Congratulations to Sourcebooks, Naperville, Ill., which celebrates its
20th anniversary on Sunday, when it hosts a boat party on Lake Michigan
that as many as 250 people will attend. Another sort of celebration is
the publication in early October of Poetry Speaks Expanded, a revised edition of Poetry Speaks,
the company's 2001 multimedia book. The new edition, which includes
three CDs of poets reading their work, added material by James
Joyce and Robert Graves, among others.
The title is just one indication of how far Sourcebooks has come in 20
years. "Originally I thought the company would be a financial services
information company," founder Dominique Raccah told Shelf Awareness.
"Obviously I was completely wrong." She also planned to sell only via
direct mail, she added in a tone of incredulity. "That's what companies
selling very specialized professional products did at the time."
Now Sourcebooks publishes poetry (a personal interest of Raccah), children's books,
calendars, nonfiction women's titles, college titles, multimedia titles
(including e-books soon) and with its new Sourcebooks Casablanca
imprint, romance. Among its bestsellers are 1001 Ways to Be Romantic by Gregory J.P. Godek, the Sourcebooks Shakespeare series, The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College by Harlan Cohen and the George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown calendar.
The range of titles comes not so much from a master plan to expand over
time as a function of Sourcebooks's approach to business and publishing.
For one, the company is very "author-focused," as Raccah put it. "We
focus on our authors in a career, long-term way rather than taking the
approach of buying a book at a time. As a result, 20% of the company is
focused on marketing and p.r. to help authors succeed." Also the
company is sometimes "led" by authors in new directions.
The company continues to be very entrepreneurial, which, among other
things, helps "you go down paths that interest you," Raccah said. "You
start saying that you'd love to try something, you do it, the
marketplace responds, then you do more and try other things."
It's also important, Raccah continued, to have what she called
"creative flutter." Overall, "we try to create a stable environment in
which to be creative," Raccah said. "It's easier to be creative in a
warm, familial, harmonious environment. It's a team effort."
Channels of distribution have expanded along the company's areas of
publishing. In the beginning, Sourcebooks focused on selling to general
bookstores and libraries. Now with its own sales force, it sells to
children's bookstores, general retail children's stores, mass market,
specialty retail and through the web.
"We like to get it right and not go to market too early," Raccah stated, offering as an example The Ultimate Bartender's Guide, which Sourcebooks has been working on for two years with Bartender
magazine and continues to work on. "We want these kinds of project to be great for readers so
they became a wave, a great experience," she said.
Perhaps the 20th anniversary
Sunday party will be a good research venue for this title!--John Mutter