Record year of sales for Bloomsbury

In the UK, Bloomsbury has reported another record performance in the year to end of February 2023, with sales up 15% and profit up 16%, reports the Bookseller.

Sales for the year totalled £264.1 million (A$505m), and profit was up 16% to £31.1 million (A$59m). The publisher’s consumer division revenue grew 12% with a 2% increase in profit, led by bestsellers including A Day of Fallen Night (Samantha Shannon), Stolen Focus (Johann Hari), Bake (Paul Hollywood), Real Life Recipes (Tom Kerridge) and Trespasses (Louise Kennedy).

Australian sales accounted for 8% of Bloomsbury’s total consumer revenue, including £7.5 million (A$14.3m) in children’s trade sales, and £4.9 million (A$9.4m) in adult trade.

Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton said the results are due to Bloomsbury’s strategy to publish ‘for both the consumer and academic markets’ and to ‘grow digital revenues while expanding globally’.

Newton told the Bookseller: ‘The challenges of publishing are non-stop, on the trade side of the business, we’re all engaged in predicting public tastes for one or two years’ time and the gap between commissioning and publishing tastes can change, those are the things everyone in our industry live with.

‘At Bloomsbury we’re brilliant portfolio managers, picking ten books which are good, you don’t know which will succeed but they have a good chance, seven do well or okay, one is a spectacular failure, one does really well and one does spectacularly well,’ Newton said.

Category: International news