Publishers

HarperCollins’ parent company News Corp. reported fiscal first quarter results on Monday after the close of the market, with mixed results for the book publishing unit. Sales of $389 million were down $20 million from the first quarter a year ago — blamed on the “the absence of revenues from Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee,” which they now say generated $32 million in sales in fiscal Q1 2016. Note, however, that this time a year ago, adjusted sales declined $7 million even with strong sales for Watchman, so the bar was set low. (Then they blamed the dropoff in […]

Simon & Schuster’s parent company CBS reported third quarter sales after the close of the market on Thursday, with book publishing revenues rising 11 percent to $226 million from $203 million a year ago, good enough to turn sales positive for the year-to-date. Operating income also grew modestly, by $1 million, up to $44 million, “as the increase in revenues was largely offset by higher production and selling costs.” As in the prior quarter, digital revenues comprised 23 percent of sales. Both print and digital sales grew and key titles for the quarter included what CBS ceo Les Moonves called “the […]

After a job-ending $40 million reduction in expectations for former ceo Linda Zecher followed by a warning from the board that things might be even worse, those ominous signals (“Considering the importance of the third quarter, HMH plans to provide a further update on its expected financial performance for the full year when it issues its third quarter earnings in November 2016”) bore out poorly on Thursday morning for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The company lowered their forecast for the year dramatically again in reporting those third quarter results “in light of weaker-than-expected results in the domestic education market,” now expecting sales […]

Bloomsbury reported results for the first half of their fiscal year, ending August 31, with sales rising £10 million to £62.7 million, though adjusted profit fell to £1.5 million down £.5 million), blamed on the ending of their contract for publishing services with the Qatar Foundation. As in the previous fiscal year, Harry Potter continues to drive Bloomsbury’s results: Essentially all of the gain in sales came trade publishing, which comprised £37.3 million, and most of that from children’s books, particularly the Harry Potter Box Set and the Illustrated Edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (plus Sarah Maas’s A Court of Mist and Fury). The non-consumer division […]

Pearson’s third quarter trading update surprised investors who thought they had become accustomed to the education giant’s postponed recovery. The statement reads politely, “Pearson is reiterating its 2016 guidance and its 2018 goals are unchanged,” but the numbers have sales for the first three quarters of the year down  7 percent in underlying terms, and down 10 percent measured in constant exchange rates, saved a bit by the plunging British pound, which leaves actual topline numbers down only 3 percent (since two-thirds of their revenue comes in US dollars). That’s actually a little less poorly than they were doing at the […]

Scholastic reported sales for their fiscal first quarter, ending August 31, with the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child driving sales up to $283 million, compared to $191 million a year ago. Their traditional seasonal loss (since school was not in session) only declined modestly on the big sales gain, however, at ($63.1 million), compared to ($79.5 million) a year ago. Trade publishing sales were $116.9 million — compared to $47.3 million a year ago without a new Harry Potter book. The Potter release in Canada also boosted Scholastic’s international division, where sales rose $16.6 million to $89.7 million […]