E-books boost for Bloomsbury

Publisher Bloomsbury yesterday said it was pinning its hopes on cookery books to provide a Christmas trading boost, with new titles from chefs including Heston Blumenthal seen as potential best-sellers.

E-books are also likely to show continued strong growth, with the company reporting that sales of electronic titles jumped by 564 per cent to £2.5 million in the six months to 31 August.

The e-book performance helped overall sales rise by 16 per cent to £44.9m, with the launch of the last in the Harry Potter films also giving revenues a boost.

Bloomsbury said underlying profits rose by 52 per cent to £2.2m from £1.4m, though the bottom line was held back by £1.84m of one-off charges.

The publisher said the UK and US both performed better than expected, with a robust second quarter making up for a slow first three months.

Chief executive Nigel Newton said much of the growth in the first half had come from people switching from print to e-books. All four divisions increased turnover year-on-year though there was an increased loss in Germany of £1.1m as the electronic book market has been slow to take off there compared with other territories.

Lorna Tilbian, an analyst at broker Numis, said the statement was robust and she expected to maintain her forecast for profits of £9.1m in the year to February and £10.4m the year after. Shares closed up 1p at 99.75p.