Open Road Integrated Media Announces Q3 Sales Up Led by a 30.8% YoY Increase in September

NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Open Road Integrated Media (OR/M) reported strong sales for Q3 2018 fueled by the rapid expansion of Open Road Ignition (Ignition), a marketing services program for publishers based on a revenue-share partnership. Ignition delivered a 719.2% increase in revenue and an average revenue uplift of 171.4% across all partner titles in the program.

"Ignition has 28 publishers whose 5,106 titles are being served to millions of consumers through OR/M's communities of readers," said Paul Slavin, CEO. "We're not slowing down – we are adding partners rapidly. These 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. The OR/M team is doing a fantastic job building and innovating for these publishers."

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."

OR/M's company-wide financials show a year-over-year quarterly revenue increase of 13.8%, an overall 53.9% improvement in contribution profit, and a 127.8% improvement in EBITDA, amounting to record profits for the company in Q3 2018.

Highlights:

• OR/M expanded the number of readers on its sites, social networks, and newsletters to over 6M this quarter. Employing search trends to enhance interest in books and brands, its digital properties are attracting new audiences: Early Bird Books, audience increase of 128%, The Portalist audience increase of 141%, Murder & Mayhem, audience increase of 839%, The Archive, audience increase of 556%, and A Love So True, audience increase of 3,718%,  The Lineup, audience increase of 10%.
• OR/M introduced The Reader newsletter, that delivers news on frontlist and backlist books to approximately 100K young professionals who are highly educated, affluent and voracious readers.
• OR/M launched The Murder Chronicles—a monthly subscription-based mystery experience for fans of Murder & Mayhem. As part of the launch, OR/M partnered with Sourcebooks to launch The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle to this audience.
• OR/M and Top5s announced a partnership on Creepy Crate, a bi-monthly curated crate of horror, paranormal and true-crime related products—increasing subscriptions by 50%. This highly influential and vocal audience have 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 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.

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

SOURCE Open Road Integrated Media