The Associated Press reports that James Middlehurst, C.E.O. of the British publisher Dorling Kindersley, has resigned because of "a seriously misjudged" over investment in books tied to the launch of the latest Star Wars movie, which resulted in 10 million unsold books.

13 million copies of Star Wars: Episode I Incredible Cross-Sections and Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary were published, but only 3 million were sold.

Company founder and chairman Peter Kindersley blamed that misjudgment for more than half of a pretax loss of $41 million which D.K. expects to announce in the spring.

Dorling Kindersley publishes under its own print in the USA, UK, Australia, South Africa, India and Russia. For the year ending June 30, 1999, Dorling Kindersley posted $19 million in pretax profits.

Posted January-26-2000