WASHINGTON: Bloomsbury’s total revenues have increased by 9% year-on-year in the three months ended 31st May 2016, driven by the children’s publishing sector within its consumer division, the publisher revealed in a trading update this morning (13th July). Meanwhile, the company anticipates an increase of £500,000 in profit from its Australian market from March 2017.
Bloomsbury’s current sales and distribution contract in Australia ends on 31st December 2016 and an agreement has now been reached which will see the company continuing with its existing partners in Australia and New Zealand, but taking in-house responsibility for selling to head office accounts of customers which comprise about half of ANZ sales. This will bring “substantial” savings of sales which the company expects will lead to an increase in profit, based on higher sales into a key account.
Bloomsbury is also holding a Capital Markets Day today (13th July) for investors and analysts at its office in Bedford Square, to showcase the Bloomsbury 2020 growth plan. This new strategy intends to capitalise on the £3.4bn academic libraries market and reposition Bloomsbury from “a primarily consumer publisher to a digital B2B (business-to-business) publisher”.
Meanwhile, Bloomsbury has acquired eight new titles from novelist Sarah J. Maas, in a “major” deal that includes six new titles in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series and two new ones in the Throne of Glass series. The combined series have had sales of over 3m copies to date, the publisher has said.
Bloomsbury’s digital resource Drama Online has also acquired exclusive worldwide online education platform rights for the BBC’s film adaptations of Shakespeare’s history plays “The Hollow Crown: Series One and Two”. They will both be streamed through Drama Online later this year. Together with the forthcoming new BBC Drama Film Adaptations collection, Bloomsbury expects its video content is to double in Drama Online.
