Courier Corp. reported net income of $440,000 for the second quarter ended March 24 with sales virtually flat at $62.4 million. In last year’s second quarter a multimillion restructuring charge tied to the closing of its Stoughton, Mass. plant led to a loss of $4.8 million.

This year’s second quarter had more consolidation in both Courier’s manufacturing and publishing units. In manufacturing, Courier moved some one-color work from Westford, Mass. to its Kendallville, Ind. plant, a move that resulted in the loss of 34 positions in Westford, but for which Courier expects to save $1 million annually. Courier did not detail its cost reductions in the publishing segment, but noted that it took a charge of $1.6 million related to severance and post-retirement benefit expenses.

In the quarter, the manufacturing segment sales were flat at $55.5 million but it posted operating income of $2.3 million compared to a loss of $5.1 million in last year’s second quarter. In publishing, sales fell to $9.6 million from $10.1 million, but its loss was trimmed from $2.0 million to $1.1 million.

“Last year both of our business segments were hit hard in the second quarter by the collapse of Borders,” said Courier chairman and CEO James F. Conway III. “This year we saw some positive signs that consumers are starting to turn to other book retailers, as shown by our solid growth in book manufacturing sales to the specialty trade market through both the quarter and the first half of the year.”

In the book manufacturing segment, sales to the education market were up 2% in the quarter and up 3% for the year to date, with the largest proportion of sales at the college and university levels. Sales to the religious market were down 4% from fiscal 2011 in the second quarter, but up 1% for the first six months of the year.. Sales to the specialty trade market were up 8% from last year for both the second quarter and the first half of the fiscal year, reflecting increased four-color work, increased orders at Courier Digital Solutions, and a return to more traditional ordering patterns as the marketplace continues to assimilate the loss of Borders, Courier reported.

Of the three Courier publishing businesses, REA alone was profitable during the quarter, though sales were down 5% as it continued to adjust to the absence of Borders, which had been one of its largest customers prior to the chain’s closing. At Dover, sales rose 5%, helped by a sharp increase in sales to online retailers, enabling it to reduce its quarterly loss from a year earlier. Creative Homeowner had a 34% sales decline, but narrowed its quarterly loss by consolidating certain publishing functions.

Commenting on the publishing group, Conway said the unit has a number of initiatives set to launch. This spring marks the AP test season debut of REA’s new All-Access program, which offers students a comprehensive combination of academic content and diagnostic tools for use anytime, anywhere. This spring will also see the launch of DoverPictura.com, an online image store where consumers will be able to obtain hundreds of thousands of historic and contemporary images in convenient digital form.

For the first six months of fiscal 2012, Courier revenues were $125.3 million, up from $123.8 million in fiscal 2011. Net income for the year to date was $1.9 million or $.16 per diluted share, including a first-quarter pretax charge of $1.5 million related to severance and post-retirement benefit costs and a first-quarter pretax gain of $0.6 million from the sale of certain non-operating assets. For the first six months of fiscal 2011, the company’s net loss was $3.2 million or $.26 per diluted share, including the second-quarter restructuring costs and bad-debt provision.

For the full fiscal year, Courier expects sales of between $271 million and $282 million, an increase over fiscal 2011 of between 5% and 9%, and expects earnings per diluted share of between $.80 and $1.05, which compares with our fiscal 2011 earnings of $.89 per diluted share.