Thunderbolt in the publishing world.
The Hachette Livre group, the French number one in publishing, announced Thursday evening the departure of Sophie de Closets, president and CEO of Fayard editions.
Appointed to this position in January 2014, Sophie de Closets joined Hachette Livre in 2004.
Read alsoHachette-Editis: how the merger project creates tensions among authors
“
I spent eighteen wonderful years within the Hachette group where I learned the profession of publisher and where I was able to exercise it in exceptional conditions,
writes Sophie de Closets in a press release.
I would like to thank all the collaborators in France and abroad that I have had the chance to meet during these years, all of whom have impressed me with their talent, their commitment and their work and have greatly learned.
I am obviously very grateful to the authors whom we have had the chance to publish and whose trust obliges us.
»
The departure of Sophie de Closets is enough to reshuffle the cards of the publishing market, in the light of the merger between Editis and Hachette, the conditions of which are currently being studied by the European Commission.
He could sign the start of the transfer window season for authors, who would be tempted to follow the boss of Fayard in these new literary adventures.
According to our information,
“Intuitu personae”
clauses are attached to Sophie de Closets.
Present in the contracts between the authors and the publishing houses, these clauses stipulate that the writers have the possibility of following their historical publisher if this one were to leave the house.
Some of Fayard's greatest authors could thus be tempted to follow her in her new adventures.
Fayard recently published the investigation
Les Fossoyeurs
by Victor Castanet.
It is also the publishing house of novelists Aurélie Valognes and Virginie Grimaldi, and the French publisher of the Obamas.
