Cyberattack on Hachette Australia Leaves Bookshops Without Stock During Peak Season
A breach of the publisher's computer systems on 18 July has frozen book distribution across Australia and New Zealand, hitting authors, retailers, and readers at the worst possible moment in the retail calendar.
Key points
- Hachette Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand detected what it calls "unauthorised activity" on its computer systems on or around 18 July 2024.
- Alliance Distribution Services (ADS), Hachette's distribution arm, shipped more than 16.5 million book titles across Australia in the previous year alone.
- Booksellers report daily restock orders are not being processed and backlist titles (books published before the current season, which make up the steady core of a shop's sales) are unavailable.
- Hachette CEO Louise Stark confirmed on Friday that the company is "not yet in a position to confirm a timeline for a full return to normal operations".
- The disruption lands weeks before Children's Book Week, Father's Day, and the start of the Christmas retail push, the period when booksellers earn a large share of their annual income.
When poet and memoirist Maxine Beneba Clarke arrived at book events in Geelong and Bendigo last week, the books she was there to celebrate were nowhere to be found. No stock. No sales. No explanation from her publisher.
Clarke is one of many Australian authors caught in the fallout from a cyberattack, where criminals broke into a company's computer systems without permission, targeting Hachette Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. The incident, first reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, began around 18 July and has paralysed the publisher's ability to get books into shops.
What exactly happened?
Hachette has described the incident only as "unauthorised activity" on its systems. The company has not confirmed whether ransomware, which is malicious software that locks a company's files until a payment is made, was involved. No official breach-notification filing has been made public at the time of writing, and Hachette has not named the regulator it is reporting to, though the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) holds jurisdiction over Australian entities handling personal information.
The attack has hit Alliance Distribution Services (ADS), the Hachette-owned warehousing and logistics operation that moves books for Hachette itself and for other publishers including NewSouth Books and Magabala.
| What is affected | Detail |
|---|---|
| Daily restock orders | Not being processed |
| Backlist titles | Unavailable to booksellers |
| Invoices | Missing from delivered cartons |
| Return to normal | No timeline confirmed |
| ADS annual volume | 16.5 million titles (prior year) |
Should booksellers and authors be worried?
Yes, and many are. The timing is brutal. Children's Book Week is running now. Father's Day follows. Then Christmas. These weeks represent the highest-revenue period of the retail year for independent bookshops.
Kris Kneen, whose novel Rite of Spring was published last month by Transit Lounge and distributed through ADS, put it plainly: "The media was good, the reviews were good and that all bodes well until people go into a bookshop to get it, and they can't."
Clarke is worried about school supply chains. Several of her titles appear on school reading lists across multiple states. "God knows what the ramifications are going to be for me," she said.
Booksellers have received communications from Hachette marked "private and confidential", which has amplified frustration rather than eased it. One shop owner described receiving stock cartons without invoices, making basic accounting impossible. Hachette has suggested retailers buy stock from online seller Booktopia as a short-term workaround, a proposal that several independent shop owners called, at minimum, tone-deaf.
Some independents are now importing stock directly from Gardners, a large UK book wholesaler, though setting up trade accounts and clearing customs adds days and cuts into already thin margins.
Louise Stark, Hachette's Australian CEO, acknowledged the disruption in a statement to authors on Friday. "Not being able to support our creators and bookselling partners at our usual standard is felt deeply by everyone at Hachette and ADS," she wrote. She gave no date for a full recovery.
What should affected readers and booksellers do?
If you pre-ordered a Hachette title through an independent bookshop, contact the shop directly for an update rather than waiting. Some shops are sourcing stock from overseas, so your copy may arrive later than expected.
Independent booksellers carrying Hachette or ADS-distributed titles should document all stock received without invoices now, noting delivery dates and quantities, to protect themselves when normal invoicing resumes.
For authors with Hachette or ADS contracts, the Australian Society of Authors has arranged a meeting with the publisher. Contacting the ASA is the most direct route to getting information as the situation develops.
