The partnership kicks off this fall with eight titles by Linda Byler and a selection of Fix-It titles. Open Road will digitize, distribute and market the books. It has similar arrangements with Mysterious Press, Pegasus Books and STC Craft.

“Good Books is a very special and incredibly successful independent publisher that has been a true home for authors for many years,” Open Road publisher Tina Pohlman said in a statement. “We look forward to working with them to bring their books to new readers on e.”

Prologue Books launches with about 150 titles, available through Kindle, Nook, Sony (NYSE: SNE), Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Kobo. (Annoyingly, the buy links through Prologue’s site aren’t working yet so you have to type in specific titles at your etailer of choice.) Pricing varies, with many titles priced at $3.99.

Ben LeRoy, publisher of F+W’s Tyrus Books, is leading the project, said, “I envision Prologue Books not simply as an e-book publisher for out-of-print titles, but as a living record of the crime, science fiction and fantasy genres.” Another 45 titles are coming this month and another 100 vintage sci-fi/fantasy titles will be available by the end of the year.

LeRoy has been acquiring rights to the titles from a variety of sources, including literary agents representing authors’ estates, and authors’ family members.

Other publishers also aim to bring back out-of-print works in digital form. Open Road teamed with Otto Penzler last year to launch MysteriousPress.com, a crime and mystery imprint with titles by authors like Ellery Queen and James Grady. And librarian Nancy Pearl is working with Amazon to launching a series of Kindle editions of some of her favorite out-of-print titles, beginning with two novels to be reissued this spring.

George herself says she is “with Open Road all the way.”

In the complaint it filed in December, HarperCollins said its contract with George, signed in 1971, gives it the right to publish Julie of the Wolves in any format. “The rights that HarperCollins acquired from George plainly encompass such electronic means of distribution, which is but a technology-enabled variant for how consumers can read the Work,” the company said.

Open Road published the Julie of the Wolves e-book in October. In its response to the complaint, Open Road admits that HarperCollins’ contract with George “grants HarperCollins the right to publish Ms. George’s children’s work Julie of the Wolves ‘in book form,’ but denies that such grant includes the right to publish the work as an e-book.”

In its complaint, HarperCollins accused Open Road of “unlawful exploitation” of the e-book rights, calling the company “understandably content to allow HarperCollins to have made its considerable investments in the work, only now to reap where Open Road has not sown by seeking to divert sales of the Work from HarperCollins in the rapidly expanding e-books market.”

Open Road denies this, and said “it is denied HarperCollins made a significant investment in the print publication of Julie of the Wolves, and it is denied HarperCollins made any investment at all in the e-book publication of that work.”

It also “denied that in 2011 (or at any time since the mid-1970′s) HarperCollins spent any money promoting, or in any way promoted, Julie of the Wolves.”

And Open Road “denied that HarperCollins ever intended to publish Julie of the Wolves as an e-book.”

In a statement, George said, “I have asked to intervene in this action to protect my rights under copyright and under my original contract with HarperCollins. When I signed that contract in 1971, e-books did not exist so I could not have granted those rights. I am with Open Road all the way.”

Here’s Open Road’s full response to the complaint:

Open Road Response to HarperCollins complaint

The first e-books will be available at the end of February and will be priced under $5. They will combine expanded versions of previously reported ProPublica stories with new introductions and other features, intended to entice readers into paying for content that is already free online — like “embedded photos, digital video, key documents, maps, sidebars and interviews with journalists and editors.”

ProPublica has already published four Kindle Singles that are available either free or for $0.99. The length of the new books will vary by title.

Many other news organizations, like the LA Times, Guardian and Washington Post (NYSE: WPO), have released e-singles. The ProPublica/Open Road partnership seems to stand out because the titles are enhanced with multimedia and other features.

The first titles are Presidential Pardons: Shades of Mercy, based on a series originally published in the Washington Post, and Post Mortem: Death In America, an “in-depth look at the nation’s dysfunctional coroner and medical examiner offices,” reported in partnership with NPR and Frontline.

“E-books are a very promising platform for publishing journalism with high impact, and therefore a critical venue for ProPublica,” said Paul Steiger, ProPublica editor-in-chief and CEO.

Last month, UK-based literary agency Ed Victor Ltd. announced the launch of its own e-publishing arm, Bedford Square Books, which will digitally publish agency clients’ backlist titles starting in September. Today, the agency and Open Road Integrated Media announced a partnership to also publish those e-books in the U.S.

Open Road, the digital publisher and multimedia content company co-founded by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, will digitally publish, market, and distribute Bedford Square titles in North America. Titles will be available as e-books and through print-on-demand. Some titles include Good Times, Bad Times by Harold Evans and Tales for the Telling by Edna O’Brien.

Open Road will also produce marketing videos about some of the Bedford Square titles.

The new partnership expands the relationship that Open Road and Ed Victor Ltd. already had. As part of its Author Brand Program, Open Road digitally publishes and markets some of Ed Victor clients’ books, including those by Iris Murdoch, Josephine Hart, and Jack Higgins.

The 50 Summer Steals website also includes additional content for each day of the promotion: Daily 1,000-word excerpts; an interactive map based on locations in the e-books; and videos with details about the books’ authors. Today’s excerpt is from Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin.

The promotion is aimed at readers deciding which e-books to buy for the holiday weekend and summer vacations. Featured titles are divided into categories including fiction and literature; mysteries and thrillers; nonfiction; “empowering women writers”; “reads for the soul”; sports books; and children’s books.

“This is our first and largest aggregated, cross-promotion,” said Rachel Chou, Open Road’s chief marketing officer. Open Road previously participated in Amazon Kindle’s Sunshine Deals, and Chou said the company was “very excited” about the results of that promotion, but had already been planning 50 Summer Steals for “quite awhile” before Sunshine Deals ran.

Open Road Integrated Media is the digital publisher and multimedia content company co-founded by Jane Friedman, former CEO of HarperCollins, in 2009. It has published e-books by authors including William Styron, Pat Conroy, and James Jones, and partnered with companies including Akashic Books (Go the F*ck to Sleep) and Thomas Nelson. The company also has book-to-film adaptations, including Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness, in development.