Hachette has just announced their financial figures for the first six months of 2016. E-Book sales account for 9.2% of their total revenue stream, which is a slight decrease from 10.7% during the same period in 2015.
Sales for the first six months of 2016 fell 6.6% at Hachette Book Group, compared to the first six months of 2015. The funny thing is, even though sales are down, profits are up. HBG’s CEO Michael Pietsch said profits jumped 180%. He attributed the uptick to “disciplined cost management.”
The books that generated the most profit for Hachette were James Patterson and Maxine Paetro’s 15th Affair, David Baldacci’s The Last Mile, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter’s Hamilton: The Revolution, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s All Easy.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.