Sara Nelson Talks Books

Posted on February 5, 2009

Publishing insiders were shocked when Sara Nelson, the innovative and well-liked editor in chief of Publisher's Weekly was summarily laid off by Reed Information systems as part of an overall corporate restructuring. Sara totally revamped PW in the time she was there and her columns were always interesting. Now she's speaking out to the New York Observer about her love for books and authors and the publishing industry.

"I think these people are rock stars, I always did," Sara Nelson said. "I think they're cool. I'm much more interested in hearing about what’s going on in Sonny Mehta's head than I am in George Clooney's."
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"There's so much written about how publishers don't know what they're doing," Ms. Nelson said. "But how do you know what to do? You're making a bet on who's gonna like something a year and a half from now. That's without even getting into the economy or anything -- just, 'What's the mood of a number of people going to be a year and a half from now?' If you thought too much about that, you'd shoot yourself."
People in the book business don't tend to go to such extremes, she said, as most of them can't give up the rush they get when they discover a new work and put it out into the world.
"That's the thing about the book business," she said. "You know, things are terrible, but there are not a lot of highs -- legal highs! -- that match that feeling when someone reads a book that they fall in love with. I mean, it is like falling in love -- it's like the world becomes a beautiful place. I really think that that's what happens. And if you happened to fall in love with something, you thought it was a great week, even though 70,000 people lost their jobs."
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"To me, it's like the most fabulous thing, to hang around with a bunch of editors," she said. "It was a big part of my job. ... I loved that part of my job. I will miss that part, though I'm hoping to have a new place to put my column or blog soon, and I hope I will do a fair amount of hanging around when I do that."

Reed has decided that all three of its trade magazines can be edited by just one person. Brian Kenney, editor in chief of School Library Journal, will now also be the editorial director of Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. To decide summarily that PW doesn't need its own editor in chief is just shocking. It's not a smart move on Reed's part. Unless, of course, it's planning on dumping one or more of its trade magazines, or even merging them. Nothing would surprise us at this point.