Many publishers in the US (and overseas!) have been licensing more and more BL in English in recent years! Tokyopop’s LoveLove imprint is overwhelmingly BL. Seven Seas Entertainment‘s weekly Wonderful Wednesdays licensing announcement often have BL, occasionally making up nearly half of the announced titles. They have been known for licensing many Chinese BL novels (danmei) since late 2021. Indie publisher Denpa has been releasing BL manga under their imprint Kuma. YenPress introduced their imprint Ize Press, whose lineup includes Korean BL manhwa and novels. Penguin Random House now has Inklore, which has also released some BL. More recently, J-Novel Club announced their BL imprint Knight last year, and plan to announce titles soon. These publishers have been announcing a great number of BL, with catalogs that may one day rival long-time BL publishers such as SuBLime and Juné (imprint of Digital Manga Publishing).

Japanese companies and publishers have also started to join in the English market, though digitally. Japanese publisher Takeshobo has their own in-house team and ShuCream previously released their own titles before working with publishers like Tokyopop, who has licensed many titles from ShuCream’s BL magazine from RED. Animate International, a company which mainly focuses on importing goods to Japan, also began to license manga. There are also companies who are both publisher and platform, such as Futekiya (which is now a part of the service Manga Planet), Renta!, and MangaPlaza. Though I said they were mainly digital, Futekiya/Manga Planet and Animate International have actually started to print some of their titles. In the United States, books from both of these publishers are currently available for purchase from Kinokuniya USA.

While there has been an increase in BL overall, there have been little updates on Juné’s releases and ongoing titles. This includes the second edition print of Even So, I Will Love You Tenderly by Kou Yoneda, which released digitally last summer. There has been no announcement regarding the physical print since then. Juné has been licensing BL for over two decades now, but no longer release as much…

As for the types of BL being published, Japanese manga continues to be the largest. However, novels and print versions of webcomics have also been increasingly popular. As previously mentioned, Chinese BL webnovels, known as danmei, has been very popular. Even manhua have been released. Indie publishers of danmei include Hai Tang, Rosmei (Singapore) and Via Lactea (Canada). While Via Lactea books are available through major retailers, Rosmei books can only be purchased through select partner retailers. For indie publishers and manhua, Aloha Comics has published two: the Taiwanese manhua Day Off and Chinese manhua Here U Are. Similar has happened with Korean BL manhwa and webnovels. While Korean BL is primarily released digitally in English, some have been printed. One indie publisher called Publang has recently announced print releases for some of their novel titles.

Outside East Asian BL, Thai BL has also been gaining traction. In particular, novels SOTUS and The Red Thread have gotten Japanese manga adaptations. Both titles are available in English through YenPress.

As a fan, the BL boom is real! And keeping up with titles is definitely costly… In addition to larger US publishers releasing BL novels and comics, there are many smaller publishers whose titles may be worth checking out as well! Hope this was a slightly helpful rundown, even though it may have been information overload.

2025.05.17 Edit:
I forgot to mention indie publisher Star Fruit Books! They have a few BL manga available too, including a self-published series called When Pink Rain Falls.

2025.05.26 Edit: I also forgot to mention BLoved Publishing, another indie publisher who has licensed the Korean BL novel and manhwa adaptation of Dear Benjamin and Japanese BL novel series Deadlock.

2025.07.08: I’ve added more publishers to the list not previously mentioned in this post, including BluPetal, another new publisher staffed by people who have experience at other publishers.

I’ve created a table of publishers that have published BL! Hope to keep this updated.
Here’s a preview:

Last Edited: 2025.07.08