Falling sales of celebrity biographies and travel books have hit revenues at high-street bookshop Waterstone’s.

Waterstone’s parent HMV said like-for-like sales at its bookstore arm were down 4.5 per cent in the last 16 weeks of its financial year. The slide comes after a 3.8 per cent fall in sales last year.

The group said while children’s books and fiction had remained resilient in the consumer downturn, higher priced non-fiction was hit particularly hard.

A spokeswoman for HMV said the book market had contracted four per cent in the company’s financial year. She said celebrity titles had seen the biggest fall in sales, but travel was also down slightly.

HMV said like-for-like sales across the group were flat compared with last year, while its UK and Ireland music stores saw a 1.9 per cent rise in the year to April 25.

Chief executive Simon Fox said the group expected profits this year to be towards the upper end of market expectations, despite challenging conditions.

“This has been driven by strong trading in HMV UK & Ireland, which continues to benefit from initiatives to transform the business, and from maximising the opportunities arising from competitors exiting the market,” he said.

Waterstone’s is in the process of moves to centralise its supply chain to a single hub based in Burton-on-Trent, which the firm expects to help it cut costs.