Sterling Adds to B&N Sales
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 5/3/2004
The addition of sales from Sterling Publishing combined with sales from the Calendar Club resulted in a 71% increase in revenue in Barnes & Noble's "other" segment in 2003, Barnes & Noble reported in its year-end filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Revenue totaled $139.6 million in the "other" segment, up from $81.6 million in 2002. The jump was primarily due to the inclusion of Sterling, which B&N acquired at the beginning of 2003. B&N said that the combination of Sterling's 4,500-title backlist plus titles from its own publishing program gives it the publishing or distribution rights to almost 10,000 titles.
In its bookselling business, B&N said that it bought books from more than 1,700 publishers and about 45 wholesalers. B&N's top five suppliers accounted for 46% of all purchases in the year, the company said, although no company accounted for more than 15% of its purchases.
