Booming sales in its consumer division, driven by huge demand for books by Sarah J. Maas and the acquisition of the Rowman & Littlefield academic group, resulted in revenue jumping 32%, to £179.8 million (about $233 million at current exchange rates), at Bloomsbury Publishing for the first six months of fiscal 2025. Earnings jumped 50%, to £26.6 million, marking an increase of £8.9 million over the comparable period a year ago. Chief executive Nigel Newton said that the double-digit gain was the fifth consecutive time the publisher has had a double-digit sales increase in the first half of the year.
With worldwide sales of Maas’s romantasy novels jumping 102% in the first half of the fiscal year and the Harry Potter backlist continuing to sell well, sales in Bloomsbury's consumer group soared 47%, to £131.3 million. Also aiding results were strong sales for The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, which was first published 16 years ago but received new attention following the release of a Netflix adaptation earlier this year. Other categories that did well included cooking and general fiction.
Bloomsbury will not release a new Maas title in the second half of the fiscal 2025, the company noted, but will publish the paperback edition of her current bestseller, Crescent City: House of Flame and Shadow, in fiscal 2025/26. Maas is also under contract for six more titles, and Bloomsbury said that her books have combined to sell about 55 million English-language copies worldwide.
Sales in the non-consumer division, which consists of academic and professional titles, including those published under Bloomsbury Digital Resources, as well as special interest titles, did not fare as well, rising 3%, to £48.5 million The acquisition of Rowman & Littlefield’s academic group added £7.2 million, but overall results were hurt by budget pressure in the U.K. and parts of the U.S. Other factors in depressing sales in the division included the ongoing shift to sales of digital products from books. Bloomsbury said it is still incorporating R&L into its operations, a process that will include adapting more of its content did digital formats.
Following its strong performance in the first half of this year and good sales in September and October, Bloomsbury said it is now expecting full year results to top previous forecasts of £319.3 million in sales and £37.5 million in profits. The overall success of Bloomsbury's consumer titles in the U.S. also prompted the company to form its own in-house sales force for national accounts earlier this month.
