US backlist republishing specialist Open Road has bought the British independent ebook publisher Bloodhound Books.
Bloodhound was set up in the UK in 2014 by Betsy Reavley and Fred Freeman and has sold more than six million books worldwide. It publishes commercial genres, including crime fiction, women’s fiction, suspense, mystery, romantic comedies, historical fiction, cosy crime, domestic noir, and psychological thriller.
Open Road/Media is a global ebook publishing which has republished works from authors such as William Styron, Alice Walker, Pat Conroy, Gloria Steinem, Octavia Butler, John Jakes, Pearl S Buck, Walker Percy, and Ruth Rendell.
OR/M has strong marketing partnerships, digital library assets and 11,000 titles, and runs on a technology-enabled and data-informed approach. It has a community of more than 14,000 authors and over three million consumers with easy discovery for all of its content and books.
Paul Slavin, CEO at OR/M, says, ‘The acquisition of Bloodhound Books is demonstrative of the evolution of the publishing industry, and the opportunity for publishers and authors to align more directly with consumer interests and habits. OR/M is uniquely positioned to lead the publishing industry towards a better business model that leans into digital marketing and better leverages data-informed strategies. This acquisition is a huge positive, not only for shaping the future growth of Bloodhound, but also in helping to pave a better, more accessible digital path and discovery process for the publishing market as a whole.’
Betsy Reavley, Director, Bloodhound Books, says, ‘The market and consumer behaviour have both changed dramatically in the past year. Our authors have been a real part of the Bloodhound family and have played a crucial role in the business’s success. We needed to find a way to expand the business from our audience reach to our marketing capabilities. We are extremely excited about joining the OR/M team, which will give us the opportunity to do just this – to provide the very best in content from our authors to a wide audience and to give them a community to collaborate and share their works.’
The Bloodhound brand will be retained in all markets and Betsy Reavley and Fred Freeman will stay on board at OR/M.
Bloodhound is open to submissions from authors and you can get more details on their website at Bloodhound Books.
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