Lake leaves Profile for W&N non-fiction role

Ed Lake is moving to Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the newly created role of publishing director for non-fiction after five years at Profile. 

He will join the W&N team in February 2022 and will report to Jenny Lord, the imprint’s publisher, who revealed an intention to “strengthen our serious non-fiction list and deepen our intellectual roots”. 

Lake joined Profile Books in 2016 where he is currently publishing director. This followed a journalistic career that involved a five-year stint at the Daily Telegraph, where he worked on several different desks and contributed to the books pages. In 2008, he joined the staff of the newly established National as an arts correspondent. He reported from arts events internationally before joining the paper's Review section as a writer and then deputy editor. In 2011 he became the founding deputy editor of Aeon.co, an online magazine of ideas. 

Since joining Profile, Lake has built a list ranging across science, history, politics, philosophy and economics and he has worked with authors including the Baillie Gifford-shortlisted science historian Matthew Cobb and the MacArthur-winning race historian Saidiya Hartman, along with authors such as as investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, technology critic Shoshana Zuboff and Economist editor Tom Standage. He also created the Ideas Prize, an award for a first trade book by an academic, in association with Aitken Alexander Associates in 2019. 

“Weidenfeld & Nicolson was launched at the end of the war with the intent of opening the window to Europe and the world,” Lord said. “The list has naturally evolved since the early days publishing some of the greatest minds on the international playing field – from Vladimir Nabokov, Sybille Bedford and Saul Bellow to Eric Hobsbawn, Simone de Beauvoir and Isaiah Berlin.

"This is a pivotal moment for W&N as we look to strengthen our serious non-fiction list and deepen our intellectual roots. I have been envious of Ed’s publishing since he joined Profile – he seems to me the model of a non-fiction publisher with a wide range of interests, impeccable taste and acquiring tenacity. So I am obviously thrilled that we have managed to convince him to join our team.” 

Lake said of his newly created role at W&N: “I didn’t think I could leave Profile, but the opportunity to join the superb team that Jenny has been assembling was just too good to turn down. It’s an amazing company with an inspiring history. What a privilege to be able build on Weidenfeld’s traditional strengths and the energetic support of the Orion family to create an adventurous new strand of serious non-fiction within Hachette. I couldn’t be more excited.”