Hachette Tests Book Sales via Twitter

Publishing giant Hachette said Monday it was launching a test program allowing consumers to purchase books on Twitter without leaving the messaging service.

The French-owned group said it would work with the technology firm Gumroad to enable the purchase by clicking through a button on an author's tweet.

The buy buttons will kick off this week with a book by entertainer Amanda Palmer, "The Art of Asking," and will be followed by former astronaut Chris Hadfield's "You Are Here," and "The Onion Magazine: The Iconic Covers That Transformed an Undeserving World," from the satirical magazine.

The initiative is the latest using social media to market directly to consumers. Both Facebook and Twitter have been experimenting with this model.

"With so much of our book marketing done socially now, in-stream Twitter purchasing is a natural next step," said Michael Pietsch, Hachette Book Group chief executive.

"Gumroad's success working with music labels and artists to enable sales to fans, and their partnership with Twitter, put them at the forefront of social media commerce."

The news comes less than a month after Hachette and Amazon ended an acrimonious feud over online book sales that highlighted Amazon's market dominance and fueled protests from leading authors like John Grisham and Stephen King.

After six months in which Amazon clamped down on sales of Hachette books on its website, the two announced a multiyear agreement on ebook and print book sales in the US market.

The spat over who sets retail prices for online sales, especially ebooks, had outraged Hachette authors who saw their book sales sink after Amazon leveraged its power as the largest book retailer in the United States.

The publishing giant, owned by the French media firm Lagardere, includes the Time Warner Book Group, acquired in 2006.