First Half 2017 Financial Highlights:
- OR/M newsletter and branded funnel revenue up 256% over 2016
- OR/M publishing revenue grew 27% over 2016
(New York, NY — July 25, 2017) – Open Road Integrated Media (OR/M), a digital media company, announced results for the first half ending June 30, 2017. Revenue rose 27% while gross profit increased 33% and operating EBITDA improved 43% over the same period in 2016. CEO Paul Slavin commented “we’ve seen double-digit growth quarter over quarter for the past 18 months. Our success is tied to enormous advances in our direct-to-consumer operation.” OR/M recently announced here that the company’s newsletters have now reached the milestone of 1,000,000 subscribers, and the company has launched a full-service marketing platform to drive similar results for external publishers.
“Our customer is at the core of everything we do. The expansion of our newsletter audience and the development of our branded funnel sites give us tremendous audience insights and an agile operation to reach consumers directly. We provide our readers with the best of OR/M’s titles, and the launch of our full-service marketing allows us to work with other publishers to serve our customers an even broader selection of bestselling books,” Slavin said.
Bucking industry trends (In June 2017, the AAP reported an industry-wide decline of 15.6% in eBook revenue), OR/M’s publishing business continued the momentum they saw throughout 2016. The strong sales have been driven primarily by its cadre of iconic backlist authors: Octavia Butler, Pearl S. Buck, Gertrude C. Warner, John Jakes, Ellis Peters, Taylor Caldwell, Pat Conroy, Patricia Wentworth, James Herriot, and Robert R. McCammon.
Audience development and engagement strategies resulted in a milestone of 1,000,000 subscribers for the company. This drove tremendous financial performance from OR/M’s newsletters with a 256% year-over-year increase in revenue, which is attributed to accelerated audience acquisition, improved customer relationship management and a focused content curation effort. In addition to its three existing newsletters: Early Bird Books for daily deals, The Lineup for fans of true crime and horror, and The Portalist for fans of science fiction and fantasy, OR/M has launched three additional newsletters: A Love So True for fans of romance, Murder & Mayhem for fans of mystery, and The Archive for fans of history and non-fiction. These newsletters, along with their corresponding branded funnel sites, provide earned media for OR/M’s eBooks, and drive retail sales and customer acquisition for the newsletters.
About Open Road Integrated Media
Open Road Integrated Media is a prestige content brand delivering digital experiences that entertain and inform readers around the world; their network of digital properties produces compelling stories that keep audiences engaged—across devices and around the world. The Open Road brands include Early Bird Books, a daily eBook deals newsletter and website; The Lineup, for fans of true crime, horror, the mysterious, and the paranormal; The Portalist, for fans of science fiction, fantasy; Murder & Mayhem, for fans of mystery and thriller; The Archive, for fans of history and non-fiction; and A Love So True, for fans of romance; and Open Road Media, a global eBook publisher whose catalog includes legendary authors such as William Styron, Alice Walker, Pat Conroy, Gloria Steinem, Octavia Butler, John Jakes, Pearl S. Buck, Walker Percy, Ruth Rendell, and Sherman Alexie.
