Publishers Weekly Magazine

Eric Kallgren    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 2:40pm on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

On February 3, 2009, the New York Observer interviewed Sara Nelson, who has just been laid off as editor of Publishers Weekly:

“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.”

This was Friday afternoon, and Ms. Nelson, 52, was in her office at Publishers Weekly, where until the end of last week she was editor in chief. Surrounded by boxes of books that she’d been packing since being told the previous Monday morning that she was being laid off, Ms. Nelson was battling an unforgiving cold, sneezing and sniffling emphatically.

She talked about how much she loves the book business. After nine years on the beat—four of them as editor of PW—she speaks of her subjects with warmth, and describes their sorrows as if they were her own.

“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.”