Nineteenth century The magazine was founded by
bibliographer Frederick Leypoldt in the late 1860s and had various titles until Leypoldt settled on the name '''''The 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 sold ''The Publishers' Weekly'' to his friend
Richard Rogers Bowker, in order to free up time for his other bibliographic endeavors. Augusta Garrigue Leypoldt, wife of Frederick Leypoldt, stayed with the publication for thirty years. The publication eventually expanded to include features and articles.
Harry Thurston Peck was the first editor-in-chief of
The 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.
Twentieth century In 1912,
Publishers Weekly began to publish
its own bestseller lists, patterned after the lists in
The Bookman. These were not separated into fiction and non-fiction until 1917, when
World War I brought an increased interest in non-fiction by the reading public. For much of the twentieth century,
Publishers Weekly was guided and developed by
Frederic Gershom Melcher (1879–1963), who was editor and co-editor of ''Publishers' Weekly'' and chairman of the magazine's publisher,
R. R. Bowker, over four decades. Born April 12, 1879, in
Malden, Massachusetts, Melcher began at age 16 in
Boston's Estes & Lauriat Bookstore, where he developed an interest in children's books. He moved to
Indianapolis in 1913 for another bookstore job. In 1918, he read in ''Publishers' Weekly'' that the magazine's editorship was vacant. He applied to Richard Rogers Bowker for the job, was hired, and moved with his family to
Montclair, New Jersey. He remained with R. R. Bowker for 45 years. In 1919, he teamed with Franklin K. Mathiews, librarian for the
Boy Scouts of America, and
Anne Carroll Moore, a librarian at the
New York Public Library, to create
Children's Book Week. In 1943,
Publishers Weekly created the Carey–Thomas Award for creative publishing, naming it in honor of
Mathew Carey and
Isaiah Thomas. For most of its history,
Publishers Weekly, along with the
Library Journal-related titles, were owned by founding publisher R. R. Bowker. When
Reed Publishing purchased Bowker from
Xerox in 1985, it placed
Publishers 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 the
Netherlands-based Elsevier in 1993 led to many Cahners cutbacks amid takeover turmoil. Nora Rawlinson, who once headed a $4 million book selection budget at the
Baltimore County Library System, edited
Library Journal for four years prior to becoming editor-in-chief of
Publishers Weekly in 1992, where he served until 2005.
Twenty-first century In 2005, the magazine came under the direction of a new editor-in-chief, veteran book reviewer
Sara Nelson, known for publishing columns in the
New York Post and
The New York Observer. Nelson began to modernize
Publishers Weekly with new features and a makeover by illustrator and graphic designer
Jean-Claude Suares. The switch to a simple abbreviated logo of initials effectively changed the name of the magazine to
PW, the name long used for the magazine within the book industry. Since 1872, the front covers of
Publishers 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. 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 with
PW for more than four decades. Stepping in as editorial director was Brian Kenney, editorial director of
School Library Journal and
Library Journal. In April 2010, George W. Slowik Jr., a former publisher of the magazine, purchased
Publishers Weekly from Reed Business Information, under the company PWxyz, LLC. Cevin Bryerman remained as publisher along with co-editors Jim Milliot and Michael Coffey. In 2019,
The Millions was acquired by PWxyz.
PW maintains an online archive of past book reviews from January 1991 to the present. The earliest articles posted in
PWs online archive date back to November 1995. A redesigned website was unveiled on May 10, 2010. ==Features==