LONDON (AP) — Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, the British publisher of the Harry Potter series, posted better than expected full year earnings yesterday but warned that the outlook remained very tough.

Bloomsbury reported net profit of £7.84 million ($11.2 million) for the year to December 31 compared to £11.8 million the previous year, when earnings were boosted by the publication of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last volume of J.K. Rowling's series.

Revenue for 2008, when the company published Rowling's "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" and Khalid Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns," was down 33 percent to £99.95 million, down from £150.21 million.

Chief executive Nigel Newton said the business "continued to prosper even in the harshest economic conditions."

Newton said that the company has an "excellent pipeline" of new titles due for release over the coming months across all genres.

"However, there are also a number of risks and areas of caution which have been heightened by the recession," he said. "Visibility has been decreased by the uncertainty of the global market place, though books have fared better than most."

Revenue from books for adults rose 17 percent to £42.03 million, while reference revenue increased 27 percent to £19.59 million. But the biggest impact was in the children's division, where sales dropped 158 percent to £38.33 million.

On an international basis, sales from Berlin Verlag increased 35.6 percent to £11.57 million while sales from its US operations rose 29.4 percent to £17.32 million.