Simon & Schuster has just reported their latest financial results and they proclaimed that publishing revenues generated $228 million for the third quarter of 2017 grew 1% from $226 million for the same prior-year period. Publishing operating income of $46 million for the third quarter of 2017 increased 5% from $44 million for the same prior-year period, mainly reflecting the revenue growth.
The increase was led by growth in print book sales and digital audio sales. Bestselling titles for the third quarter of 2017 included What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King.
CEO Carolyn Reidy expects their sales to remain strong through the holiday season, saying, “We’re feeling bullish about the Christmas season.” She noted, “We’re feeling very positive after what felt like a very lackluster first half of the year industrywide. Now it’s really feeling as if you put put some books out there that people want, they’re going back into the stores.” Reidy said the activity is “not just in online sales; it’s pretty much across the board…. It’s a great range of titles and range of accounts all sharing in the success.”
What I find interesting about their latest report is that they did not mention ebooks once. The publisher failed to disclose how much of their revenue was digital, which leads me to believe that ebook sales are continuing to fall, but the overall digital decline is not as pronounced because of audiobooks.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
