Revolt at publisher Hachette re Rowling "transphobia"

[Lamahaha]

Young staff members threatened a strike apparently:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8424029/JK-Rowling-publishers-revolt-Workers-publishing-house-Hachette-threaten-tools.html

My heart sank when I read that headline and the opening paragraphs, since I have professional "connections" to Hachette:

Publishing staff working on JK Rowling’s latest book threatened to down tools yesterday in protest at her views on gender.
...
Yesterday morning at publishing house Hachette, several of those involved in Miss Rowling’s new children’s book, The Ickabog, are said to have staged their own rebellion during a heated meeting. One source said: ‘Staff in the children’s department at Hachette announced they were no longer prepared to work on the book.

‘They said they were opposed to her comments and wanted to show support for the trans lobby. These staff are all very “woke”, mainly in their twenties and early thirties, and apparently it is an issue they feel very strongly about.’

But fortunately the grown-ups held up to the toys-out-of-the-pram tantrum:

Last night Hachette issued a statement backing Miss Rowling’s right to express herself. It said: ‘We are proud to publish JK Rowling’s children’s fairy tale The Ickabog. Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing. We fundamentally believe that everyone has the right to express their own thoughts and beliefs. That’s why we never comment on our authors’ personal views and we respect our employees’ right to hold a different view.

‘We will never make our employees work on a book whose content they find upsetting for personal reasons, but we draw a distinction between that and refusing to work on a book because they disagree with an author’s views outside their writing, which runs contrary to our belief in free speech.’

I can't say how pleased and proud I am. Well done Hachette.

X post with Datun

Just asked my 15yr old if he’s heard of Juno Dawson and he hadn’t a clue who they are.

I think JKR’s massive success is due to her writing books that children wanted to read and not what the great and good thought children should be reading.
I was a child in the 1980s and there was a real trend for publishers to print gritty realism. I didn’t actually want that as I lived in crappy council house with unemployed parents - id already has enough gritty realism to last a lifetime. I read stuff like Mallory Towers (like all my friends)
Dawson is the same - publishers think children should be reading this stuff but it’s not what children want and is reflected in Dawson’s woeful sales record.

Rachel Rooney author of exquisite My Body is Me has recently left writing and twitter due to bullying from inside publishing
Another reason to be grateful to Hatchette for taking a stand.

What next - refusal to work on history books, art books, kids books that don't cover a range of sexualities in the 3 little pigs...?

DO YOUR JOB - its what you get paid for, and there are a lot of people in publishing that would give their right arm to work in a large house like that. Don't like it? - go and work for a charity or lobby group.

Rowling will probably continue to do brilliantly as an adult crime author.
She has a solid place in publishing.
Publishers are known to make mistakes in backing the right horse. JD might be popular now, but nobody knows for how long or who else is
waiting on the horizon. I think that until there is one really huge new name, there publishers won't be going all out for a woke writer on a divisive subject. It would make more sense to wait.

A young booky U-tuber defending JKR - via Glinner...

Publishers won't open the floodgates. Who is running the company - business people or wet behind the ears 20-somethings who think they know everything?

Dawson’s woeful sales record

Do you have figures, KaronA? Interested. Or are you basing on Amazon ranking?

Juno's book Wonderland looks to be doing very well.

The publishers are desperate for diverse voices now - a v good and overdue thing- but I'd guess TRA's are going to be dominating the inclusivity agenda and publishers will let them since it doesn't involve deep structural change and it gets all the pats on the back. There are going to be many more Juno's.

I agree Karon I loved Mallory towers too and my life wasn’t anything like that if the characters. I read lots of Enid Blyton.
It’s rather like the huge success of Dallas in the 1980s. Nobody in the uk could seriously relate to that yet it was a huge success here.

I loved the Moomins - still do. Can't say it spoke to my life experiences.

There's a difference though between escapism and fantasy (I also love the Moomins) and diversity in fiction. I remember listening to Mallory Blackman being interviewed and the comments she made about never seeing herself in the books she read as a child which I found very illuminating.
There has to be room for both.
I also saw something recently about how few books were published by BAME writers too. There's still a serious imbalance it seems.

