HBG Big News This Week: July 15-19, 2019

Following is a recap of major news at Hachette Book Group for the week of July 15-19 2019:

Arthur C. Clarke Award: Tade Thompson’s Rosewater won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of the year. Alongside the Hugo and Nebula awards, the Arthur C. Clarke award is one of the most highly regarded awards in science fiction. Judges praised Rosewater, an alien invasion novel set in a future Africa, for its “winning combination of science fictional invention and sly wit.”

Bestseller news:  Adrian McKinty’s The Chain (LB/Mulholland) debuts this week at #7 on the Print Hardcover Fiction and #14 on the Combined Print & Ebook lists. Overall, HBG has 14 titles on the list. HBG’s distribution clients have eleven books on the NYT list this week.

Vote for THE CHAIN!: and speaking of The Chain, McKinty’s riveting thriller has just been announced as a finalist for The Tonight Show Summer Reads program.  Want to help The Chain get picked? Just vote here – there’s no limit to how many times you can vote so feel free to vote early and often. The winner will be announced next Thursday, July 24.

Industry news: the hot topic this week in our industry is Audible’s new Captions program, which will run text alongside its audiobooks. Read about the controversy in today’s coverage in PW Daily: Audible’s Captions Program Raises Copyright Fears Among Publishers.

Thinkers50 Awards: PublicAffairs also has a great group of authors on the shortlist for this year’s Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards, including Amy Webb (The Big Nine), Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism), and Rachel Botsman (Who Can You Trust?) for the Digital Thinking Award; Gary Pisano (Creative Construction) and Howard Yu (Leap) for the Innovation Award; and Omar Abbosh, Paul Nunes, and Larry Downes (Pivot to the Future) for the Strategy Award. The winners will be announced in November.

New England Book Award: Amy Rose Capetta & Cori McCarthy’s Once & Future (jimmy patterson) has been named a finalist for the 2019 New England Book Awards in the YA category. Winners will be announced on October 3.

Indie Next pick: Alix Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Redhook) has been selected for the September 2019 Indie Next list. See attached for rave bookseller reviews.