Open Road Integrated Media or ORIM (stylized as OR/M and also called Open Road) is a digital media company in New York City that was created by

Jane Friedman Jane Friedman is the Co-Founder of Open Road Integrated Media, which sells and markets ebooks. She was the President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, one of the world's leading English-language publishers, from 1 ...

and Jeffrey Sharp in 2009 with a focus on publishing ebook editions of older works of literature and nonfiction. In addition to its ebook publishing business, Open Road Integrated Media is the parent company of book publisher Open Road Media and content brands Early Bird Books, The Lineup, The Archive, Murder & Mayhem, A Love So True, and The Portalist. Publishing veteran David Steinberger and an investment group including Abry Partners, MEP Capital, and Grove Atlantic acquired the company in 2021, and Steinberger was named CEO in 2022.

History

Former HarperCollins CEO

and film producer Jeffrey Sharp launched Open Road Integrated Media with the goal of bringing backlist books back to life in digital formats and partnering with writers of contemporary and classic works. The Open Road Media catalog includes authors such as William Styron,

Pat Conroy Donald Patrick Conroy (October 26, 1945 – March 4, 2016) was an American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs; his books ''The Water Is Wide (book), The Water is Wide'', ''The Lords of Discipline'', ''The Prince of Tides (no ...

Joan Didion Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. Didio ...

Samuel R. Delany Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (, ; born April 1, 1942) is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexual orientation, sexuality, and ...

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awa ...

John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

, Robin McKinley,

Michael Chabon Michael Chabon ( ; born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, ...

, Sherman Alexie, Pearl S. Buck, Elizabeth Lynn and Dee Brown. In 2011,

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

filed a copyright infringement suit against Open Road over the ebook edition of children's novel '' Julie of the Wolves'' by Jean Craighead George. The suit disputed whether book contracts written before the existence of ebooks granted publishers digital rights or whether they were retained by the author. In March 2014, the New York district court judge ruled in favor of HarperCollins, stating that the contract language included digital rights. After acquiring the content of independent publishers E-Reads and Premier Digital in 2014, and signing deals with other publishers and authors, the Open Road Media catalog expanded to 10,000 titles by 2015. Media veteran Paul Slavin joined the company as president in 2015 and was named CEO in 2016. In 2016, Open Road partnered with OverDrive, Inc. to provide browser-based ebooks to elementary school libraries. In July 2021, the company acquired the independent Cambridge, UK ebook publisher Bloodhound Books. David Steinberger, formerly CEO of

Perseus Books Group Perseus Books Group was an American publishing company founded in year 1996 by investor Frank Pearl. Perseus acquired the trade publishing division of Addison-Wesley (including the Merloyd Lawrence imprint) in 1997. In 2005, Perseus acquired ...

and

Arcadia Publishing Arcadia Publishing is an American Publishing, publisher of neighborhood, local history, local, and regional history of the United States in pictorial form.(analysis of the successful ''Images of America'' series). Arcadia Publishing also runs th ...

, led an investment group that acquired Open Road Integrated Media in 2021. The sale was reported to be between $60 and $80 million. Steinberger became CEO in January 2022. In May 2023, Open Road launched Re-Discovery Lit, an imprint to publish books that had gone out of print or otherwise been reverted by publishers back to authors. According to the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', Re-Discovery Lit utilizes Open Road’s “machine learning technology” to find readers for these republished works, which include books by authors such as Barbara Delinsky and Roger Angell.

Imprints

* Re-Discovery Lit * Open Road Media * Open Road Media Young Readers * Bloodhound Books

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.openroadintegratedmedia.com/ Corporate website
Open Road Media ebook publishing

Bloodhound Books - UK ebook publisher division
Publishing companies established in 2009 Publishing companies based in New York City American companies established in 2009 2009 establishments in New York City