That’s the thing I don’t get about people saying there is money is diversity. There is a major diversity problem in publishing. There is a huge lack of BAME authors getting published. There is not enough representation of disabled characters. I wanted to see myself represented in book as a child and didn’t. I loved the escapism but representation would be good to.

Lol at the idea of JD representing 'diverse voices'. Yeah, because white males who hate women have historically been a voiceless minority, both in the written word and elsewhere

I wanted to see myself represented in book as a child and didn’t

you silly girl - diversity and inclusion doesn't mean that at all. It's for the sparkly people.

I've enjoyed reading your views on this NoSquirrels.

I think it's important to focus on what will be effective to persuade people rather than to tell the other side why they're wrong. It's also important to have clear in your mind who you're trying to persuade. It shouldn't be "our" side, it often shouldn't be "their" side, but mostly should be the undecideds who might be encountering this issue for the first time.

Surely JK and Dawson aren't writing for the same audience.

They’re not at all, Datun, correct. But usually teams in children’s publishing don’t just work on solely YA titles or solely middle-grade or solely young chapter books. So the team publishing issues YA for teens will also be working on other titles for other readerships. There’s a big crossover in people. And often children’s writers also write for younger audiences too - so they won’t want to burn any bridges if their ‘issues YA’ writer decides to write something else. Juno looks to be heading further into adult, really, rather than the other way but you never know.

Helmet thank you for that Booktuber - really brave of her. Kudos. I am impressed.

I remember listening to Mallory Blackman being interviewed and the comments she made about never seeing herself in the books she read as a child which I found very illuminating.

Beamur yes, love MB. ‘Windows and mirrors’ I think it’s her phrase - something like children’s books need both windows and mirrors - windows to glimpse other people’s lives, and mirrors to reflect their own lives back at them.

nauticant thank you. That’s exactly what I think. To change minds you need to first listen and not assume.

It was always doomed to fail! The Big Boss at Hachette is JKR’s actual editor - he took her on as Robert Galbraith, when even he didn’t know it was her writing - and therefore as well as money (and he is very commercially savvy) he also has a personal relationship with her and loyalty. He is also A Very Good Guy - look at all Hachette’s other announcements on diversity etc. I guarantee they’re all well aware of all of the arguments and I’d bet money both Hachette & Warner Bros saw the JKR essay before she publicly published it.

I was a schoolfriend of one of his sisters and I can imagine that he has grown up to be a man of absolute integrity if he's anything like their dad, who was just one of the gentlest, most principled people you could meet (I'm sure he wasn't actually perfect but he looked like the perfect father from where I stood having a pretty terrible time with my own dad). It's nice actually, to see that he probably is a good deal like their father who I remember very fondly.

Ah, that’s lovely name

That's such a nice endorsement of him

Ah, but does she want to have random affairs with married men in the suburbs?

Thus far she has shown a delightful disdain for creepy older men of all persuasions. We seem to have a baby goth on our hands, which delights me as I'd thought they might be an endangered species. I mentioned the premise of Dawson's latest book and she sneered.

Ah, but does she want to have random affairs with married men in the suburbs?

Do I ever, as a fully functioning adult human female, fantasise about passionate affairs with suburban residents of the male persuasion can minor practicalities such as marital status or the fact that there may or may not be an inappropriate seniority gap please, like, get out of my head canon here, though, pretty please?? But of course I do! I'm fucking human!

And, getting back to the original point of the thread: would I entertain this notion in earnest if it concerned a superior or a subordinate? Fuck no! I'm not that unproffessional! Hence: "getting back to the original point". Sometimes, bloody reality just doesn't give all that much of a fuck about how you feel about it. That thing that happens when you come to terms with this is what we refer to as "adulting".

(Also, Marc from Client Relations: please leave your wife and kids for me because you're smart, gorgeous and I sort of love you ... but also: for goodness' sake: don't, I don't fancy complete morons!)

Hachette should have fired those little twits.

It would be only fair: that's what would have happened in a lot of places if they had been women who said they believed in biology.