Sourcebooks has partnered with Penguin Random House Audio to launch an audio program, Sourcebooks Audio, through which the publisher will produce audio content in-house via “editorially independent imprints” within PRH Audio, per a release. The company plans to release more than 40 titles in total next year, and roughly 250 titles through 2026. PRH is the majority owner of Sourcebooks.
Catherine Bucaria, previously director of audio strategy and acquisitions at Penguin Random House Audio, has been promoted to VP and publishers of Sourcebooks Audio. She will oversee the program alongside Almeda Beynon, the former executive producer at HarperCollins, who has been named director of audio production.
The program will launch in January and February 2025 with titles from Sourcebooks’s mystery and romance imprints, Poisoned Pen Press and Sourcebooks Casablanca, as well as its Callisto nonfiction imprint. The publisher plans to expand the program in 2026 to its other imprints, including Sourcebooks Landmark, Sourcebooks Fire, and Bloom Books.
The program’s inaugural release is The Mountains We Call Home: The Book Woman’s Legacy by Kim Michele Richardson, the author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and The Book Woman’s Daughter. Four more titles are slated for release in January and February.
“Audiobooks are an essential part of the book ecosystem,” Bucaria said. “I look forward to working with our authors to drive this content from within Sourcebooks through our PRH Audio partnership.” Beynon added: “Our goal is to craft dynamic audiobooks and to create an inclusive literary landscape where every reader can find a format that suits their reading style.”
As it nears the end of the 2024 fiscal year, Sourcebooks’s print units are up 51%, CEO Dominique Raccah said, adding that she was “excited to be joining the rapidly growing audiobook landscape.” Bucaria and Beynon, “in partnership with our friends at PRH Audio, will make a huge difference for so many of our authors, and will help them reach a whole new level of readership,” she added.
According to the most recent survey released by the Audio Publishers Association, the audiobook industry saw its 11th straight year of increasing sales in 2023, with revenue rising by 9%, to $2 billion, and audiobooks now accounting for approximately 11% of the trade book market