 | |
 Cover of the November 6, 2006 issue | |
| Editorial Director | Jonathan Segura |
|---|---|
| Categories | Publishing Book reviews Trade magazine |
| Frequency | Weekly |
| Publisher | Joe Murray |
| Total circulation (2017) | 24,000[1] |
| First issue | 1872; 153 years ago (1872) |
| Company | PWxyz, LLC |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City |
| Language | English |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0000-0019 |
| OCLC | 2489456 |
Publishers Weekly (PW) is an American weekly tradenews magazine targeted atpublishers,librarians,booksellers, andliterary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling." With 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is onbook reviews.[2]
The magazine was founded bybibliographerFrederick Leypoldt in the late 1860s and had various titles until Leypoldt settled on the nameThe Publishers' Weekly (with an apostrophe) in 1872. The publication was a compilation of information about newly published books, collected from publishers and from other sources by Leypoldt, for an audience of booksellers. By 1876,The Publishers' Weekly was being read by nine tenths of the booksellers in the country.
In 1878, Leypoldt soldThe Publishers' Weekly to his friendRichard Rogers Bowker, in order to free up time for his other bibliographic endeavors.[3] Augusta Garrigue Leypoldt, wife of Frederick Leypoldt, stayed with the publication for thirty years.[4] The publication eventually expanded to include features and articles.[5]
Harry Thurston Peck was the first editor-in-chief ofThe Bookman, which began in 1895. Peck worked on its staff from 1895 to 1906, and in 1895, he created the world's first bestseller list for its pages.
In 1912,Publishers Weekly began to publishits own bestseller lists, patterned after the lists inThe Bookman. These were not separated into fiction and non-fiction until 1917, whenWorld War I brought an increased interest in non-fiction by the reading public.[5][6]
For much of the twentieth century,Publishers Weekly was guided and developed byFrederic Gershom Melcher (1879–1963), who was editor and co-editor ofPublishers' Weekly and chairman of the magazine's publisher,R. R. Bowker, over four decades. Born April 12, 1879, inMalden, Massachusetts, Melcher began at age 16 inBoston's Estes & Lauriat Bookstore, where he developed an interest in children's books.[7] He moved toIndianapolis in 1913 for another bookstore job. In 1918, he read inPublishers' Weekly that the magazine's editorship was vacant. He applied to Richard Rogers Bowker for the job, was hired, and moved with his family toMontclair, New Jersey. He remained with R. R. Bowker for 45 years.[7]
While atPublishers Weekly, Melcher began creating space in the publication and a number of issues dedicated solely to books for children.[8] In 1919, he teamed with Franklin K. Mathiews, librarian for theBoy Scouts of America, andAnne Carroll Moore, a librarian at theNew York Public Library, to createChildren's Book Week.[7]
When Bowker died in 1933, Melcher succeeded him as president of the company; he resigned in 1959 to become chairman of the board of directors.[5][9]
In 1943,Publishers Weekly created the Carey–Thomas Award for creative publishing, naming it in honor ofMathew Carey andIsaiah Thomas.[10]
For most of its history,Publishers Weekly, along with theLibrary Journal-related titles, were owned by founding publisher R. R. Bowker. WhenReed Publishing purchased Bowker fromXerox in 1985, it placedPublishers Weekly under the management of its Boston-based Cahners Publishing Company, the trade publishing empire founded by Norman Cahners, which Reed Publishing had purchased in 1977.
The merger of Reed with theNetherlands-based Elsevier in 1993 led to many Cahners cutbacks amid takeover turmoil. Nora Rawlinson, who once headed a $4 million book selection budget at theBaltimore County Library System, editedLibrary Journal for four years prior to becoming editor-in-chief ofPublishers Weekly in 1992, where he served until 2005.
In 2005, the magazine came under the direction of a new editor-in-chief, veteran book reviewerSara Nelson, known for publishing columns in theNew York Post andThe New York Observer.[11]Nelson began to modernizePublishers Weekly with new features and a makeover by illustrator and graphic designerJean-Claude Suares. The switch to a simple abbreviated logo of initials effectively changed the name of the magazine toPW, the name long used for the magazine within the book industry.[2]
She also introduced the magazine's short-livedQuill Awards, with nominees in 19 categories selected by a nominating board of 6,000 booksellers and librarians. Winners were determined by the reading public, who could vote at kiosks inBorders stores or online at the Quills site. Reed Business dropped the Quill Awards in 2008.[12]
Since 1872, the front covers ofPublishers Weekly were used to display advertisements by book publishers.PW editorial covers now feature illustrations and author photographs tied to interior articles, these covers follow the front cover advertisement. The visual motif of each cover is sometimes repeated on the contents page.[2]
The Nelson years were marked by turbulence within the industry as well as a continuing trend away from serious writing and towardspop culture.Publishers Weekly has enjoyed a near monopoly over the past decades, but now with vigorous competition from Internet sites, e-mail newsletters, and daily newspapers.[13]
In 2008, faced with a decline in advertising support, Reed's management sought a new direction. In January 2009, Sara Nelson was dismissed along with executive editor Daisy Maryles, who had been withPW for more than four decades. Stepping in as editorial director was Brian Kenney, editorial director ofSchool Library Journal andLibrary Journal.[2] The dismissals, which sent shockwaves through the industry, were widely covered in newspapers.[14]
In April 2010, George W. Slowik Jr., a former publisher of the magazine, purchasedPublishers Weekly from Reed Business Information, under the company PWxyz, LLC. Cevin Bryerman remained as publisher along with co-editors Jim Milliot and Michael Coffey.[2]
On September 22, 2011,PW began a series of weekly podcasts: "Beyond the Book: PW's Week Ahead".[15]
In 2019,The Millions was acquired by PWxyz.[16]
PW maintains an online archive of past book reviews from January 1991 to the present.[17] The earliest articles posted inPW's online archive date back to November 1995. A redesigned website was unveiled on May 10, 2010.[2]
In 2008, the magazine's circulation was 25,000. In 2004, the breakdown of those 25,000 readers was given as 6000 publishers; 5500 public libraries and public library systems; 3800 booksellers; 1600 authors and writers; 1500 college and university libraries; 950 print, film and broad media; and 750 literary and rights agents, among others.
