Sourcebooks LLC is an American

book publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

located in

Naperville, Illinois Naperville ( ) is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage and Will County, Illinois, Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a southwestern suburb of Chicago located west of the city on the DuPage River. As of the 2020 United State ...

. The company publishes books,

ebooks An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

, and digital products.

History

The company was founded in 1987 by Dominique Raccah as a business and finance publisher. Raccah cashed in $17,000 from her retirement fund to start the press. The company expanded into other categories of trade publishing. As of 2010, the company had 54 apps in development. By 2015, the publisher had 120 employees. In 2010, they were the largest woman-owned book publisher in the United States. In 2013, the publisher launched a personalized stories creator application and website with its "Put Me In The Story" program. It has brands such as

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...

, the

Berenstain Bears The ''Berenstain Bears'' is a children's literature franchise created by Stan and Jan Berenstain and continued by their son, Mike Berenstain. The books feature a family of anthropomorphic grizzly bears who generally learn a moral or safety ...

, and

Hello Kitty , also known by her real name , is a fictional character created by Yuko Shimizu, currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi, and owned by the Japanese company Sanrio. Sanrio depicts Hello Kitty as a British anthropomorphized white cat with a red ...

, in addition to authors and illustrators such as Nancy Tillman. Later additions to "Put Me In The Story" included

Curious George Curious George is a fictional monkey who is the title character of a series of popular children's picture books written and illustrated by Margret and H. A. Rey. Various media, including films and TV shows, have been based upon the original ...

and characters from

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

and

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

, among others. In 2013, Sourcebooks acquired the book publisher Simple Truths. The company reported a 20% gain in sales in 2014, with particular gains from its Jabberwocky children's imprint and Fire young adult imprint. The results also included sales of more than two million picture books by Marianne Richmond. In December 2016, Raccah was named book publishing's "Person of the Year" by ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', a book publishing trade magazine. In February 2017, ''Publishers Weekly'' reported NPD

BookScan BookScan is a data provider for the book publishing industry that compiles point of sale data for book sales, owned by Circana in the United States and NIQ in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Italy, Spai ...

data showing Sourcebooks as the 18th-largest trade publisher in America. Sourcebooks published 385 titles in 2017 and was the 14th-largest trade publisher in the U.S. In 2018, Sourcebooks acquired the mystery imprint

Poisoned Pen Press Poisoned Pen Press is a publisher of mystery fiction based in Scottsdale, Arizona, US. Poisoned Pen Press typically publishes thirty-six new hardcover mysteries per year, thirty-six new large type editions of those hardcovers, and between thirty a ...

. The following year,

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House Limited is a British-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was or ...

acquired 45% of Sourcebooks, with the company forming a new management board that included Penguin Random House executives. In 2021, Peterson's Publishing sold B.E.S. Publishing to Sourcebooks. In 2023, Penguin Random House became the majority owner of Sourcebooks, owning 52% of the company; and Sourcebooks acquired Callisto Media, the parent of Rockridge Press. The same year, Penguin Random House and Sourcebooks launched Callisto China. As of January 2024, Sourcebooks says that it is the seventh largest book publisher in the United States. In 2024, Penguin Random House increased its stake in Sourcebooks to 75%.

Imprints

* Sourcebooks (adult nonfiction) * Sourcebooks Landmark (fiction) * Sourcebooks Casablanca (romance) * Cumberland House (gift, cookbooks, and history) * Simple Truths (business, leadership, motivation, and inspiration) * Sourcebooks Fire (young adult) * Sourcebooks Kids **Sourcebooks Wonderland (specialized) **Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (children) **Sourcebooks Young Readers (middle grade) **Stonefruit Studio **Sourcebooks eXplore (nonfiction) *

(mystery) * Bloom Books (romance)

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.sourcebooks.com Penguin Random House Companies based in Naperville, Illinois Publishing companies established in 1987 Book publishing companies based in Illinois