Pottermore Publishing has had a record year for the year ending 31st March 2024, it was announced today.
The global digital audiobook and e-book publisher of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series and associated titles from the wizarding world, reported on Companies House that revenues in the period were up by £0.6m to £48.8m (2023: £48.2m) and pre-tax profits also increased by 21% to £11.4m (2023: £9.4m).
The report on Companies House reads: “Pottermore had a record year thanks to its strong commercial partnerships with sales of the Harry Potter e-books and audiobooks now settled into a more regular pattern following the highs during the Covid pandemic.” The company’s financial trajectory had been volatile following the pandemic with profits down 40% in 2022 before vastly improving last year.
However the reported also noted that “it was a quieter year for content releases” and the cost of sales went down to £32.6m from £35.3m in 2023, including commissions and royalties.
Pottermore Publishing continues to make its catalogue available through a global distribution network including online retail and library partners including Amazon, Apple, Audible, BookBeat, Google and Yoto among others. New audiobooks of the Hogwarts Library titles were produced and released in Bulgarian, Danish and Finnish, and e-books of the Harry Potter series were published in Bulgarian and Latin American Spanish.
The company said in a release circulated to The Bookseller: “To date, trading in the current year (to 31 March 2024) has exceeded management expectations in large part due to Audible. The business has agreed a co-production deal with Audible to create new full-cast edition audiobooks of the Harry Potter series in English [for the first time, due in 2025] and audiobooks of Harry Potter 1-7 will also be produced in Greek for the first time. Content originally written by JK Rowling for Pottermore.com has also been curated, recorded and released from the Wizarding Archive, initially in five languages. Overall, sales of Harry Potter e-books and digital audiobooks remain strong and 2024-25 is set to deliver another profitable performance.”
Jennie McCann, Pottermore’s managing director, said: “This has been another fantastic year. The business beat all its financial targets in 2023-24, thanks to the support of our growing network of trusted partners and exciting new deals. The current year (2024-25) looks set to continue the pattern, as we drive sales of our core catalogue through innovative marketing, product development and expansion into new markets and languages. The ground-breaking Pottermore/Audible co-production of full-cast editions of the Harry Potter audiobooks is now well underway and we look forward to their release in due course.”
