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Barnsley positive in 'tough' market

08.11.07 Alison Flood

HarperCollins Worldwide saw operating income drop $19m to $36m in the three months to end-September 2007 compared to the same period last year, while turnover fell $38m to $330m over the same period. The publisher put the fall down to strong sales last year of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, while the UK arm pointed to a "tough" quarter compared to last year's success with The Dangerous Book For Boys.

But HCUK c.e.o. and publisher Victoria Barnsley said that despite this, HCUK's volume growth "outstripped the rest of the market", while value grew by 5%. "If you strip out the effects of the new Harry Potter book in July, we held our market share steady at 8.9%, level with the same period last year," she said.

Barnsley pointed to strong sales from The Savage Garden by Mark Mills and The Loner by Josephine Cox, both of which were paperback number ones. "We also had a number one on the children’s list with Luurve is a Many Trousered Thing by Louise Rennison, and Damaged by Cathy Glass, topped the non-fiction paperback list for six weeks, underlining our continued dominance of the misery memoir market," she added.

In the US, HC said it did well with The Dangerous Book for Boys, Motor Mouth by Janet Evanovich, Anaís Story by Jenna Bush and Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. During the quarter, HC had 51 books on the New York Times bestseller list, including six books that reached the number one spot.

Overall, News Corporation reported first quarter consolidated operating income of $1.05bn, up 23% as compared to the $851m reported a year ago. News Corp revenues increased 19% to $7.1bn.

 

HarperCollins Victoria Barnsley Alison Flood Results

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