Sometimes the literary industry can be a little depressing. We keep being told of independent bookshops closing, and many people seem to think reading is going out of fashion, yet consistently there are figures that buck these trends showing reading is as popular as ever, and Bloomsbury’s first quarter sales for 2018 show just that!
Total revenues for Q1 for Bloomsbury in the four months ending June 30th 2018 are up 3.7% year on year after a particularly good quarter and while these boosts of figures are often attributed to popular children’s books, this time it’s thanks to a “particularly strong result” from the adult consumer division.
In April this year Bloomsbury acquired nonfiction publisher IB Tauris, and this has given the publisher’s figures a boost but even without that, sales are up 2.1%.
Some of the best selling books of the year from Bloomsbury include Sarah J. Maas’ Court of Wings and Fury, the Harry Potter books, Norse Mythology from Neil Gaiman and the Guerney Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, which is to be adapted for movie later this year.
Discussing the results the board at Bloomsbury stated that it expects profits for the financial year to be ‘In line with its expectations’ adding that traditionally the first quarter results offer the smallest profits of the year.
The results are great news for the literary industry, which seems in many ways to be growing all the time as many factors make reading cool again (though we think it always was).
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