Bloomsbury first half profits up thanks to string of bestsellers

Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury Publishing reported first half profits rose 33 per cent to 1.1m pounds, helped by a string of best sellers including And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini and The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon.The publishing house said the proportion of e-books sales compared to print sales for its best sellers had been as high as 50% in some markets however it said print was showing resilience "way beyond many predictions". E-books sales were up 14% to £5.1m across the business and now represent 10% of group revenues.The raft of strong titles helped drive profits at its adult division up 77%. Bloomsbury said its academic and professional business had also generated strong growth with first half profits up 117%. It has since beefed up this division with the acquisition last month of academic law publisher Hart Publishing for £6.9m.The company's results will be "significantly" weighted to the second half because of the all-important Christmas period and the autumn peak for academic titles. Shares in Bloomsbury were up 0.44% at 173p at 14:44 on Thursday.TB