When Publishers Weekly crunched the numbers on 2023 print bestsellers, Sourcebooks came out on top in the trade paperback category. The Chicago-based publisher led with 29 titles, occupying 213 of the 1,040 positions—or 20.5 percent of all trade paperback bestseller slots. And of those 29 titles, 23 were published by its imprint Bloom Books. Bloom is among the fastest-growing new imprints ever.
Bloom Books was born in 2021, when E.L. James moved her entire backlist to Sourcebooks from Penguin Random House. (PRH currently has a 53 percent stake in Sourcebooks.) At the time, Sourcebooks announced the new imprint would publish romance and adult fiction; the press release also noted a focus on “entrepreneurial women authors who want to benefit from all that a top publisher has to offer, including powerful retail relationships and deep distribution channels. This new, unconventional approach allows established entrepreneurial authors to take greater control in the creation, development and marketing of their books.”
Three years later, Sourcebooks has been true to their word, with results showing that, when publishers truly partner with entrepreneurial indie authors—treating them as equals in every sense of that word—while investing in marketing and promotion, success follows. It seems like common sense (at least to authors), but good luck finding such a model at any of the major New York houses.
In late January, I had a Zoom conversation with Dominique Raccah, founder, publisher, and CEO of Sourcebooks; Molly Waxman, executive director of consumer marketing at Sourcebooks; and Christa Desir, editorial director at Bloom Books. The overarching theme: how much Bloom Books is author-centric, reader-centric, and fan-centric. Of course it’s one thing for a publisher to say they are author-centric or reader-centric. But do they in fact behave that way and treat authors that way?
For Raccah, what changed everything was meeting and speaking with E.L. James about what she wanted from a publisher: James sought a more bespoke and indie experience that so many self-publishing authors want but don’t get from traditional publishers. Over a series of conversations spanning two months, “My idea of what it meant to be a publisher changed,” Raccah says. “It was one of the most revelatory and extraordinary experiences in my publishing career.” Desir adds, “[James] taught us all a lot about readers and fans”—from both an editorial perspective and business perspective.
In June 2021, Bloom Books successfully launched James’s next new release, Freed, to the number-one spot on the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. James wanted other authors to benefit from the same experience and process—or “have other people come to this party,” as Raccah put it—and Bloom applies everything they learned and built for James to other authors they partner with. In fact, Bloom has affected how Sourcebooks works with authors across its other imprints, too.
The company focuses first and foremost on what the author’s specific goals are. Raccah says when they consider which authors to take on, they’re asking, “Do we add value? Are they struggling in one area? What is it they actually want?” One author might want to hit the New York Times bestseller list. Another might want to maximize profits. Some have fans around the globe and want to achieve worldwide domination. Waxman says, “Miracles become our goals company wide. We really embrace it.” One particular example mentioned was Jonathan Santlofer, who has been writing for 30 years and is known for historical art thrillers published through the big New York houses. When he moved to Sourcebooks’ Landmark imprint, his goal was to hit a bestseller list. And they made it happen.
One thing Bloom Books can offer that few authors ever get: access to data. Raccah says, “We’re the most data-centric publisher in the country. [E.L. James] loves data. All the indie authors do, too.” Desir says Bloom loves working with authors who understand their business, how their fans interact, and what those fans read. “That’s their north star, their readers.” Being data-centric and fan-centric comes together in a powerful way under the Bloom Books model. When authors really know their fans, it’s not Bloom deciding what the cover should look like. It’s the author telling the publisher based on their knowledge of the marketplace.
Waxman says their team emphasizes transparency: “Authors see what we see. It’s not filtered, which has been really helpful for authors used to driving their own success and making their own decisions.” Whenever needed, the Bloom Books team talks with the author about the data and walks them through it. Moreover, if authors want certain data that Bloom Books doesn’t currently have on hand, they can often build a tool for them. “That goes with one of our core values of being really agile,” Waxman says. Bloom has extensive resources on the level of a Big Five or corporation, but there aren’t a lot of layers of approval; things can get done quickly rather than languishing in an executive committee.
One of Bloom’s biggest successes in 2023 is Twisted Love by author Ana Huang, who had seven titles on the PW trade paperback bestseller list for a total of 123 weeks. Waxman says Bloom worked with Huang on her first signing ever in her career, in October 2022, after she’d already sold hundreds of thousands of books. The event was held at a Barnes & Noble in Tribeca, where more than 300 people turned out—all ages, genders, and races. People were shaking, they were so excited to meet her, Waxman says. None of them realized turnout for the event would be so strong, and that was just the beginning—Huang has now sold more than 2 million books. “When we combined forces, we amplified,” Waxman says.
Sourcebooks has five different marketing teams. Raccah says most publishers have only one or two different kinds of marketing. “People [inside publishing] put a lot of time into buying the books, but what we do is spend a lot of time and money on making the books successful.” And that turns out to be a radically different way of doing things in the industry. When asked to describe the five different marketing teams, they declined to elaborate. However, Waxman did say that at her earlier publishing jobs, she was suffering from multiple personality disorder because of her varied marketing responsibilities, assigned regardless of her strengths or skills. But that’s not how they work at Sourcebooks.
Whatever those marketing teams might look like, the overall relationship with authors is considered personal. Raccah says, “I view publishing as a personal relationship. We have a personal responsibility to take care of people. We try really hard to make folks successful.” Desir says being more author-centric and talking regularly with the author manages expectations and keeps the relationship healthy, especially when things don’t turn out as hoped. “You don’t spend time focusing on the failure but instead: ‘What’s a way to get to this?’ When you’re flexible and agile, you see opportunities.” And what does it mean to talk to authors regularly? Desir talks to her authors almost daily. Daily? “You just do. That’s why it’s a curated list”—meaning they’re very purposeful about who they partner with.
When asked how many titles Bloom Books plans to release this year and if it’s increasing, Raccah immediately rejected the question. “This is all bad thinking. I don’t know why people think like this, but they do. We do not grow by adding more titles. That’s just not how I think about the world. We’re a ‘books change lives’ organization. Our job is to put books in the hands of readers. It’s about more readers, not more books.” Desir says she’s never been asked to hit any numbers by her bosses. Instead, it’s about getting more books into readers’ hands—even non-readers’ hands. “When you focus that way and pivot, you’re thinking about the readers and the authors. You think less about the numbers of books,” she says. Growth, then, is about building from an existing author pool and spending tons of time on marketing books; backlist is a huge part of the company’s business.
Bottom line: “Traditional publishing has become so much about gatekeeping and about scale and processes,” Raccah says. But that’s not how Bloom Books—or Sourcebooks generally—works. “It’s very, very uncomfortable to people who are doing it like gatekeeping, the ‘I’m in charge’ kind of person. They would really struggle in our ecosystem. We are assessing: What does the author want? What does the author know?” Bloom Books treats authors as business owners that they partner with. It’s not about what the author is allowed to do in the relationship but what Bloom does in collaboration with—or with the permission of—the author.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
