Meet Hachette Audio

Ana Maria Allessi is the President and Publisher of Hachette Audio. She joined Hachette Book Group in 2022. An industry veteran with over 20 years of audiobook and digital content publishing and business development experience, Ana Maria is proud to support the Hachette Audio group as they record, market, publicize and distribute best-in-class audiobooks for more than 15 HBG imprints.

Ana Maria’s prior experience includes Publisher of Workman Audio; she spent most of her career at HarperCollinsPublishers, working as VP, Publisher of HarperAudio and also VP, Publisher of Harper Media, and VP, Digital Innovation. She has been a member of the Board of Directors for the Audio Publisher’s Association for eleven years, serving as President of the Board 2019-2023.

She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Kim Sayle is the Senior Vice President and Deputy Publisher of Hachette Audio.  After graduating from the University of Richmond, Kim turned her passion for books and publishing into her career.  She spent two summer internships at Harry Abrams which led to an Executive Assistant position at Henry Holt where her focus was book production and four-color printing.  Working on children’s books packaged with media at Book of the Month Club led her to Time Warner Audiobooks, which eventually became part of Hachette Book Group.  While Kim started at Hachette Audio as an Operations Manager, her role quickly grew, and she has now worked in the audiobook industry for more than twenty-five years. In her current role, Kim is responsible for the overall operations of Hachette Audio and thoroughly enjoys bringing the words of Hachette’s authors to life through audiobooks.

Kim lives in New Jersey and works of out of the New York offices of Hachette Book Group.

Tom Mis began his audiobook career as a lowly recording engineer in Midtown – igniting a love for the format that turned a simple freelance job into a cliché dream career. After embedding himself in the NYC narrator community, Tom aspired to more than just hitting record and stop, editing audio late into the night, and waking up again for a 9am pickup session. He could do more good from the other side of the industry – publishing – than he ever could from working in a production facility. The time was right to start cutting his teeth for a few years at Macmillan Audio as a producer. In 2020, Tom made the jump to Hachette, and now finds himself taking up the mantle of Director of Audiobook Production.

In his free time, you’ll find Tom re-reading The Hobbit in order to justify re-watching The Lord of the Rings, and subsequently writing heavy metal songs about the aforementioned rings.

Nita Basu is the Associate Director of Social Media, Publicity, and Marketing at Hachette Audio, where she has worked for more than eight years. In her role, she oversees marketing, publicity, and advertising, leading efforts to connect with audiobook listeners and reach new audiences. Nita is proud to collaborate closely with authors, narrators, and Hachette’s print teams to bring audiobooks to life and champion the voices behind them.

Nita’s prior experience includes Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Diversion Books before joining the audiobook world in 2017. She has represented Hachette Audio at major industry events including New York Comic Con, BookCon, BookExpo America, and RWA. Actively engaged in the publishing community, Nita has served on the Board of the Publishers Advertising and Marketing Association (PAMA) and for the past eight years has been a member of the Audio Publishers Association’s (APA) PR Committee. She is also a former co-lead of Hachette’s Non-Majority Religion Employee Resource Group and served on the company’s Diversity Advisory Board.

A lifelong audiobook listener herself, Nita enjoys listening while knitting, backpacking, and even doing housework.