Print is not dead, says Bloomsbury

The founder of Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury said he saw “no evidence” that print books were a dying format as the group unveiled a surge in ebook sales.

The company behind major bestsellers such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg Everyday! and Jesmyn Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones saw a 70 per cent jump in ebook sales in the period from March 1 to July 11, compared to a 2 per cent decline in print sales.

But chief executive and founder Nigel Newton said there was still a future for print, adding: “It will be a mixed market. Just as it has been for 40 years for hardback and paperback formats – it’s just another new format.” Bloomsbury, which enjoyed great success from the seven-book Harry Potter series, benefited from having a number of prize-winning novels in its collection in the period, including Madeleine Miller’s The Song of Achilles, which won the Orange Prize.

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Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack 2012, Ben MacIntyre’s Double Cross and Heston at Home by Heston Blumenthal also sold well, while a new cookery book from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall based on a 50-part television series is poised to be the next bestseller.

Mr Newton, a dual US and UK citizen who founded the publisher in 1986, said the US was leading the way with the ebook market, with the UK one or two years behind.