Revenue at Regnery Publishing rose in the third quarter of 2018, which ended September 30, parent company Salem Media reported. The gain at Regnery, however, was offset by a 10.4% decline in sales in the company’s Salem Author Services group, leading to a 3.7% drop in total revenue in Salem’s publishing division. Revenue fell to $6.3 million from $6.6 million in the third quarter of 2017. Despite the sales decline, the group posted an operating income of $109,000 in the most recent quarter, compared to a loss of $123,000 a year ago.
The improvement at Regnery, Salem said, was due to good sales of Sean Spicer’s The Briefing and Jesus Is Risen by David Limbaugh. According to Salem, print book sales rose by $1 million in the quarter as unit sales were up 20% and the average unit price rose by 2%. The improvement in print book sales was somewhat offset by a decline in e-book sales, where units fell 46%.
The $500,000 decrease at Salem Author Services in the quarter was due to a reduction in the number of books sold and the discontinuation of BookPrinting.com, Salem reported. The company added, however, that it has seen an increase in the number of people registering to use its self-publishing platform, so it expects “the trend of declining revenues to turnaround soon.”
For the first nine months of 2018, publishing group sales fell 10.5%, to $17.1 million, and the unit had an operating loss of $200,000, compared to operating income of $343,000 in the first nine months of 2017.
