Following the extensive and continuing accounts of alleged sexual harassment against Harvey Weinstein, on Thursday Hachette Book Group announced that they are finished with Weinstein Books, both as a publishing partner and a moniker. (The line was acquired as part of their purchase of the Perseus Books Group.)
The company said in a statement and email to staff: “Hachette Book Group has terminated the Weinstein Books imprint, effective immediately (Perseus Books has had a co-publishing agreement with The Weinstein Company, under which we published around ten new books a year). Going forward, titles currently under the Weinstein Books imprint will be published by our Hachette Books imprint, and the Weinstein Books imprint team will join Hachette Books.”
What that means is that HBG has notified the Weinstein Company that they are terminating the imprint, and the actual termination of the agreement will occur after the contractual notification period. HBG owns and controls outright all of the approximately 75 Weinstein Books imprint titles published by Perseus since the beginning of the co-publishing agreement, which dates to December 1, 2009. At the time of the co-publishing agreement, HBG took over distribution of approximately 50 books already acquired by The Weinstein Company (those books are not owned by HBG). Over time, the Weinstein Books imprint backlist will be branded with the Hachette Books name.
There has also been talk, not yet confirmed or made official by the company, that the Weinstein Company itself will change its name as well.