Hachette Book Group (HBG) has announced that, effective June 5, Lara Heimert (pictured right) will be retiring from her position as President & Publisher of the Basic Books Group (BBG), a group of six imprints focused on high-quality non-fiction by expert authors. She will be succeeded as President and Publisher by Brian J. Distelberg (pictured left), who is currently the group’s VP & Associate Publisher.
“I’m hugely grateful to Lara for 21 years of incredible publishing. She leaves us a legacy of books that are foremost in their fields, and she also leaves us after a record-breaking 2025 for the Basic Books Group: heartening both for us as a company and for everyone who cares about the market for quality non-fiction publishing,” said Hachette Book Group CEO David Shelley. “And I’m so pleased to announce Brian Distelberg as Lara’s successor. I’m very much looking forward to working more closely with Brian, who has proved himself as a thoughtful, smart, highly market-aware editor and publisher, and who I know will lead the fantastic Basic Books Group team to new heights.”
Heimert joined Basic Books in 2005 as Executive Editor and became Publisher in 2012. She subsequently added Seal Press to her remit and created Basic Books UK in conjunction with John Murray Press. In 2023, Heimert took on responsibility for PublicAffairs and Bold Type Books; in 2024 she created the new imprints Basic Liberty and Basic Venture and became President of the newly formed Basic Books Group.
As an editor and publisher, Heimert has brought scores of best-selling and prize-winning authors to the Basic Books Group, including Akhil Reed Amar, Edward E. Baptist, Arthur C. Brooks, Victor Davis Hanson, Tom Holland, Serhii Plokhy, Neil Price, Heather Cox Richardson, Eugene Rogan, Lyndal Roper, and Timothy Snyder.
“I have been incredibly lucky to spend the last twenty-one years working with some of the smartest scholars in the world, and alongside a brilliant group of colleagues. It is largely because of BBG’s extraordinary team that I feel comfortable stepping away and letting the next generation carry the mission forward,” Heimert said. “I couldn’t be more thrilled that Brian Distelberg will be my successor – I have worked with him for a decade and know him to be a leader of exquisite taste, judgment, and ethics. I am certain that the Basic Books Group will become even stronger and smarter with him at the helm.”
Distelberg is a fifteen-year publishing veteran. He joined Basic Books in 2015 from Harvard University Press, and he became VP, Associate Publisher of Basic Books Group in 2024. As an editor, he has published multiple New York Times bestsellers and Pulitzer Prize winners, as well as winners of and finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the RFK Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Wolfson History Prize, the Cundill History Prize, and the National Jewish Book Award. He also holds a PhD in history from Yale University.
“I’m immensely grateful to David Shelley for his strong support of Basic Books Group’s publishing and to Lara for her years of visionary leadership and the legacy of excellence she leaves,” Distelberg said. “I’m excited to lead the talented Basic Books Group team to continued success and further growth by staying true to the values that have animated Basic for more than 75 years. As publishers of enduring books that emerge from authentic human expertise and deep research and reporting, our six imprints have a tremendous opportunity to serve readers who hunger for an alternative to AI summaries, addictive algorithms, and ephemeral content.”
Images courtesy of Hachette Book Group
