Continued strength in adult hardcover publishing resulted in a sales gain of almost 13% and a solid increase in profits at Simon & Schuster for the second quarter ended June 30, said company president Jack Romanos. Coupled with a strong first quarter, the gains in the most recent period resulted in nearly a 10% sales increase for the first six months of 2004, while EBITDA was up close to 30%. "We feel very good about the first six months of the year," Romanos said.
Political books, led by Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, continued to sell well in the quarter, as did The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution and Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, which now has more than one million copies in print in hardcover. New to the bestseller list in the quarter was Stephen King's Dark Tower VI. Sales were also up in the mass market paperback segment, helped by Demons,with five million mass market copies in print. Sales of 125,000 copies of Demonswas a key factor in boosting sales in the audio division, Romanos noted.
Sales were off slightly in trade paperback, which Romanos attributed to softness in backlist. Backlist sales "are not as healthy industrywide as we would like them to be," Romanos said, speculating that one reason for the softness is a shift in marketing to channels to outlets that focus more on frontlist sales than backlist. He also said that "used books is an issue worth watching. We're hearing that term around here more and more."
The children's division had good gains in the quarter and the first half of the year. Among frontlist titles doing well was Duck for President, while licensed properties, including those tied to Nickelodeon, sold well in the period.
Romanos said S&S has "high expectations" for the second half of 2004. S&S is counting on a strong list to overcome the impact of the Olympics and the presidential election, which, Romanos said, have historically had a drag on sales.
In a personnel move, Justin Loeber will join Atria Books August 2 as v-p, director of publicity. Loeber has been director of publicity for the HarperCollins imprint at HC. He will report to Judith Curr, Atria publisher.
