Since Blue Star Press was founded in 2015, the Bend, Ore.—based independent publisher has grown steadily, if somewhat quietly. But that low profile changed on June 3, with the announcement that Blue Star had bought the better-known Pacific Northwest publisher Sasquatch Books, which was founded in 1986 in Seattle by David Brewster and acquired by Penguin Random House in 2017. The purchase added more than 1,000 titles across all formats to Blue Star’s backlist of 187 titles, increased the size of its workforce by about one-third to 30, and moved the company into a number of new publishing categories, including nature, travel, lifestyle, and food.
“I’d been looking to buy something for some time,” said Blue Star cofounder and CEO Peter Licalzi. “Sasquatch will help us diversify our list.” Licalzi, 38, founded Blue Star with his wife, Brenna, and two friends, and no one in the group had a publishing background. Licalzi was in marketing and business development for a construction company and his wife was a recruiter for a healthcare company. However, Licalzi had some design experience and one of the other cofounders, Camden Hendricks, knew the publishing basics and how to sell on Amazon, so the decision was made to self-publish a couple of adult coloring books. As fate would have it, the adult coloring book craze was just around the corner, and two Blue Star books ended up on Amazon’s top 10 bestseller list in 2015, selling more than 500,000 copies. “We decided to parlay that into a full-blown publishing company,” Licalzi told PW.
The first thing the team did was expand into other categories such as arts and crafts, children’s, gift books, health and wellness, and lifestyle. Soon after getting into publishing full-time, Licalzi said he quickly realized the importance of three things—publishing quality titles, building an efficient backend, and scaling up as quickly as possible. Licalzi said that the hardest thing to get his head around was inventory management. “Once I got a handle on that, things began to turn around,” he said.
Even as it began to grow, Blue Star employed a cautious approach to the number of titles it published annually. In 2021, when Blue Star ended a three-year run on the PW fast-growing independent publisher list (it no longer qualifies for the list since sales now exceed the $10 million cap), the company released 25 new books. In the last couple of years, Blue Star has upped its output to about 40 books annually, but still favors “quality over quantity,” Licalzi said. He takes pride in pointing out a few statistics: of the 192 titles Blue Star has published, only five have gone out of print; and the average sales per title is about 25,000 copies.
Licalzi has made some changes since acquiring Sasquatch. Shortly after the purchase, he appointed Callisto Media veterans Frances Baca and Brian Hurley as president and publishing director, respectively. (Baca had been consulting with Blue Star since leaving Callisto in 2021). Sarah Hanson, who had been Sasquatch's publisher, is helping with the transition. While a few staffers have left, there have been several promotions as well, including Peggy Gannon, who was named senior production manager, and Tony Ong and Anna Goldstein, who have been promoted to art director and executive art director, respectively.
Licalzi said his plan for Sasquatch is simple: once he gets to know the people and books better, he intends to “stay out of the way." "They publish great books," he said of Sasquatch, "and we hope to help them sell more of them.” Licalzi’s initial focus will be on finding new marketing and promotional opportunities for Sasquatch’s backlist.
The Sasquatch acquisition also reflects Licalzi’s business philosophy of trying new things rather than remaining in one publishing lane. In addition to publishing books, Blue Star also produces puzzles, games, and cards. Licalzi estimated about 90% of its products are generated in-house and said a key to Blue Star’s success has been working with creators who are interested in remaining with Blue Star longterm while establishing a brand.
Blue Star has a good track record creating brands, among them the Little Adventures series by watercolor artist and licensed speech therapist Tabitha Paige, who combines language skills development with watercolor art in a collection of early education books for children up to age five. Blue Star’s Paige Tate & Co. imprint has released five products with Paige that have sold more than 200,000 copies and has plans to release as many as five new titles in fall 2024 and spring 2025.
Also in the children’s area is Mike Alfaro’s Sí Sabo Kids. Designed for children up to three, the series features a collection of books, puzzles, and games that foster early Spanish language development. The first box set, Los Street Vendors, was released in March, and three more are planned for this fall.
One of Blue Star’s longest running relationships is with Alli Koch, who Blue Star has partnered with to create four coloring books, several how-to-draw books for adults, and more recently a how-to-draw activity books series for kids. To date, Blue Star has sold more than 400,000 copies of Koch's 15 products.
Blue Star has also partnered with Maria Shriver and Patrick Schwarzenegger and their brain health brand MOSH to create a series of puzzle books—crossword, word search, and sudoku—to support the sale of their MOSH healthy brain food. And on the other side of the food spectrum, Blue Star’s custom publishing arm is working with Texas-based fast food chain Whataburger to produce five to seven new products annually, with the release of its first titles due in fall 2024.
While Licalzi knows that publishing has its challenges, he is excited about continuing to grow the company into a mid-sized publisher. “We’re young and so far we are having a blast,” he said. "There is no reason to stop now."
