Rich Johnson has worked in a variety of positions in the book publishing industry. He has been a bookstore manager, a buyer, head of sales, a writer and a publisher.
Johnson co-founded Yen Press a graphic novel and manga imprint and Yen Plus a monthly manga magazine for Hachette Book Group. Previously he was V.P. of Book Trade Sales for DC Comics where he was a leader in establishing graphic novels as a commercial category in the trade book and library markets. More recently he was V.P. Sales, Marketing and Business Development at Lion Forge. Founder of Brick Road Media, LLC a publishing consultancy, he has advised companies including Penguin USA, Legendary Entertainment/Comics, Archaia Entertainment, The Will Eisner Studios, and Valliant Entertainment. He is presently V.P. Sales and Business Development for Diamond Book Distributors.
He is currently writing a series of art books for Rizzoli featuring Marvel Comics characters. He was the co-editor of COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology for Graphic Mundi, named one of the Best Graphic Novels of the Year by the Washington Post. He acquired Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green for Lion Forge and it was selected as Amazon's Best Graphic Novel for 2017. He has also been an Adjunct Professor at both Drexel University and Pace University.