Bloomsbury books make happy reading for bosses
Bloomsbury, publisher of Howard Jacobson's Man Booker prize winner The Finkler Question, today said it enjoyed strong book sales in 2010 and is on course to hit City profit forecasts.
Among the best-sellers in the final quarter were Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat, the film tie-in edition of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit.
The Harry Potter series benefited from new cover designs and the release of the seventh film while Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Every Day topped the back catalogue.
For the first time Bloomsbury reported e-book revenues "made up a sizeable percentage of sales by value of some of our best-sellers".
It said the sales were across the range of readers including Kindle, the iPad and Sony's e-reader.
On the academic and professional publishing side the group is working on database and online projects and saw good returns from Methuen Drama, the Arden Shakespeare and the website Berg Fashion Library.
It ended 2010 with cash of £34.2 million, leaving it plenty of room for further add-on acquisitions.
