Random House Claims Top Spot Among Children's Publishers

The merger of Random House and Bantam Doubleday Dell, combined with declining sales at Golden Books, has resulted in Random assuming the mantle from Golden as the nation's largest children's publisher. Estimated children's sales at Random rose to $197 million in 1998, and the company attributed the gains to sales of The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury, *N SYNC: The Official Book and the Magic Tree House series. (See table below for a summary.)

Penguin Putnam, led by sales of its movie tie-in titles as well as other licensed works, held on to second place in 1998 with sales up 5.4% to $156 million. The 13% decrease in sales at Golden dropped the company to the #3 position among children's publishers. The decline at Golden was due primarily to lower sales in the electronic and education categories plus higher returns and a temporary reduction in buying by some major mass market retailers.

The largest gain in the year was reported by DK Publishing, which recorded nearly an 85% jump in children's sales to $78.5 million for the year ended June 30, 1999. Sales of DK's two Star Wars titles fueled growth in the year, complemented by strong gains in the company's backlist.

With its Nickelodeon publishing program kicking into high gear in 1998, Simon & Schuster saw its children's revenues jump over 30%, to $124 million.

HarperCollins finished just behind S&S, with a 10% gain in sales to $116 million that reflected improved results in both HC's hardcover and paperback lines. With its acquisition of Morrow, HC is set to challenge Penguin Putnam for second place among children's publishers in 1999.

Scholastic moved up one notch in the children's book rankings on the strength of the diversity of its trade list, including such series as Animorphs, Teletubbies, Star Wars, Dear America, I Spy and Harry Potter.

Finishing just below Scholastic was Landoll's, whose sales rose 7.1% to $90 million. Improved sales in the company's educational lines, as well as the launch of Blue's Clues coloring and activity books, contributed to the publisher's gains.

Disney attributed its nearly 19% sales increase to tie-ins to the movie A Bug's Life, plus strong sales of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and the McDuff picture books.

Sales at Hearst's children's imprints stayed even with 1997's numbers, at $46 million ($30 million for Morrow; $16 million for Avon). Little, Brown, which enjoyed a 77% increase in revenues in 1997, also saw sales hold virtually even in 1998. Continued success with Arthur titles as well as strong sales for LB's Look-Alikes picture book helped the publisher keep children's sales above the $34 million mark.

Houghton Mifflin's sales received a boost from the 10th anniversary edition of The New Way Things Work, while paperback sales jumped 40%. Harcourt Brace and Candlewick posted sales gains of 4.7% and 0.9%, respectively, last year.

The newcomer to PW's children's ranking is Tommy Nelson, the children's publishing division of Thomas Nelson. Tommy Nelson has produced books based on such highly visible properties as Touched by an Angel and The Prince of Egypt.

The consolidation among trade publishers is beginning to create two tiers among the largest children's publishers, just as it has on the adult side. With Hearst's absorption by HarperCollins, a gap of some $40 million will separate the largest children's publishers from their more modest-sized competitors.

Based on estimated net sales from companies' most recent fiscal or calendar year.
Source: Publishers Weekly