Bertelsmann said sales rose slightly in the year, to €15.3 billion (previous year: €15.1 billion), but operating EBIT fell to €1.7 billion from €1.8 billion. The company reported“rapidly growing” e-book sales at Random House.

HarperCollins UK and Zondervan had a good second quarter ended December 31, but Harper US and the rest of the international market faced difficult comparisons.

Licensing and publishing revenue in Walt Disney Corp.’s first quarter ended December 31 rose 2% to $527 million.

Lagardere reported this morning that total revenue in its publishing segment fell 5.9%, to €2.04 billion, or 4.4% excluding foreign exchange in 2011.

Despite posting a 35% sales increase for the fourth quarter and earnings that were better than expected (if still down compared to a year ago), last week was a tough one for Amazon. Analysts and investors were disappointed in the quarterly report, and the stock price for the nation’s largest online retailer fell almost 8% the day after the earnings report was released on Tuesday, though it bounced back a bit on Thursday. Analysts have long worried that Amazon was investing too heavily in its business, but that hasn’t stopped Amazon from keeping up those investments or its stock price rising (it has a 52-week high of $246.71). The most recent report, though, renewed concerns among some analysts that Amazon was not getting a high enough return on its investments.

The children’s/YA hardcover segment stole the spotlight from e-books in November with sales jumping 38.0% due largely to the strong showing of Inheritance, which sold more than 400,000 hardcover copies in its first week on sale in November.

Led by a 12.3% increase in the stock price of Amazon, the Publishers Weekly Stock Index rose 4.6% in January, beating the 3.4% gain posted by the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Amazon, however, gave back a good part of the increase on February 1, the day after the company reported fourth-quarter revenue that fell short of expectations and issued a lackluster forecast for the first quarter.

In its just filed 10-K report, Amazon said that Arizona is seeking $53 million in uncollected sales tax for the period from March 1, 2006 through December 31, 2010.

November 2011 sales of children's and YA hardcover titles rose 27% over the same period in 2010 and audiobook downloads rose 25.9% over the same period. However, November over November e-book sales, while up 65.9%, dropped below the monthly triple digit increases the category has shown.

Hurt by a 14% decline in revenue in its school group, total revenue at McGraw-Hill Education fell 6% in 2011, to $2.29 billion. Operating income fell 12%, to $320 million. During the year, MHE took a $34 million restructuring charge for severance related to a workforce reduction of about 540 positions.