Yale University Press London records revenue lift in 2019

Consolidated revenues for Yale University Press London (YUPL) and subsidiary Yale Representation stood at £7.9m for the year to end June 2019, up 3.4% on the previous year (£7.7m), according to the latest files at Companies House. Income specifically from the production and sale of books was up 3.1% to £7.4m. Revenues for YUPL alone were up 2% at £7.2m.

The charity said that after the decline in 2017-18 sales, it made a focus of "setting and achieving challenging sales revenue targets, aligning marketing activity closely with sales outcomes" under new sales and marketing director David Brand.

The results filing stated: "2018 was a challenging year for YUPL, which was impacted by a weaker list, fewer museum co-pubs, reduced income from publishing partners and the impact of adjustments to price and discount. The first half of 2019 continued in this vein, before seeing real improvements in the final six months due to a better spring list, and improvement in online sales following successful customer negotiations, the weak pound fuelling export sales and Brexit stocking up."

YUPL m.d. and publisher Heather McCallum said: "After a difficult start to 2019 we were really pleased with the way the year turned out, making up a shortfall in top line sales of over £500,000 to finish the year 2% ahead of the prior year, despite not being able to release one of our key titles due to unforeseen delays. This was the result of a tremendous sales and marketing effort. This has continued into 2020 which has started very strongly for us with an impactful frontlist in particular. We also benefited from very strong rights income in 2019 of £913,000, surpassing 2018, our previous record year, by 16%."

Among many highlight titles of the year to mid-2019 were history books Arabs: A 3,000 Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and The Kremlin Letters: Stalin's Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt by David Reynolds and Vladimir Pechatnov, and art and architecture titles including Veiled Presence: Bodies and Drapery from Giotto to Titian by Paul Hills and Becoming Property: Art, Theory and Law in Early Modern France by Katie Scott.

The year also saw an increase in authors delivering literary festival talks, with highlights including Abbas Amanat and George Magnus at the Cheltenham Literary Festival and Roy Strong, Elizabeth Goldring, Market Kohn and Catherine Hanley at Hay.