After a month in his position, CEO David Steinberger sent a letter to all Open Road Media colleagues (and a press release to the media), noting the company’s recent accomplishments. They include growing the backlist by 20 percent (to over 35,000 titles) and achieving an annual revenue growth rate of 20 percent in the last three years. Their email newsletters now reach 1.9 million subscribers, an increase of 25 percent over a year ago. Steinberger writes, “As many of you know, I had the chance to work with Open Road back in 2017 and 2018 on a consulting basis. When I first arrived and was told that Open Road’s data science platform could double the sales of backlist books, I could not have been more skeptical—it sounded impossible. But it turned out to be true, and I found the implications of that reality to be beyond exciting.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
