the world – Pearson (who own Penguin) and Bertelsmann (who own Random House) are still bigger. But here's a list of what Hachette now own:

The Hachette family
Imprints owned by Hachette Livre now include:

• Hodder & Stoughton
• Headline
• Hachette Children’s Books
• John Murray
• Octopus
• Time Warner UK
• Time Warner US
• Orion
• Little,Brown
• Virago
• Abacus
• Orbit
• Lothian
• Hodder Moa Beckett (NZ).

Think about it: Hodder Headline, Orion (who own Gollancz) and Orbit are all owned by the same publisher now. Sure, Hodder Headline and Orion are independent and compete with each other in the UK… but it's still a bit scary.
Any idea what the implications are for SF publishing?

One Response to “Hachette buys Time Warner Books”

1. cassandra says:
   February 10th, 2006 at 7:24 pm

   Did you ever want to be a scientist of some sort? Why didn't you?