Munroe Bergdorf lands big book deal with Bloomsbury

[TornadoOfSouls]

Reported rather breathlessly in the Graun

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/17/munroe-bergdorf-receives-landmark-book-deal-for-trans-manifesto

Among other things she’s going to tell us all that the experience being a ‘ciswoman’ has changed over the years.

‘my intelligence has been undermined, and I’ve been underestimated a lot in a lot of different instances.’

Sounds a bit Dunning-Kruger to me, to be honest.

That is an excellent question. Presumably Munroe hasn't quite realised that? Bloomsbury probably took down all the HP posters on the walls.

I'm looking forward to the book. I am very keen to hear about woman-ing. I think the first rule is to not talk about my biological functions.

I have noticed that a few people I know have started following Munroe in the last few weeks. Munroe has done quite a lot of awareness raising around Black Lives Matter, and I wonder if people don't realise that Munroe says stupid shit on Twitter like 'centering reproductive systems in the women's match is exclusionary' and encourages minors to privately message them. They have a lot of 'yaaaaas queen' messages on Insta from Blue ticks under their posts, on Twitter they have a lot less followers and get more criticism. I wonder actually if its because Instagram tends to be more female weighted than Twitter?

Meant to expand on what I was saying about 'female weighted on Insta' - everyone seems very bothered about what others think of them on Instagram, there is still a big '#bekind' vibe going on, and people want to be seen to be in the right tribe and supporting the 'right' people and I feel like Munroe has managed to creep into that category, making friends with certain influencers etc.

Twitter seems to have more blokes (and increasingly more women thank god) who don't give a fuck and will tell people like Munroe what they think.

Never heard of anyone having to pay back their advance!

I bet the little gang that resigned, are furious.

Yes they must be actually musnt they?! I don't think Munroe has much integrity when it comes to the prospect of making money and gaining attention though! Which is why they had no problem working with Loreal, despite Loreal selling skin lightening creams for women.

@ThatsHowWeRowl

I bet the little gang that resigned, are furious.

Yes they must be actually musnt they?! I don't think Munroe has much integrity when it comes to the prospect of making money and gaining attention though! Which is why they had no problem working with Loreal, despite Loreal selling skin lightening creams for women.

You made a spelling mistake in that comment. I think you meant to say any instead of much. 😁

You don't have to pay an advance back if the book doesn't sell out. In fact, those big six figure debuts rarely do. I imagine Bloomsbury will be aiming to earn woke cookies, diversity points, retail slots and possibly industry awards for marketing campaigns etc rather than cold hard cash.

There's no justice!

Never heard of anyone having to pay back their advance
Me neither, however I have heard of tax write offs. Where you give away/make a huge loss and therefore pay less tax. Maybe this is one.

Munroe was made a National Advocate for UN Women UK in 2019.... I missed that! I remember the good old days in 2016 when all we had to worry about that Lancaster university's woman officer would potentially be a transwomen named Anna Lee and now this... I don't know how we got there so quickly... WTF?! I knew UN Women had lost it but omg. I have no words.

a National Advocate for UN Women - and what is Bergdorf going to advocate for?

What concerns might Bergdorf have experience of that are shared by women?

Is there an outline of this book anywhere? I’m curious to see what’s going to be in it/who is writing it (if it’s ghosted) and why it was commissioned (apart from ‘we thought it would sell and make money’).

I read UN Women as Unwomen nowadays. They seem to be all about gender identity.

Indeed. What are we again? Jelly, mist, gas..?

Hmm. Currently urgently looking for volunteers, apparently.

www.unwomenuk.org/who-we-are-un-women-uk

Just looked at that website. They have a ‘Safe Spaces Now’ manager. Obviously safe spaces means safe from ideas and words not safe from men.

Humanity is doomed.

Remember when women’s ‘safe spaces’ was the ladies loos?

its from the grauniad www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/sep/02/pay-back-time-for-publishers-authors-advances

and I've had my first message deleted...

Yeah. Some threads are watched by some people. They report posts too.

Thanks, fatblackcat. That's advances paid back after breach of contract, where an author has failed to produce a book to a publishable standard. That's very different than failing to earn out, which many books do, and authors don't have to repay the advance. It's a bit of a gamble for a publisher. I mean, the whole industry is one of the maddest 'business models' you'll come across ... but so long as MB pays a ghostwriter to produce something reasonably legible, it's unlikely to be an issue. (If MB writes it MBself I will literally eat my hat.)