Finance

After hitting a record high of $204.6 million in the fiscal year ended February 28, 2021, revenue at Educational Development Corp. fell 30.3% in fiscal 2022, dropping to $142.2 million. Net earnings declined 34.1%, to $8.3 million.

March bookstore sales increased 12.5% over a year ago, contributing to a 16% gain in the first quarter of 2022 over the comparable period in 2021. The $1.99 billion in 2022 first quarter sales, however, was 2.5% below the first period of 2019.

Sales of children’s/YA books rose 24.2% in February over a year ago, while adult trade book sales increased 7%, according AAP’s StatShot program.

Higher manufacturing and freight costs, and ongoing supply chain and inflationary pressures, resulted in a 16% drop in earnings at HarperCollins for the quarter ended March 31, 2022. Sales rose 5%.

A tough year for the stock market got worse in April, leading the Publishers Weekly Stock Index, now down to only six companies, to drop 8.8%.

With earnings jumping 85% in the first quarter, Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp said he is pleased the publisher is "defying gravity" at the moment.

Amazon reported a net loss of $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022 as online sales fell 3%, to $51.1 billion.

Excluding results from its purchase of Workman Publishing, sales at Hachette Book Group rose 2.2% over over the first quarter of 2021. Total revenue for all of Lagardere Publishing increased 1.7% excluding one-time items.

Total book publishing sales rose 5% in 2021 over 2020, hitting £6.7 billion. Total sales in the U.K. rose 7%, to £2.7 billion, while export sales were up by a modest 2%, to £3.8 billion.

Widespread changes made last year to such things as its supply chain, remote work, and efforts to reach consumers led to a point-of-purchase print unit sales increase of 36% at Sourcebooks in the first quarter of 2022 over the comparable period in 2021.