Publishers Weekly to be sold to former publisher

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Publishing trade industry magazine Publishers Weekly will be sold to its former publisher George Slowik, it announced today. Slowik ran Publishers Weekly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, moving on to Out magazine; he is currently president/publisher of The American Prospect. Slowik has started a new company, PWxyz LLC, to take ownership.

Publishers Weekly was put up for sale by parent company Reed Business Information (the conglomerate owns Variety and several other magazines). RBI has been shedding its business-to-business magazine titles, Crains New York reports, including related titles Library Journal and School Library Journal, which were bought by Media Source, an Ohio-based company that also owns The Horn Book.

Although Library Journal, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly are now split from each other, the individual magazines will retain all their current staffs.

Slowik sees ‘a treasure trove’ in the publishing magazine’s archive of book reviews, which date back to the 1940s, and potential going forward in the area of ebooks.

-- Carolyn Kellogg