Marketing Manager - Romance

Sourcebooks•Naperville, IL

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Sourcebooks is seeking a Marketing Manager to develop and execute integrated marketing campaigns for romance novels across the Casablanca and Bloom Books imprints. This role requires a strategic thinker with a deep understanding of the romance reader market, digital communities, and cultural trends. The position involves a blend of marketing, publicity, events, influencer outreach, author relations, and social media management to drive book sales. The ideal candidate will be creative, collaborative, organized, and capable of managing both strategy and execution. This is a hybrid position based in Naperville, Illinois, requiring three days per week in the office.

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
At least five years of experience in book publishing marketing or publicity, entertainment or media marketing, or a related consumer-facing field.
Experience marketing romance books is strongly preferred.
A demonstrated ability to develop and execute integrated campaigns across publicity, social media, influencers, events, advertising, digital marketing, and retail channels.
Experience with media-pitching and relationship-building skills, with the ability to identify compelling angles and communicate effectively with national, trade, and consumer outlets.
A strong understanding of romance readers, online book communities, social platforms, influencer ecosystems, and the retail landscape.
Excellent writing, presentation, communication, and project management skills, with sharp attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple campaigns and deadlines at once.
A collaborative and solution-oriented approach, with the confidence to lead projects, contribute ideas, and work effectively across teams.
Flexibility, curiosity, sound judgment, and enthusiasm for working in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial publishing environment.

Responsibilities

Lead integrated marketing campaigns for assigned Casablanca and Bloom Books titles, building awareness before publication and creating multiple meaningful consumer touchpoints at launch.
Develop and execute publicity strategies, pitch national, trade, and consumer media, pursue “most anticipated” and “best of” coverage, and create press materials including releases, Q&As, and sell sheets.
Plan and implement author tours, bookstore events, conventions, festivals, and conference appearances in partnership with authors, the romance marketing team, retail marketing, and booksellers.
Develop influencer strategies and title-specific organic social plans that reach romance readers across social and web platforms.
Help shape and execute organic content for Casablanca and Bloom Books imprint channels, supporting launches, promotions, author news, retail moments, backlist opportunities, and community engagement.
Identify relevant trends and cultural moments and translate them into timely, brand-appropriate content that strengthens the imprints and their authors.
Partner with digital and retail marketing teams on consumer advertising, landing pages, lead-generation programs, campaign testing, and other initiatives designed to grow awareness and sales.
Collaborate with sales and retail marketing on preorder campaigns, account exclusives, signed-copy programs, retail placement, annual promotional planning, and opportunities that connect frontlist and backlist titles.
Build strong, trusted relationships with assigned authors; align campaigns with their goals, communicate plans and results clearly, and provide guidance on platform development and the publishing process.
Present marketing plans at Sales Conference and contribute marketing and publicity strategy for prospective authors, acquisitions meetings, and author presentations as needed.
Manage campaign timelines and upstream dependencies, including ARC and marketing-material dates, while tracking performance, audience growth, ROI, point-of-sale results, and bestseller recognition.
Travel to select author events and industry conferences as needed.
Manage two direct reports.