Boosted by its November acquisition of Union Square & Co. from Barnes & Noble, sales at Hachette Book Group rose 8.9% in the first quarter ended March 31, 2025 over the comparable period in 2024. Excluding the purchase, sales were up 0.4%. HBG parent company Lagardère reported that Union Square added €14 million to HBG.
Total revenue for Lagardère Publishing was €623 million in the first quarter ended March 31, up 8% excluding one-time items (like the Union Square purchase). The company attributed the positive trend to good momentum across all geographic areas, as well as strong and sustained growth in the board games category. The U.K. group had an especially strong quarter with sales up 13%, led by sales of Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm.
HBG and HUK CEO David Shelley said sales growth in the U.S. was “powered by chart-topping debuts and instant bestsellers,” including Quicksilver by Callie Hart, On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves, and Will the Pigeon Graduate by Mo Willems, which was published by the recently acquired Union Square. James Patterson had four of the top HBG titles. Backlist titles by Octavia Butler and Freida McFadden also sold well in the quarter, Shelley said.
Shelley ended his remarks by once again pointing the development of HBG’s Raising Readers initiative, whose goal is to “help develop future readers and directly address the crisis in children’s reading on both sides of the Atlantic.” Shelley promised future details on the program “shortly.”
