Bluemoose Books reports five-figure profit as sales for books in translation soar

Bluemoose Books has reported making a five-figure profit this year, as its international rights sales topped €100,000 (£85,158) for the first time, and sales for its books in translation surpassed €1.8m (£1.5m) in Europe.

The west-Yorkshire indie’s backlist accounts for more than 80% of its sales, featuring titles like Rónán Hession’s Leonard and Hungry Paul, for which global sales have reached 300,000 across formats. Bluemoose Books also sold Hession’s third novel, Ghost Mountain, and his 2021 title Panenka to Blessing, an imprint of Penguin Random House (PRH) in Germany, where Leonard and Hungry Paul is published by DuMont Buchverlag. Released in May, Ghost Mountain is already in its second print, having sold more than 5,000 copies in hardback - the first time the indie has ordered reprints in its 18-year history.

“We’ve been publishing nearly 20 years now and every year it seems to be getting harder and harder to get books into bookshops,” publisher Kevin Duffy told The Bookseller. “It is
wonderful to see the company make a five-figure profit, which we’ll reinvest in finding even more great new writers and stories enabling us to keep publishing for the next 20 years.”

Some of the indie’s most successful titles this year have included Chopin in Kentucky by Elizabeth Heichelbech, Christ on a Bike by Orla Owens and Sports and Social by Kevin Boniface. The publisher also suggested that recent riots across the country have sparked a renewed interest in Ghost Signs by Stu Hennigan, which was shortlisted for Parliamentary Book of The Year in 2023.

A licensing deal between Bluemoose Books and Bloomsbury is also underway, with the BBC 2 series of Benjamin Myers’ The Gallows Pole creating a buzz and boosting sales for the book, as well as the author’s other titles—Pig Iron and Beastings—helping the indie increase its revenue streams.

In the digital and audio markets, Bluemoose Books works with Faber & Faber for its online sales, and has also embarked on creating audiobooks with Canopy Audiobooks, with Ghost Mountain to become available in October.

“I am absolutely delighted to see that all our efforts in publishing great new writers and stories are finding their way into readers’ hands and I’d like to thank all the booksellers out there for hand-selling our titles,” said the publisher’s c.e.o. Hetha Duffy. “Without them it would be a real struggle.”