Posted in: Comics | Tagged: graphic novel, Simon And Schuster

Graphic Novels Drive Increase Simon & Schuster's Children Sales By 18%

Published Thu, 19 May 2022 08:27:07 -0500

Jim Millot reports for Publisher's Weekly that, amid mixed publishing figures across the book sector, Simon & Schuster saw "operating income soaring 85% over 2021, to $50 million, while sales increased 17%, to $217 million" which CEO Jonathan Karp attributes the profitability boost "in part to higher backlist sales and refinements S&S has made to its metadata that improved sell-through, thereby cutting book returns."

But as to the increase in sales? "All of S&S's divisions had double-digit sales increases in the quarter, led by the international group, where sales rose 30%. The children's division also did well, with sales increasing 16%, driven, Karp said, by S&S's growing list of graphic novels." A number of those can be seen here.

Karp is also cited as stating that to stay ahead of possible printing issues, Simon & Schuster has "moved a number of its third-quarter titles into the fourth period to ensure they will be available."

The expansion of younger readers graphic novels is fuelling all manner of publishers extending into the comics medium. Right now it seems like an infinite market that is being tapped into, and creating longstanding comic book readers for decades to come. It is not for nothing that kids graphic novels in bookstores are being referred to as the newsstand of the twenty-first century, and the future readers of the medium are being formed and created right here, right now. Here's a gallery look at recent and upcoming graphic novels from Simon & Schuster, to prove the point.

Simon & Schuster is a subsidiary publisher of Paramount Global (still) and was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third-largest publisher in the United States, publishing over 2000 titles annually under 35 different imprints. In 2020, German media group Bertelsmann and owner of Penguin Random House announced purchase plans for Simon & Schuster and Paramount Global announced it would sell Simon & Schuster to Bertelsmann subsidiary Penguin Random House for $2.175 billion. However last year, the United States Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block the sale. The matter is still in the courts.

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