Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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Canongate reports ‘extremely disappointing’ 2014 results

Scottish independent publisher Canongate has reported ‘extremely disappointing’ results for 2014, with turnover down 24% to £7.9m (A$16.8m), according to the Bookseller. CEO Jamie Byng has blamed the results on the underperformance of some of the company’s big autumn titles and a number of advance write-offs. ‘We were not alone in finding last Christmas challenging. Many other trade publishers reported disappointing sales for their big non-fiction titles. But this provides scant consolation,’ he said. Some of Canongate’s big titles for 2014 included Russell Brand’s Trickster Tales, which, according to Nielsen BookScan, sold 17,000 copies, and Alan Cumming’s Not My Father’s Son, which sold 7000 copies. The publisher’s biggest Christmas title was World According to Gogglebox, which sold 49,000 copies. More positively, Byng noted that the company’s backlist performance was 26% ahead of budget in 2014 and that its audiobook list ‘continues to perform steadily’. The company has also reported a good start to 2015, beating its budget for the first half of the year.

 

Category: International news