Former Hachette Livre CEO launches publisher, partners with S&S

Former Hachette Livre CEO Arnaud Nourry has launched a new group of publishing houses in France, reports the Bookseller.

The company, Les Nouveaux Éditeurs, has entered a partnership with Simon & Schuster (S&S), giving the US publisher a first-look agreement for future editorial acquisitions. The two companies will also bid together in some auctions for series, licences and other multi-book acquisitions.

Nourry left Hachette Livre in 2021, after almost 20 years with the company.

Les Nouveaux Éditeurs aims to offer ‘all publishing talents […] an opportunity to develop their editorial project free of interference of any kind and in full support of their authors’ work, in an entrepreneurial culture’, and will grant publishing talents ‘a substantial minority stake’ in their publishing house. The publisher will also use ‘leading-edge technologies’, including AI, for production, marketing and distribution.

S&S CEO Jonathan Karp said Nourry is ‘one of the most dynamic and respected leaders in both French and international publishing’. ‘We are full of joie de vivre as we join what promises to be a significant and exciting new publishing enterprise, and to be extending our reach into a major market in which reading and literary culture are valued to an extraordinary degree.’

Category: International news