The Bloomsbury Group that publishes the Harry Potter series has announced an increase in their digital sales, which has topped £5.8million. This marks a 22 percent increase, while the same growth in print sales is less impressive at 12 percent. However, sales from its print business contribute far more revenue at £39.6m, even though the company disclosed that half of the bestsellers are sold in ebook format.
“Digital sales make up an ever more important element of our sales and activity but print is showing resilience way beyond many predictions,” said chief executive Nigel Newton. “Our Adult division enjoyed a very good interim result, reflecting an impressive new book programme including And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner) and The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, as well as a flourishing cookery list.”
Meanwhile, the publisher also announced they will have a new platform in place which will cater to the library segment by offering scholarly ebooks. Bloomsbury Collections is expected to start operations by March 2014 and will have about 1,700 titles to begin with. The new venture, Bloomsbury explained, takes into account the “growing demand for e-books from academic libraries worldwide”.
The publisher had earlier entrenched its position in the academic book market by procuring the law book publisher, Hart, in September in an all cash deal worth £6.4million.
“The recurrent evidence is you’re as good as your list. If you’ve got the right books, there are plenty of people out there wanting to buy them in whatever format. It’s about getting the books right—nothing’s changed,” said Newton when asked about consumer confidence during the pre-Christmas period.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