Subject areas covered byPublishers Weekly include publishing, bookselling, marketing, merchandising and trade news, along with author interviews and regular columns on rights, people in publishing, and bestsellers. It attempts to serve all involved in the creation, production, marketing and sale of the written word in book, audio, video and electronic formats. The magazine increases the page count considerably for four annual special issues: Spring Adult Announcements, Fall Adult Announcements, Spring Children's Announcements, and Fall Children's Announcements.[2]
The book review section ofPublishers Weekly was added in the early 1940s and grew in importance during the 20th century and through the present day.[when?] It currently offers prepublication reviews of 9,000 new trade books each year, in a comprehensive range of genres and includingaudiobooks andebooks, with a digitized archive of 200,000 reviews. Reviews appear two to four months prior to the publication date of a book, and until 2014, whenPW launched BookLife.com, a website for self-published books, books already in print were seldom reviewed.[18]
These anonymous reviews are short, averaging 200–250 words, and it is not unusual for the review section to run as long as 40 pages, filling the second half of the magazine. In the past, a book review editorial staff of eight editors assigned books to more than 100 freelance reviewers. Some are published authors, and others are experts in specific genres or subjects. Although it might take a week or more to read and analyze some books, reviewers were paid $45 per review until June 2008, when the magazine introduced a reduction in payment to $25 a review. In a further policy change that month, reviewers received credit as contributors in issues carrying their reviews. Currently, there are nine reviews editors listed in the masthead.
Now titled "Reviews", the review section began life as "Forecasts". For several years, that title was taken literally; reviews were followed with italicized comments that attempted to predict a book's sales success. Genevieve Stuttaford, who greatly expanded the number of reviews during her tenure as the nonfiction "Forecasts" editor, joined thePW staff in 1975. Previously, she was aSaturday Review associate editor, reviewer forKirkus Reviews and for 12 years on the staff of theSan Francisco Chronicle. During the 23 years Stuttaford was withPublishers Weekly, book reviewing was increased from an average of 3,800 titles a year in the 1970s to well over 6,500 titles in 1997. She retired in 1998.[2][19]
Several notablePW editors stand out for making their mark on the magazine. Barbara Bannon was the head fiction reviewer during the 1970s and early 1980s, becoming the magazine's executive editor during that time and retiring in 1983. She was, notably, the first reviewer to insist that her name be appended to anyblurb of her reviews, thus drawing attention to herself, to the review and to the influence of the magazine in predicting a book's popularity and salability.[20]
Sybil Steinberg came toPublishers Weekly in the mid-1970s and served as a reviews editor for 30 years, taking over after Barbara Bannon retired. Under Steinberg,PW instituted the starred review, a first in the industry, to indicate books of exceptional merit. She also called out particular books of merit by starting the practice of boxed reviews, a precursor to thePW "signature reviews", boxed reviews that are attributed to the reviewer. The "Best Books" lists were also Steinberg's brainchild, and these lists are still published annually, usually in November ahead of "Best Books" lists fromThe New York Times and other prominent review venues. Steinberg edited the magazine's author interviews, and beginning in 1992 put together four anthologies of them in book form, published by thePushcart Press.
Formerly ofInStyle magazine, novelist Louisa Ermelino took the reins of thePW review section in 2005. Under her watch, the number of reviews grew once again, to nearly 9,000 per year from 6,500.[citation needed]
In a sea change for the magazine, Ermelino oversaw the integration of self-published book reviews into the main review section of the magazine. Review editors vet and assign self-published books for review, which reviews are then published alongside the reviews of traditionally published books each week in the magazine.[21]
Publishers Weekly does charge for self-published book reviews following the trend within the industry led byKirkus Reviews andForeword's Clarion fee-for-review service, both of which offer independent book reviews in exchange for fees in the hundreds of dollars.[22][23]
Publishers Weekly does syndicate its reviews to a variety of online retail venues such asAmazon,Apple Books, Powell's Books,Books-a-Million, and others. The reviews are also carried by library database services such asBaker and Taylor,ProQuest,Bowker,Cengage,EBSCO, and others.
Circ: Paid 24000.
Sara Nelson, ... who was previously a publishing columnist for The New York Post and worked at The New York Observer
AtPublisher's Weekly [sic], the layoffs include Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief...
