Tidings from the US publishing industry becomes more dire by the moment.
Breaking news from the Los Angeles Times book blog is that Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, the main trade magazine of the book industry, was laid off this morning. She is the latest victim of restructuring, in this case of the owners of Publishers Weekly, Reed Business Information Services, which is laying off 7% of its staff.
Pundits agree that this is a bizarre decision, because Sara Nelson, 52, has worked hard and forcefully to become a major advocate for books.
Could it herald an even stranger future? Could Reed possibly be thinking of combining PW with the other two publishers' and editors' bibles, Library Journal and School Library Journal? Brian Kenney, editor in chief of School Library Journal, will now be editorial director of all three.
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And now three more editors at PW, Executive Editor Daisy Maryles, Children's Reviews Editor Elizabeth Devereaux, and Bookselling Editor Kevin Howell, have also been fired. Is it part of a larger plan or just part of the lay-off flood?
Something like 75,000 lay-offs at various firms in various industries were announced on Monday alone. It all becomes rather numbing after a while.
We tend to feel safely isolated down here in New Zealand, but the same evening as this news broke, a friend who is a freelance editor and is normally overburdened with work, confessed that she is feeling "rather insecure." Is the worst yet to come? Pundits in the rather shattered world of economics hint that March is Crunch Time. What do they mean? I suppose we have to wait and see.
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