Finance
Torstar Corp., owner of the Toronto Star and other newspapers and the Harlequin book publishing company, reports that its fourth-quarter profit was stable despite a decline in revenue
The Toronto-based media company had $20.6 million of net income in the three months ended Dec. 31, little changed from $21.1 million a year earlier. Net income per share was unchanged at 26 cents; adjusted earnings fell one cent to 48 cents per share.
Anglo-Dutch business information provider Reed Elsevier said it was confident that 2014 would be another year of growth after it met expectations with a 7 percent rise in earnings last year.
Reed Elsevier, which competes with Thomson Reuters, is moving more of its content to digital platforms, where data can be more easily organised, searched and analysed.
Its risk solutions business, which provides data to clients in financial services, achieved underlying revenue growth of 8 percent last year, driven by a strong take-up of new products by the insurance industry.
Independent bookstores, with their paper-thin profit margins and competition from Amazon, have found themselves a Daddy Warbucks.
The best-selling author James Patterson has started a program to give away $1 million of his personal fortune to dozens of bookstores, allowing them to invest in improvements, dole out bonuses to employees and expand literacy outreach programs.
Last week I contested some of the key conclusions Hugh Howey reached through the data in his Author Earnings report. i09.com covered that discussion, and Howey took to that site's comments section to register a rebuttal.
In doing so he put forth a number of mistaken claims about his Author Earnings report as well as the 2014 Digital Book World and Writer's Digest Author Survey, which I coauthored.
Here are ten of them.
The Barnes and Noble Nook division is one of the most longstanding and successful brands in the e-reader and tablet sector. The bookseller jumped into the eBook revolution in 2009 with an online store and their own flagship device. Their first few devices sold like wildfire, but sales have tapered off with each subsequent release. Nook Media has been losing money each quarter for over a year and most of their executives in charge of books, hardware and accessories have all left the company.
Operating income at Simon & Schuster rose 32% in 2013, to $106 million on a sales increase of 2.4%, to $809 million, parent company CBS reported. The publisher closed 2013 with a solid fourth quarter with sales up 4.6% over the fourth quarter of 2012 and income up 30%. Sales in the quarter were $225 million and operating income $35 million. Fourth quarter sales were driven by an increase in sales of print books, something CEO Carolyn Reidy attributed in part to the mix of titles, especially the strong physical sales of the three
An abusive, alcoholic father; a snake-oil salesman; a predatory lion; Nazi Germany: These are some of the metaphors publishers invoke to express their feelings toward Amazon. In a massive, 12,000-word feature in this week's New Yorker, George Packer dives deep into the relationship between the book industry and the retail giant that represents both its most important sales channel and its most dangerous antagonist.
In the spirit of Amazon's corporate culture - wherein, Packer reports, it was the custom to refer to original writing only as "verbage" - let's ignore the overheated rhetoric for the moment
As we move forward into the ever-changing digital content world, publishers have to ask themselves what type of subscription model will dominate in the future. Publishers are used to the simple individual model, where a consumer buys access for a single title (e.g., newspaper or magazine).
HarperCollins worldwide saw its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rise by 33% to $68m (£42m) in its second quarter.
The publisher attributed the increase to a "higher contribution to profits" from e-book sales and "ongoing operational efficiencies coupled with higher revenues" in its second quarter to 31st December 2012. Revenue, by comparison, increased 4% to $391m. E-book sales continued to rise for the publisher in the last quarter before Christmas, increasing by 39% and accounting for 17% of total sales.
Today after the market close Amazon reported its fourth quarter financial performance, including revenue of $25.59 billion, and earnings per share of $0.51. The company has operating income of $510 million in the period, up 26 percent year over year.
The street had expected Amazon to report revenue of $26.06 billion, and earn $0.66 per share. Put another way, in a quarter of strong GDP growth, Amazon managed to miss expectations on both its top and bottom lines.