February 6, 2025
Dear colleagues,
As we move forward in the new year, it is worth pausing a moment to reflect on 2024, a year of unprecedented growth for Open Road.
Our signature Ignition program, which markets eBook backlist on behalf of our 100 publisher partners, began the year with titles from just one of the Big Five publishers. By the end of the year, Ignition was marketing eBook backlist titles from four of the Big Five.
In 2024, the number of titles in Ignition grew 44%, representing the largest annual title increase in our history. At the same time, we continued to double the revenue of titles enrolled in the program. As someone with a long career in book publishing, the idea of consistently doubling sales for eBook backlist titles still seems too good to be true. But, at Open Road, we make it happen every day.
It was seven years ago that the first titles were enrolled in Ignition, so we took a step back in 2024 to analyze results over time. What we found was striking—titles enrolled seven years ago continue to sell at double their historic rates of sale. Not only that—star ratings also steadily improved. Enabling a book’s discovery by reaching the right readers drives both sales and star ratings higher.
Speaking of reaching the right reader, our Activation paid marketing program continues to help publishers find and expand the audience for books in all formats and at all stages of a book’s lifecycle. Highlights included launch campaigns for New York Times bestsellers and debut authors, highly successful giveaways supporting house authors and brands, as well as multiple themed promotions throughout the year ranging from Banned Books to Holiday.
Finding the right readers also drove an exciting year for our Re-Lit publishing program, bringing out-of-print and reverted titles back to life. Re-Lit highlights from 2024 include the republication of six titles by the horror-writing phenomenon Stephen Graham Jones, sparking a day of celebration—SGJ Day—from horror enthusiasts. We re-published Stinger by New York Times bestselling author Robert McCammon, the basis for Teacup, streaming on Peacock. And Re-Lit closed the year by bringing back the book that inspired the Gladiator film franchise: The Way of the Gladiator by Daniel Mannix.
Bloodhound, our entrepreneurial eBook-first UK publisher of crime fiction, is working in concert with the Open Road marketing team to enable discovery on both sides of the Atlantic. Key frontlist in 2024 include The Arsenic Eater’s Wife by Tonya Mitchell and The Deadly Dozen series by Peter Berry. Bloodhound celebrated its ten-year anniversary with a rebrand, marking its growth as a dynamic force in publishing.
This year marked our first foray into the podcasting space with Open Book, which grew organically out of our relationships throughout the industry. Our first two episodes featured Grove Atlantic Publisher Morgan Entrekin and former National Book Foundation Executive Director Lisa Lucas. Other guests included Hachette CEO David Shelley, Mysterious Bookshop founder Otto Penzler, and Writers House President Simon Lipskar. We look forward to many more episodes to come.
Powering our success and growth across Ignition, Activation, Re-Lit, Bloodhound, and the original eBook catalog that dates to the founding of our company fifteen years ago, is Open Road’s proprietary marketing technology. We incorporate vast book and author data and interactions with our first-party audience of power readers, collected daily for over a decade, with data science, machine learning, and automation, refined constantly. It drives extraordinary sales growth, both at the individual title level and at scale, as we approach 100,000 eBook backlist titles on the platform.
As crucial as our marketing platform is to our success, it would be impossible to deliver our record performance without the commitment of our people. Our mission is clear: To use technology to enable books to be discovered—and rediscovered—by readers. Supporting that mission are three essential values: tenacity, proactivity, and taking responsibility for the success of one’s colleagues. The combination of that mission and these values is the foundation for the unique company we are building together.
A deep expression of gratitude to every member of the Open Road team. We are making a difference in the world, and it is all because of you.
Sincerely,
David Steinberger
Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer