Friday, March 09, 2007

Bummer

Just heard the upsetting news that Paul "Goat" Allen, the editor of B&N's Explorations newsletter, is being let go. Goat's been doing the newsletter for ten years, has logged over 3,500 reviews and author interviews, and provides an in-my-opinion much needed human face for B&N's SF&F section. I agree wholeheartedly with Jason Stoddard that, "Success in this new era demands wholehearted participation. It requires an ability to think of your publication (or yourself) as a public persona." Companies should be finding more ways to build community, not cutting back on the ones they have. In the meantime, Goat has a unique knowledge pool, having read more books - from all publishing houses - than most anybody in the industry, and that's a pretty unique skill set. Somebody give him a job.

2 comments:

clindsay said...

That is really awful news indeed. Paul is really a great guy.

David Louis Edelman said...

Very sad news, and wholeheartedly agreed that B&N (and others) should be doing more to build community. B&N could have started by, I don't know, giving Paul's newsletter a permanent web address?