Bloomsbury thrives 'post-Potter'

The final Harry Potter title was one of the highest selling books in history

Bloomsbury has reported better-than-expected profits for 2008 in its first year in the "post-Harry Potter era".

The publisher reported a pre-tax profit of £11.63m, down from £17.86m in 2007, when earnings were boosted by sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Analysts had forecast an annual profit of about £10.8m.

The company said it had the right strategy in place, as well as a great stable of authors, to weather challenging market conditions.

Bloomsbury had the two highest-selling books of the year in the Times bestsellers' list, with A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and JK Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

The company had a strong pipeline of new releases planned for 2009, it added.