The novel 'Life of Pi' and the TV spin-off 'The Moaning of Life' helped Scottish publisher Canongate to a storming 2013, defying the pressures on the industry and lifting its pre-tax profit by 17 per cent to £1.16milllion.

The Edinburgh-based company bought out of administration 20 years ago by aristocrat Jamie Byng lifted turnover by 7.8 per cent to £10.4m, and its current slate of new titles is said to be its strongest ever autumn list.

A £4m turnround in cash flow enabled the company to pay a £522,000 dividend (nil in 2012) and end the year with £1.9m in cash, according to accounts just filed at Companies House.

Mr Byng, son of an earl, who was at the Frankfurt Book Fair yesterday, said: "Having had two strong years back to back in 2012 and 2013 is incredibly satisfying. It has been done with some of the best publishing ever done by Canongate."

Writing in the accounts, Mr Byng cites the "quality and range of books and authors" and a "publishing team which continued to grow in confidence and skill".

Chairman Sir Christopher Bland, the former BBC chairman and Mr Byng's stepfather, says in the report it was "an excellent year, one of the strongest in the company's history".

Canongate was voted Independent Publisher of the Year for 2013 at the British Book Awards, with rights director Andrea Joyce winning an individual award.

Mr Byng says Life of Pi, the book about a boy stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger and published by Canongate more than a decade ago in the hope of a 20,000 sale, has now sold over four million copies, more than half of them since it spawned an Oscar-winning film two years ago. The publisher paid Spanish-born author Yann Martel £15,000 for the rights in 2001 and it won the Man Booker prize a year later.

Last year Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being was shortlisted for the prestigious prize, and had scored "a major critical and commercial success", Mr Byng says.

Other hits included 'The Moaning of Life', the third title by reluctant TV globetrotter Karl Pilkington to be published by Canongate and become a major hardback bestseller, and 'S' by Doug Dorst and film director JJ Abrams, which was "not only one of the most talked-about fiction debuts of the year but was the second biggest-selling hardbook debut of 2013", Mr Byng writes.

The managing director says 2014 began well, with excellent ongoing sales of some of its key 2013 titles, while the paperback issue of Mr Pilkington's book had been on the bestseller lists for June, July and August.

Although it was too early to say how the strong autumn list would fare, the publisher had high hopes for Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things, Russell Brand and Chris Riddell's The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Ray Winstone's memoir Young Winstone, the book tie-in to Channel 4's reality show Gogglebox, and Alan Cumming's Not My Father's Son.

The publisher says the industry "continues to respond to the challenges of a rapidly changing market", including digital formats, self-publishing, pricing and online retailing all having an impact.

Canongate publishes all its titles in electronic format. He adds: "The decline in physical book sales and the impact of this on traditional publishing and retailing remains an unknown for the industry. Canongate will continue to evolve its business, how its books are published, and develop alternative means of bringing books to market."

He said yesterday: "The industry is very challenging and is changing fast. There is no question that it makes it difficult to publish books in certain respects, but it also creates enormous opportunities. We are in for the long haul."

The group's shareholder funds rose from £5.87m to £6.23m. The highest-paid director, assumed to be Mr Byng, received £174,731, a rise of almost £30,000.

In 2011 Canongate made a pre-tax loss of £406,000 after writing off an advance made to Wikileaks activist Julian Assange.

Canongate published what it called an unauthorised autobiography after he decided not to proceed with a book.