Sourcebooks is taking advantage of a 200% spike in its international business over the past two years by aggressively moving into international markets, beginning with Brazil and Germany. The Naperville, Ill.–based publishing company announced yesterday that it is releasing translations of romance titles initially published in the U.S. under its fastest-growing imprint, Bloom Books.
Launched in partnership with E.L. James in 2021, Bloom Books’s business model is geared toward publishing successful entrepreneurial authors who want more creative control over their work. Besides James, Bloom authors include Ana Huang, Elle Kennedy, Lucy Score, and Scarlett St. Clair.
“It’s so exciting to be helping these authors grow their businesses internationally,” said Dominique Raccah, Sourcebooks publisher and CEO, in a statement. “This model has made such a difference for our authors in North America, and we’re thrilled to expand our innovative Bloom program into two of the world’s largest romance markets through our partnerships with Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe and Companhia das Letras.”
Noting that annual revenue from the sales of books in Germany exceeded €9 billion last year, making the country Europe’s largest non-English-speaking book market, Sourcebook declared the country to be “the perfect gateway to the continent’s literary landscape.” Bloom Germany launched this August, in partnership with PRH Verlagsgruppe GmbH, with the release in translation of Sophie Lark’s Kingmakers: Year One, which Sourcebooks reports has received “major national retail support” from Germany’s two major chain bookstores, Hugendubel and Thalia.
Building on this momentum, Sourcebooks intends to release translations of 14 more Bloom titles in Germany in 2025, including the rest of Lark’s Kingmakers series as well as her brand-new Sparrow and Vine series. Two titles from Piper CJ’s No Other Gods seriesare scheduled for translation and release next summer.
“The launch of Bloom Germany allows us to better serve authors and readers alike,” said Matthias Aichele, senior VP of audio, strategic, and digital development at PRH Verlagsgruppe GmbH. “The positive feedback from our partnership has been overwhelming, and we are thrilled to unveil a lineup of exciting new books that will captivate readers across the German-speaking world.”
Sourcebooks launched Bloom Brasil in partnership with Paralela, an imprint of Companhia das Letras, which publishes such romance authors as Elle Kennedy, Christina Lauren, and Taylor Jenkins Reid. “We already know the strength of the Brazilian public and the reading community here through what we’ve published under the Paralela imprint,” said Quezia Cleto, executive editor at Bloom Brasil. “By joining forces with Bloom, we’ll not only bring major names to the Brazilian market, but also do so at high speed.”
In South America, Bloom Brasil will release 19 titles in 2025 in Brazilian Portuguese, debuting in February with the first three books in Scarlett St. Clair’s Hades x Persephone series. In March, the imprint will also release Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Half-Blood, Lucy Score’s frontlist romance Story of My Life, and Chloe Walsh’s Binding 13 in the Portuguese.
“These acclaimed authors, who have collectively dominated bestseller lists and captured the hearts of millions of readers worldwide, will now bring their beloved storytelling to Portuguese-speaking audiences,” said Shannon McCain Rodrigues, associate director of the newly-created international marketing and publicity team at Sourcebooks. Rodrigues, who was hired away from HarperCollins in June, will oversee all of the company’s international marketing initiatives.