Founded in 2009 by Jane Friedman (the former CEO of HarperCollins, not the editor of this newsletter), Open Road launched with a focus on acquiring and selling backlist books in ebook format. At the time, ebook rights could be acquired separately from print book rights, especially for books under older contracts. Importantly, Open Road offered authors much better royalties than what they could receive from their print publishers (50 versus 25 percent net).
Today, Open Road publishes more than 10,000 titles but has pivoted to become a digital marketing powerhouse that helps dozens of publishers market and sell their books through online retail. It was purchased by an investor group led by David Steinberger, former CEO of Arcadia Publishing and Perseus Group, with private equity firms involved. Steinberger will take over as CEO in the new year. In a press release, Steinberger says, “Data science represents the next frontier in book publishing. The title-by-title impact on sales is unlike anything I’ve encountered in my 25 years in the industry.”
Steinberger told Publishers Lunch (subscription required) that Open Road possesses a level of sophistication in its ability to promote backlist ebooks in an automated fashion at scale that is not well understood by the industry. Part of the growth strategy is helping publishers understand what the company does and how they can grow backlist ebook sales.
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.
