LONDON (AP) — Bloomsbury Publishing PLC reported a 36 percent fall in net profit for 2009 — its first year without a new hardback or paperback Harry Potter release — but said that other best-sellers had given a boost to the start of trading this year.

Bloomsbury posted net profit of £4.98 million ($7.5 million) for the year to December 31, down from £7.84 million in the previous year when revenues were boosted by the paperback version of JK Rowling's seventh and final Harry Potter book.

Revenue fell 12 percent to £87.22 million from £99.95 million.

Chief executive Nigel Newton said it was a "strong set of results ... achieved under difficult trading conditions, and demonstrates the strength of our portfolio."

Newton added that trading had been "excellent" in the first quarter of 2010, with a range of new bestsellers including Ben Macintyre's spy story "Operation Mincemeat".

The company said it had a strong pipeline of releases for this year, including new look versions of the Harry Potter series of books, which are due for release in November.

It also expects three major movies — "Nanny McPhee," "Eat, Pray, Love," and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One," to drive renewed sales of those former bestsellers.

Shares in Bloomsbury were unchanged in midday trading on the London Stock Exchange at 113.5 pence.

Last year's successes included food titles by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Heston Blumenthal, and Kate Summerscale's "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher". The two Khaled Hosseini novels, "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns," also sold strongly all year, the company said.

Bloomsbury strengthened its academic publishing division with the acquisitions last year of the legal and tax publisher Tottel, now renamed Bloomsbury Professional, and the Hodder Education Humanities List.

It also recently announced it was working with the Qatar Foundation to establish a Doha-based scientific journal publishing house.

The recent collapse of the Borders chain in Britain highlighted the problems facing physical book stores, and Bloomsbury said the past year had seen an increase in online book sales.

E-book revenues remain small but Bloomsbury noted a "considerable uplift" in activity following the release of the Amazon Kindle.

"We are looking for opportunities to create new revenue streams from our digital files by content aggregation and innovative marketing," Newton said.