Finance

Second quarter sales jumped 34% over last year’s second quarter at Simon & Schuster, and operating income leapt 54%. The strong results followed a first quarter which CEO Jonathan Karp said "defied gravity."

In the AAP’s newest StatShot update, May trade sales were mixed and sales of higher educational course materials fell, leading to a 3.7% sales decline compared to May 2021 for the 1,368 publishers that report sales to the association.

Sales in Amazon's online business fell 4% in the second quarter ended June 30, 2022, to $50.8 billion. Analysts attributed the decline to more people shopping in physical stores as well as an overall slowdown in consumer spending.

Revenue for Lagardère Publishing rose 7.7% in the first-half 2022 over 2021, but earnings fell 29% due higher production, transportation, and labor costs. Results at HBG followed a similar pattern.

Following a soft fiscal 2021, a 162% increase in its book fair business and strong demand for its educational offerings drove sales up 26% in fiscal 2022 at Scholastic.

After posting record financial results a year ago, sales at Educational Development Corp. plunged 43%, in the quarter ended May 31, 2022, and the company reported quarterly net income of $216,000, compared to $3.4 million last year.

With sales in all categories falling, publishers who provide results to AAP’s StatShot program reported a 12.6% decline in sales in April compared to a year ago, resulting in a 2.3% drop in industry sales through the first four months of 2021.

Sales of comics and graphic novels rose 62% in 2021 over 2020, according to a new joint estimate by ICv2 and Comichron. Total comics and graphic novel sales to consumers in 2021 in the U.S. and Canada were approximately $2.07 billion.

Following a poor fiscal 2021, B&N Education mitigated its losses in fiscal 2022 as sales rose, but acknowledged that Covid was one of a host of issues its faced in the year.

Wiley overcame a decline in its education publishing segment to post a 7% increase in revenue for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2022 and a 18% increase in operating income.