Penguin’s worldwide profits totaled £441 million for the first half of 2012, dipping by £16 million compared to the same period last year. Pearson, the corporate parent of Penguin, revealed these stats in its half-year earnings report.

Here’s more from the release: “Penguin’s first half trading was affected by three factors: a lighter publishing schedule, the exceptional performance of competitor bestsellers The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey and continued pressure on physical book publishing and retailing. We expect Penguin’s publishing and its competitive performance to be stronger in the second half of the year, and we expect the structural change to continue. In the second half, Penguin will continue to take action to adapt to the rapidly-changing industry environment and will be expensing integration costs associated with its acquisition of Author Solutions.”

Penguin US counted 132 bestsellers during the first half of the year, down from 157 bestsellers in 2011. The company noted that Nora Roberts, Harlan Coben, Charlaine Harris, John Green and Jenny Lawson all scored hits. Self-published novelists Tracey Garvis Graves and Sylvia Day both inked book deals with Penguin and were cited as bestsellers during the same period.

Self-published novelist Tracey Garvis Graves landed a two-book deal with Penguin Group’s Plume imprint, and she said the deal is for “seven figures, a good seven figures.” Fourteen literary agents rejected the book before the author decided to self-publish her debut romance, On the Island.

Since she self-published in March, Graves has sold 340,000 copies of the book and broke into the New York Times bestseller list. Literary agent Jane Dystel negotiated the deal with executive editor Jill Schwartzman.

Here’s more about the book: “It centers on Anna Emerson, a thirty-year-old English teacher who accepts a summer job on a tropical island. There, she’ll be tutoring sixteen-year-old T.J., who is behind on his schoolwork because of cancer treatments. But as they fly over the Maldives, their plane crashes into shark infested waters. They manage to get to shore, but find themselves stranded on an uninhabited island with nothing but the clothes they are wearing. As weeks become months, the castaways encounter many obstacles including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the looming possibility that T.J.’s cancer could return. But as their bond grows stronger with each passing birthday, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.”

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With 600 clients and ten agents, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management is a bustling place to look for an agent. Mediabistro’s Pitching an Agent series interviewed founder Jane Dystel for more advice.

Dystel & Goderich Literary Management has represented many authors, including On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves, Murder As a Fine Art by David Morrell, and a new YA series by James Dashner, Lisa McMann and Richelle Mead.

With 10 agents, including Dystel herself, DGLM is a medium-sized operation, which may be appealing to new writers. Dystel says that, while she has a reputation for being very tough with publishers, “I think my clients would say that I’m very nurturing. They all have my home phone number. I take very good care of them.”

Read more in Pitching An Agent: Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.