How This CEO Grew Her Business to Become the Largest Woman-Owned Publisher in the U.S. http://entm.ag/j5p

Dominique Raccah weathered the bankruptcy of her second-largest client and came out ahead.

Dominique Raccah is the publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks, one of the largest book publishers in the U.S., putting out about 450 books each year. From overcoming the bankruptcy of Borders -- her second-largest client -- to doubling the growth of the company year after year, Raccah has overcome many challenges in her career. Why does Raccah relentlessly pursue data, agility and innovation? Click play to find out. http://entm.ag/j5p

Discover a New Love--Have you heard about the new romance ebook Book Club?

If you're an avid romance reader, you can save money, discover new authors, and connect with many of your favorites! Sourcebooks' new ebook club offers so much to readers! There's events and parties and many ways to connect with other readers and authors. What's especially exciting for me is that The Lord of Illusion is a featured book. I'm in fine company with Catherine Mann, Shana Galen, and Terry Spear! You can check us out here: http://www.discoveranewlove.com/featured-selections/featured-romance-ebooks.html

And the Discover a New Love's home page is here: http://www.discoveranewlove.com/

FOR WRITERS: Pitch your book to my editor!

Today my editor at Sourcebooks Publishing, Deb Werksman, is taking pitches of your book, and offering a free critique at: http://casablancaauthors.blogspot.com/ Here are the details:

PRACTICE YOUR PITCHING!

Back by popular demand!! Another pitch session with me!

This time, I'm asking for ONLY the pitch for your HOOK.

Pitches should look like this :[Subgenre] Example: historical/paranormal romance trilogy [2-4 sentence hook]

Example: Regency England is the glittering backdrop for the noble and the undead, where the gentlemen vampires are high sticklers. They would never bite a young lady to whom they had not been properly introduced! The first book features battle-born Scottish witch Blaire whose fearsome powers don't help her at all when she falls in love with charming vampire Lord James Kettering, until the pair discover the power of love to re-awaken even the deadest of hearts...

[author history] Example: Lydia Dare is a bestselling writing team with 4 paranormal historical romances being published.Another example: X is a debut author with 5 unpublished manuscripts written.Another example: Y is a multi-published author of 9 books and 3 novellas with top e-book publishers.

Private pitches (to my email address deb.werksman@sourcebooks.com) will only get a "yea" or "nay" response--only public pitches will get any form of critique.

All critiques will be done by Friday, September 3.

BRING THEM ON!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT Y'ALL ARE UP TO!

PS You may also send full submissions to me directly at deb.werksman@sourcebooks.com

Please send full synopsis and full manuscript.
I am looking for: *single title romance in all subgenres *about 90,000 words *series and trilogies: please give me a paragraph or two on each of the next few books

Editorial criteria: *a heroine the reader can relate to *a hero she can fall in love with *a world gets created *a hook I can sell with in 2-3 sentences *the author has a career arc (in other words, if the readers love this book, what do we sell them next, and next, and next?)

My amazing publisher: Sourcebooks

It's always a good thing when an author loves their publishing house, and I've been very fortunate to love mine. The owner of Sourcebooks, Dominique Raccah, is a fascinating woman, who approaches authors and the industry in an entirely different way, and perhaps this is the reason for Sourcebooks fantastic success...especially during a time when most publishing houses are cutting back and/or closing lines.

So it's with a great deal of pride that I'm passing along an article about Sourcebooks that appeared in Shelf Awareness (one of several articles that can be found here: http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a1/804583.html):

Sourcebooks: '21st Century Book Publisher'

"We're a company that's transforming in an industry that's transforming," said Dominique Raccah, founder, CEO and publisher of Sourcebooks, Naperville, Ill. Her goal, she said, is to make Sourcebooks into "what a 21st Century book publisher would look like."

Here's how it looks so far:

Sourcebooks has been in the forefront of offering e-books, enhanced books, iPhone apps and just last month launched a poetry website that, Raccah said, is creating a community for people who love poetry--and may be a model for creating revenue. (Among other things, it sells poems for download, iTunes style.)

After deciding a year ago that it wasn't going "to participate" in the recession and that it would have no layoffs, the company involved all 75 employees in extraordinary efforts to build the company's business in a range of measurable ways, including improving cash flow and inventory, expanding markets, working better with customers and more. By doing so, Sourcebooks has tried to take advantage of being "in that funky space between big and small publishers," Raccah said--big enough to have a presence but small enough to be limber and both act and react quickly.

Sourcebooks continues to publish some 300 new titles a year in a range of subjects--test and study guides, poetry, historical and women's fiction, children's and YA books, reference, romance and more--using many e-tools to nurture both readers and writers. The house, Raccah emphasized repeatedly, is publishing "authors, not books," and many of them have become bestsellers. Sourcebooks was founded 22 years ago as a reference publisher.