Finance

The 2018 sales increase in the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade group was led by higher licensing income. Meanwhile, the net loss for the entire company, which includes the education division, was cut to $90.5 million from $135.1 million in 2017.

Pearson, which owns a 25% stake in Penguin Random House, said the global trade publisher had a solid 2018 led by increased audiobook sales and stable print sales.

Sales in LSC Communications' book division rose 3.2% in 2018 over 2017, to $1.06 billion.

A week after it changed its name to Quad from Quad/Graphics, the company reported that 2018 sales increased 1.5% over 2017. Net earnings, however, tumbled to $7.9 million.

A 7% decline in fourth quarter revenue led to a 0.6% drop in sales for the full year at Simon & Schuster. The publisher still posted a 6% increase in operating profits over 2017.

Gains in the trade and religion segments were offset by declines in the other publishing categories, leading to a small (0.4%) decline in industry sales in 2018, according to the Association of American Publishers’ StatShot program.

Strong sales of digital audio were a key contributor to a 13% increase in profits at HarperCollins in the second quarter ended December 31, 2018. In discussing second quarter results, Robert Thomson, CEO of HC parent company News Corp, criticized Audible's domination of the downloadable audio market.

Within the U.S., HBG CEO Michael Pietsch credited a 6.3% growth in the fourth quarter with helping the company to "another solid year of revenue growth."

The giant company's sales increased 31% in 2018 over 2017, and its operating income tripled to $12.4 billion. Among the many reasons cited for the big 2018 financial gains was the performance of Amazon’s third-party sellers.

According to the Association of American Publishers’ StatShot program, sales from 1,374 reporting publishers were up 0.3% through November over the comparable period in 2017.