Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury today played down a surprise 20% fall in its e-book sales in America as it said demand from consumers is still increasing and blamed the US performance on tough comparisons when it had some big bestsellers a year ago.
Bloomsbury’s UK ebook sales were up 58%.
Pre-tax profits in the six months to August leapt by a third to £1.1 million as chief executive Nigel Newton’s strategy of diversifying into academic and professional publishing paid off. That division, which generates more predictable revenues than consumer fiction, now generates 43% of operating profit.
Group revenues rose 13% to £49.2 million. Worldwide sales of e-books rose 14% to £5.1 million. Khaled Hosseini’s novel, And The Mountains Echoed, sold around 150,000 on e-book out of its 560,000 sales so far — proof that there is strong, digital demand for literary fiction, said Newton.
He is hopeful that cookery titles will do well in the run-up to Christmas, tipping Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food and Great British Bake-Off judge Paul Hollywood’s Pies and Puds.
