A little more than one month after leading an investment group that acquired Open Road Integrated Media, David Steinberger sent a companywide email discussing what he called “an extraordinary year.”
Steinberger reported that over the last three years revenue at the company rose at an annual rate of more than 20%; sales are estimated to be close to $50 million. Steinberger attributed the increase to more publishers using Open Road’s services, as well as publishers that already using the service adding more titles.
He noted that in 2021 the number of backlist titles on Open Road’s proprietary platform increased by more than 20%, to over 35,000. Steinberger said that publishers continue to use Open Road because of its ability to dramatically increase visibility, and sales, of backlist e-books. Across its entire catalog, sales rose by more than 100% and Steinberger said that for titles added in 2021 new customer reviews topped 100,000.
Another key to the company’s growth was attributed to the “broader range” of publishers using the company, Steinberger said. These new publishers added in 2021 included Chronicle Books, Andrews McMeel, Johns Hopkins University Press, and Permuted Press. Last year also saw 100% or more sales increases in a wider number of categories, including in segments that are not generally associated with strong e-book sales, such as cooking and crafts.
Steinberger said Open Road handled marketing campaigns for more than 50,000 titles in December alone. The company’s eight newsletters now reach 1.9 million subscribers, an increase of more than 25% compared with 2020. In combination with readers visiting Open Road's six content sites every month, the company's total monthly audience is now more than three million.
Last year also saw Open Road acquire Bloodhound Books, an U.K.-based publisher of commercial fiction. Steinberger noted that Open Road is working with the publisher to use the company’s platform to increase frontlist and backlist sales. “Bloodhound adds new titles and new possibilities to our role as a publisher which continues to be a vitally important source of revenue for Open Road,” Steinberger wrote.
This added to Open Road's proprietary catalog of e-book rights, which now amounts to some 11,000 titles.
Steinberger closed by reiterating comments he made when the acquisition of Open Road was first announced—that before he joined Open Road as a consultant in 2017, he was skeptical of claims that it could double the sales of backlist titles—“but it turned out to be true, and I found the implications of that reality to be beyond exciting.”
