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Profile reports second-best year ever but turnover down on 2023-24 peak
Profile has reported its "second-best year ever", with an annual turnover to the financial year ending March 2025 of £21.5m, though down on last year’s £23.5m peak (2023-24). This peak was a 27% jump from 2022-23, attributed in part to the success of Nibbies Book of the Year winner Murdle.
In the publisher’s latest report, operating profit for the 2024-25 period totalled £3m at 14% of turnover. For the 2023-24 period, operating profit totalled £4m. "It’s a remarkable year in a difficult economic environment," the publisher said.
Among its highlights of the year, Profile notes the continued success of GT Karber’s Murdle (Souvenir Press), Alan Bennett’s Killing Time, published in partnership with Faber, the paperback of Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome and Orlando Whitfield’s All That Glitters, which was shortlisted for the Nero Book Award alongside Serpent’s Tail’s debut novelist Orlaine McDonald with No Small Thing.
Others include Ezra Klein’s Abundance (Profile), Janice Hallett’s bestselling The Examiner and The Christmas Appeal (Viper), and Christian Kracht’s Eurotrash (Serpent’s Tail). Audio and export sales "went from strength to strength", the publisher said, as did "megasellers". Other titles mentioned include Raja Shehadeh’s What Does Israel Fear from Palestine? (Profile) and Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (Profile).
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The publisher also notes the completion of a long-planned restructure to "secure its long-term independence", in advance of the 30th anniversary of its founding in 2026, adding: "Economic headwinds continue to slow markets everywhere, and as an almost 30-year-old business we know well that the highs of bestsellers do not continue forever.
"Nonetheless, in a tough market, the financial year 2025-26 has had a good first half, bolstered when the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, published by Colm Tóibín and Peter Straus’ boutique list, Tuskar Rock."
Rebecca Gray, managing director, said: "This year is a brilliant demonstration of our belief that books are for everyone and every time – whether that’s pure entertainment, driving societal change or anything in between.
"In a tough political and economic climate, the breadth of our publishing and the agility of being independent are our great strengths. Halfway through our 30th year, we have some really exciting publishing to look forward to. Here’s to a Happy Christmas and a very merry Murdle!"
Successes of the year so far include Gurnaik Johal’s Saraswati (Serpent’s Tail), which made the Waterstones debut fiction prize shortlist, and Ruby Tandoh’s All Consuming (Serpent’s Tail), which hit the Sunday Times hardback nonfiction chart in September. Janice Hallett’s The Killer Question (Viper) made the hardback fiction top 10 for Viper the same week, preceded by Andrew Martin’s To the Sea by Train for Profile in hardback nonfiction.
Coming in the next six months are Alan Bennett’s Enough Said (with Faber) and author and GP Gavin Francis’ The Unfragile Mind. On the Serpent’s Tail list comedian and writer Robert Newman’s historical WWII spy novel, Intelligence, will be published in February. Viper’s Catriona Ward (author of The Last House on Needless Street) will publish Nowhere Burning the same month, and on Souvenir Julia Cameron expands her Artist’s Way series with The Daily Artist’s Way in November.
