Q2 Publishing Sales Rose 27.6% at IDW (publishersweekly.com)

The Book Manufacturers’ Institute (BMI) released the March results for its monthly survey on capacity and lead times for soft cover and hard cover books. This month’s survey also featured an update to the questions, factoring in both digital and offset printing methods. In looking at digital printing, the average hard cover capacity rose to 65%, up from 59%. Lead time for digital hard cover books dropped from 21 days to 17 days. Digital soft cover books are running at 67% capacity and 15 days lead time. Both of those numbers are similar to February numbers. According to responses regarding offset printing, hard cover manufacturers are running at 66% of their capacity, which is 10% less than last month. Lead times are slightly down from 40 days to 37. The average soft cover offset capacity usage is down to 78% from 82%. Offset soft cover lead time is up from 27 days to 35 days, reversing a trend of dropping times.

Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2020 increased 0.2 percent to $509.4 million from $508.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Subscription revenues increased 14.7 percent to $315.8 million, advertising revenues decreased 18.7 percent to $139.3 million and other revenues decreased 12.1 percent to $54.3 million. Total operating costs decreased 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020 to $428.8 million compared with $430.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, while adjusted operating costs decreased 0.1 percent to $411.7 million from $412.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, in each case as a result of the factors discussed below.

For the first three quarters of the year publishers’ revenues (sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, etc.) were flat (-0.5%) compared to the same period in 2016.…