Sarah Cole

Sarah Cole is passionate about publishing as a platform for change. Her research focuses on book culture and the intersection of innovation, profitability, and sustainability. She is currently examining the sustainable integration of generative and agentic artificial intelligence into the book publishing workflow. 

Her teaching emphasizes ethics and critical analysis of current issues shaping publishing, international perspectives, and the complete end-to-end publishing process. She is a publishing consultant, book coach and series editor. 

Before joining Emerson as an Assistant Professor in WLP, Sarah was most recently a Publishing Director at John Murray Press, a division of Hachette UK based in London. There she managed four imprints: Chambers, Teach Yourself, John Murray Languages, and Michel Thomas. 

Sarah has been at the forefront of digital innovation in publishing. As part of the Special Projects Team at Cambridge University Press (UK), Sarah was responsible for publishing the first fully online ELT (English Language Teaching) course and helped established a new Online Learning Department. At Hachette UK, she launched both the bestselling e-commerce website and several top-selling apps, as well as spearheading an online assessment program and launching a successful new podcast, The Language Podcast.

Her publishing highlights include bestselling Rebel with a Clause (UK edition) by Ellen Jovin; Everyday Shakespeare, featuring quotes from the lesser-known corners of Shakespeare's plays and poems by Ben and David Crystal (OBE); the world's naughtiest dictionary, Words from Hell by Jess Zafarris, and books to teach over 70 languages.

Visit Sarah's website