* As the company indicated last month,...

* As the company indicated last month, Advanced Marketing Services, a supplier of books to the membership warehouse industry, including Price Co., reported substantially lower earnings for the first quarter ended June 30.

Profit for the three months was $188,000 on sales of $30.4 million, down from a profit of $530,000 on sales of $25.6 million for last year’s first quarter. The company blamed the earnings drop on “general weakness in retail book sales” due in part to the lack of blockbuster sellers by best-selling authors.