Irish authors help bookseller Waterstones to double revenues

'Sales have been excellent' at flagship store Hodges & Figgis in Dublin

Claire Keegan's novel 'Small Things like These' was among the top-selling books for Waterstones last year. Picture: Domnick Walsh

Bumper book sales by Irish writers Claire Keegan, Sally Rooney, Fintan O'Toole, and Diarmaid Ferriter contributed to pre-tax profits last year at the Irish arm of bookseller Waterstones more than tripling to €3.8m.

New accounts filed by Waterstones Booksellers Ireland Ltd show that the firm recorded a jump in profits as revenues almost doubled from €6.3m to €12.13m in the 53 weeks to the end of April 30 last year.

Hodges & Figgis on Dublin's Dawson St is Waterstones' flagship store here and a store spokesman confirmed that Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These was the bestselling book in the 12 months under review at the outlet.

The Hodges & Figgis spokesman said overall since the end of April last year “sales have been excellent”.

'Solid bookselling'

He said that in the year under review in the accounts “we were resilient. We did very well. There were brilliant books on sale. Of course, that helps and solid bookselling also helps.” 

Providing the top eight best sellers at Hodges & Figgis during the year under review, the spokesman said that six of the authors are Irish.

“As a bookshop, we make sure that Irish authors are well represented.” 

The spokesman said that the top four bestsellers were all Irish with the store’s best-selling book Small Things like These followed by Sally Rooney's Beautiful World Where Are You, Fintan O Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves, and Diarmaid Ferriter's Irish Civil War history Between Two Hells. US author Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles was ranked fifth in the bestsellers’ list followed by Booker winner Damon Galgut's The Promise.

Other Irish bestsellers were Maureen Gaffney's Your One Wild and Precious Life and Colm Tóibín’s The Magician. 

The directors state that sales and profitability at Waterstones “improved significantly” last year. They state that the bookseller’s online business “continues to deliver a strong performance”.

Covid-19 restrictions hampered the firm’s performance in the prior year but had minimal impact in the year under review as the Government allowed bricks and mortar stores to reopen in May 2021.

Revamp

Waterstones Ireland, which also has stores in Cork and Drogheda, currently has plans for a revamp of the Hodges & Figgis outlet including a minor refurbishment to the existing timber shopfront.

The profit last year takes into account non-cash depreciation costs of €1.3m and net finance costs of €514,000. Numbers employed totalled 60 and staff costs increased from €1.27m to €1.88m.

Shareholder funds totalled €20.48m while cash funds increased from €2.4m to €5.89m.