Open Road Integrated Media Announces Expansion of Open Road Ignition

NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Open Road Integrated Media (OR/M) vastly expanded Open Road Ignition (Ignition), its marketing services program for publishers. Grounded in revenue-share partnerships, Ignition delivered a 156% increase in revenue across all partner titles in the program. In 2018 over 30 publishers signed on to the program delivering over 6,100 titles.

The program has breathed new life into backlist titles, landing several on the Wall Street Journal bestseller lists and Amazon Charts Most Read and Most Sold.

Paul Slavin, CEO, OR/M said, "Publishers are choosing Ignition because the service generates significant revenue, stimulates demand for their authors, and provides them with a turnkey digital solution for their titles."

"Top gainers in the program are familiar names within publishing but have been out of the retail spotlight for some time," noted OR/M CMO Mary McAveney. "Eudora Welty (Delta Wedding), Peter Hedges (What's Eating Gilbert Grape) Tim O'Brien (July, July) T.S. Eliot (Complete Poems and Plays), Margery Allingham (The Tiger in the Smoke), Umberto Eco (Kant and the Platypus) are just a handful of authors who have enjoyed a resurgence of interest. Others are still actively publishing but also have a significant collection of work that have seen a spark of life since becoming part of the Ignition program: Anil Ananthaswamy (Edge of Physics), Mark Bowden (Doctor Dealer), and Cynthia Ozick (Heir to the Glimmering World)."

Morgan Entrekin, CEO and Publisher of Grove Atlantic has several hundred titles in the program: "Our partnership with Open Road has dramatically increased the sales of a wide range of our backlist titles. The increased revenue for both Grove and the authors is great—but even more exciting is that this initiative is helping introduce these worthy books to new readers."

"In 2018, we focused on maintaining profitability, building the necessary technology to scale our efforts, and populating a consumer data platform to collect information that helps us serve our consumers," Slavin said. "We occupy a niche unfilled by others, and we are poised to deliver significant revenue growth year-over-year for the next few years."

Highlights:

• OR/M expanded the number of readers on its sites, social networks, and newsletters to over 24M this year. Employing search trends to enhance interest in books and brands, its digital properties attract new audiences: Early Bird Books, The Portalist, Murder & Mayhem, The Archive, A Love So True, and The Lineup.
• OR/M introduced The Reader newsletter, that delivers news on new and backlist books to approximately 80K young professionals who are highly educated, affluent and voracious readers.
• OR/M's Creepy Crate, a bi-monthly curated crate full of horror, paranormal and true-crime related products—increased subscriptions by 32.4%. This highly influential and vocal audience generated over 100,000 unboxing videos to reveal and review the crates.

About Open Road Ignition
Ignition is a suite of tiered marketing services that offers publishers, brands, and authors OR/M's consumer marketing and sales expertise. The highest level is a revenue-share program in which OR/M manages the complete 360-degree marketing for selected titles. Once the partner's baseline revenue is met, OR/M shares all sales over baseline with the participating publisher. Although the publishing industry has traditionally reported consistent year-over-year declines in ebook sales, the partner pays nothing until OR/M have exceeded sales from the previous period.

About Open Road Integrated Media
Open Road Integrated Media is a consumer-focused e-marketing company uniquely positioned through its owned audiences to directly deliver consumer conversion and revenue.

Contact: Mary McAveney
Open Road Integrated Media
[email protected]
Phone: 212.691.0900

SOURCE Open Road Integrated Media

Related Links

http://www.openroadintegratedmedia.com