* Full-year pretax 11.6 million pounds
* Says has right strategy, authors to weather market
* CEO says looking at further deals in academic publishing
* Shares down 8 percent (Adds chief executive comment, reaction, shares)
By Paul Sandle
LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) - Britain's Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, the publisher of "Harry Potter", beat analyst expectations for 2008 and said its business was prospering, but its shares were hit by worries about high-street spending.
The firm reported pretax profit of 11.6 million pounds ($16.5 million) on Tuesday, down from 17.9 million in 2007 when the final Harry Potter title was released.
Analysts were expecting profit of 10.8 million pounds, according to Reuters data.
Revenue was 100.0 million pounds against 150.2 million a year earlier, when sales were boosted by the children's blockbuster.
Chief Executive Nigel Newton said Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and JK Rowling's "The Tales of Beedle the Bard", which were first and second on The Times bestsellers list, helped the company perform strongly in a slightly weaker book market.
The run of best sellers had continued into 2009, with Kate Summerscale's "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher" taking the top spot in the non-fiction list, he said.
"We have an excellent pipeline of new books, from Margaret Atwood, John Irving and William Boyd," he said. "And 'Burnt Shadows' by Kamila Shamsie is a towering and important novel."
Newton said books had fared better than other products in the downturn, but he sounded a note of caution about the health of the group's high street retailer base.
"If customers suffer, we suffer," he said. "We don't know the effect of the recession on third parties later in the year."
Bloomsbury warned that unit sales in the later part of 2009 might be lower than in 2008 as a result.
Shares in the group fell as much as 10 percent and were down 7.7 percent at 117.75 pence at 0839 GMT, as the market focused on the prospects for the book market rather than Bloomsbury's titles.
"The key call is whether the better-than-expected base provided by this morning's results is sufficient to offset our long-standing concerns regarding the deteriorating consumer environment and the highly competitive nature of the book retail market," said Altium's Roddy Davidson.
"Our gut feel is that a cautious approach is still warranted."
Newton said the group had ended the year with cash balances of 51.9 million pounds, up from 47.6 million, which would fund further deals.
"We are looking for more acquisitions in academic publishing -- in humanities and social sciences in particular," he said, adding that the group was looking to spend "a similar number or more" than 2008's 7.4 million pounds.
Bloomsbury increased its final dividend by 5 percent to 3.47 pence a share, giving a full-year payout of 4.22 pence. ($1 = 0.7052 pound)