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Digital Bolsters Bloomsbury
Total revenue at Bloomsbury for the six months ended August 31 rose 16.3%, to £44.9 million. A key contributor to the gain was a 564% increase in e-book sales to £2.5 million, 5.5% of total revenue.
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Sales Jump, Earnings Plunge at Amazon; Fire Orders Soar
Amazon posted another huge increase in sales in the third quarter ended September 30, with total revenue rising 44%, to $10.88 billion, but continued investments in infrastructure and technology led to a 73% decline in earnings to $63 million.
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Reader's Digest to Sell Allrecipes
Reader’s Digest has put its Allrecipes subsidiary up for sale. Its allrecipes.com Web site gets over 24 million monthly unique users globally, and there have been nine million downloads of mobile apps. RD is selling the company to focus on its “master brand strategy.”
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Third Quarter Results Fall at McGraw-Hill Education
With revenue in the school group down 21.4%, to $420.4 million, total sales at McGraw-Hill Education fell 11.1% in the third quarter ended August 31, to $937.3 million. Adjusted operating profit fell 11.0%, to $314.7 million. Sales in the higher education/professional/international group fell less than 1%, to $516.9 million.
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Educational Development Corp. Buys Stake in App Developer
Educational Development Corp. has made an equity investment in Demibooks, a Chicago-based technology company that has developed a platform to allow publishers and authors to create interactive books for the iPad.
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E-book Sales Doubled in July
E-book sales had their smallest increase of the year in July, while the adult hardcover segment had one of its strongest months, according to the AAP’s monthly sales report.
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Industry Stocks: September Performances
The Publishers Weekly Stock Index fell 4.0% in September and was down 7.3% for the third quarter. Still, the performance was better than that of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had a 6.0% decline in September and a 12.1% drop for the quarter. Three of the 14 companies on the PWSI managed to post an increase in their stock prices in September, led by the smallest company on the index, Educational Development Corp. Scholastic's share price benefited from an encouraging start to its fiscal year, and Amazon seems poised for another strong holiday season no matter how the economy performs.
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Report Sees Flat Consumer Book Spending in 2011
The latest Communications Industry Forecast report developed by the private investment firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson forecasts minimal growth for consumer book spending in 2011, with total expenditures inching up 0.1%, to $22.47 billion. The growth will be led by a 102.8% gain in spending on e-books that will offset a 4.9% decline in spending on new print books.
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Judge Gives Ok to B&N Purchase of Borders's IP Assets
Judge Martin Glenn, who is overseeing Borders's bankruptcy, gave his approval Monday to the $13.9 million sale of the defunct chain’s intellectual property to Barnes & Noble.
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Sales Rise at Scholastic, Loss Cut
Scholastic got fiscal 2012 off to a strong start, reporting a 9.6% increase in total revenue, to $318 million, while its net loss in the period ended August 31 was cut to $27.1 million from $35.2 million. Stronger results reflected higher sales of educational products and services to schools, as well as higher sales of children’s books in retail trade channels.
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Print Declines Outpace Digital Gains
Sales of print books in the major trade categories fell 22.9% in the first six months of 2011 at the houses that report figures to the Association of American Publishers. The declines were greatest among the adult segments, with sales down by more than 20% in the hardcover, trade paperback, and mass market paperback categories. While e-book sales jumped 161.3% in the six-month period, the gain was not enough to offset the decline in print, and combined e-book and print book revenue fell 8.6% at the reporting trade publishers. Print book sales were no doubt hurt by the demise of Borders, which sold few new titles from the major houses during the going-out-of-business sales conducted at closing stores.
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Wattpad Gets $3.5 Million in New Funding
Wattpad, an online writing community and e-book developer focused on delivering content to smartphones, announced that it has received $3.5 million in Series A funding led by Union Square ventures, along with W. Media Ventures and Golden Venture Partners
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E-book Sales Jump in June, Print Plunges
E-book sales rose 167% in June, to $80.2 million, at the 15 houses that reported figures to AAP’s monthly sales report and closed the first half of the year with sales up 161%, to $473.8 million.
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McGraw-Hill Education to Become Standalone Business
In a widely expected move, the board of directors of the McGraw-Hill Companies this morning backed a plan to spin-off the company’s educational publishing group, McGraw-Hill Education, into its own company.
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First Quarter Results Up at Wiley; Digital Strong
A strong performance by its scientifc/technical/medical/scholarly group helped of offset softness in John Wiley’s two other operating units leading to a 5% increase in total revenue for the first quarter ended July 31 to $430.1 million. Net income rose 15%, to $50.8 million.
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Big Houses Stay In the Black
Half way through 2011, at least four of the major trade publishers continue to find ways to profitably publish despite the challenges posed by the digital transition and the collapse of Borders.
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Market Watch - Industry Stocks: August Performances
The Publishers Weekly Stock Index got caught in Wall Street's wild August with all but one of the companies on the PWSI seeing their share prices fall in the month. The lone winner was McGraw-Hill, whose stock price benefited from the belief that pressure from shareholders to split up the publisher will yield a more profitable company.
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Barnes & Noble: Cashing In
With sales of digital content and its Nook line of reading devices and accessories surging and its print business showing signs of stabilization, Barnes & Noble reported its best quarterly report in some time last week, as total revenue in the first period rose 1.6%, to $1.42 billion, and its net loss was trimmed to $56.6 million, from $62.5 million.
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Sales, Earnings Fall at Lagardere Publishing
Comparisons with last year’s Stephenie Meyer sales juggernaut continued to impact results for Lagardere Publishing in general and Hachette Book Group in particular. For the first six months of 2011, sales for Lagardere Publishing fell 7.7%, to 900 million euros, and EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) dropped 29.7% to 71 million euros. In addition to strong sales of Meyer in last year’s six month period, currency fluctuations hurt sales; excluding the impact of exchange rates, revenue was down 6.0%.
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Profits Surge at Random House
The digital transition is proving to be a profitable one for Random House.
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