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Electronic “is going to be the center of the universe,” said Ms. Friedman, a flamboyant and relentless booster of authors during her four-decade career in New York publishing. “We really think that what we’re going to do is to help transform the industry, which is built on models that we all know are broken.”

Although she provided few specifics, Ms. Friedman said Open Road would use a new proprietary online marketing platform to promote backlist titles on blogs, Twitter and social networking sites.

Because many authors signed print contracts before the growing world of e-books was contemplated, many older works are not currently available in official e-book form. Ms. Friedman has secured a contract to publish Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” in an e-book edition and is negotiating with the estate of Michael Crichton for the e-book rights to several titles.