MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
September 17 – September 24, 2009 Edition

Hachette Livre, Lightning Source Team Up on POD

PARIS (Authorlink News, September 15, 2009)–Hachette Livre of France, the world’s second largest publisher of trade books, and Lightning Source Inc., an Ingram Content Group company, have entered into a joint venture to offer print-on-demand (POD) services to the French book market.

Lightning Source, the leading provider of POD services, enhances book sales for publishers with innovative, low cost and minimum risk printing solutions. The new POD operation announced today will be located at Hachette Livre’s distribution facility in Maurepas, near Paris, and is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2010.

Phase 1 of the joint venture will enable Hachette to vastly extend the range of services it makes available to both Hachette-controlled publishing houses and to third party customers of its distribution facility. With the successful completion of Phase 1, Phase 2 of the joint venture will be launched giving independent publishers the option to participate in the POD program, regardless of ownership or distribution contracts.

The two companies have already identified many thousands of titles from Hachette owned publishing companies as POD candidates, based upon not only their physical characteristics but also their sales profile. In addition, the new venture holds out the promise of bringing titles back into print that have been lost to the market for many years.

Arnaud Nourry, Chairman and CEO of Hachette Livre, said: “The joint venture with Lightning Source in France is a strategic move that will allow Hachette to make leading edge digital technology available to all its business partners, no matter how small. Its implications are considerable. No book entered into the program will ever be out of print. The turnaround between incoming order and shipping is so short that copies can be delivered to point of sale as fast as if they were pulled from inventory, and mint-like in terms of quality. It is the perfect solution for low volume backlist and out-of-print books. At a time when “out of print” books are the subject of much attention, POD offers a convincing solution. I am delighted we could partner with the world’s leader in this technology, and look forward to a long, successful relationship.”

John R. Ingram, Chairman of Ingram Content Group Inc., said the joint venture is a significant step forward in the company’s international expansion. Lightning Source serves more than 9,000 publishers worldwide and prints some 1.4 million books each month.

“We have had a terrific working relationship with Hachette, both in the U.S. and U.K. for many years, and are extremely delighted to strengthen both of our businesses through this joint venture in Hachette’s home market,” Mr. Ingram said.

David “Skip” Prichard, President and CEO of Ingram Content Group, said: “We are very excited about this innovative partnership with Hachette. It allows us to build out our globally distributed print capabilities in one of the largest book markets in Europe, and to bring the huge financial and cultural benefits that print-on-demand offers to the French book market.” 

“Print-on-demand is about so much more than just printing books,” Mr. Prichard continued. “The on-demand model is revolutionizing the very manner in which books are being published and distributed.”

ABOUT HACHETTE LIVRE

Hachette Livre, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère SCA, is the world’s second largest trade book publisher with sales of €2,159 million ($3.175 million). It is #1 in France, #1 in the UK, #2 in Spain and #5 in the USA. It publishes over 17,000 new titles a year under more than one hundred different imprints in a dozen languages, but mainly in French, English and Spanish. It covers all segments of trade publishing: General fiction and non-fiction, mass market pocket books, books for young readers, illustrated books, travel guides, school books, as well as partworks. Its headquarters are in Paris, France. Visit the web site at www.hachette.com

ABOUT LIGHTNING SOURCE

Lightning Source Inc. is part of Ingram Content Group Inc. which provides a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry. Ingram’s operating units are Ingram Book Company, Lightning Source Inc., Ingram Digital, Ingram Periodicals Inc., Ingram International Inc., Ingram Library Services Inc., Spring Arbor Distributors Inc., Ingram Publisher Services Inc., Tennessee Book Company LLC, Coutts Information Services, and Ingram Marketing Group Inc. For more information, visit www.lightningsource.com and www.ingramcontent.com