The Books That Never Were

Posted on September 15, 2013 in Uncategorized

Never a stranger to controversy, ex-Smiths’ front man Morrissey has been the subject of rumours this week about a book contracted to Penguin that will now not be published. Although Penguin has declined to comment on the story it seems the singer’s autobiography was slated for release this month. Morrissey has indicated that the rupture was a result of ‘a last minute content disagreement’ between the parties, with the famously outspoken singer perhaps wanting to include material about his life that the publisher was not prepared to print. He is not the only author however, to find their book pulled in the months before its release, and in such cases the motivations of the publisher often give us an insight into how the industry works.

Morrissey on stage in 2008. Credit: Kim Erlandsen.

Paula Deen

Popular American chef, chat show host and restaurateur Paula Deen found that her publisher was cancelling the upcoming first instalment of a five book deal because she admitted to using racist language in a court deposition. Ballantine Books considered that the TV personality’s reputation was so damaged by the leaked documents that after what it called ‘careful consideration’ it was no longer willing to consider publication. The incident was particularly sensitive because Deen has built her career on cooking food from the American Deep South with a complex racial heritage. Ballantine were not alone in their decision as major retailers such as Wallmart and Target refused to stock or to promote the chef and her TV contract with the Food Network was cancelled.

Amanda Knox

Amanda Knox was acquitted of the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in 2011 and she has since released a memoir about her experiences entitled Waiting to be Heard. Harper Collins had been due to publish the book in the UK in April of this year, but ordered a retraction on the advice of lawyers who judged that Knox’s allegations against the Italian police were too inflammatory for our libel laws. The situation for the publisher was made especially difficult because Knox is awaiting a retrial for the offence which will take place in Italy, and her Italian publishers are already fighting off a number of lawsuits by the authorities there against her and her family members. Public opinion has been a major factor in this case with the British public believed to be convinced of Knox’s guilt which also brings into doubt the commercial potential of the deal.

Michael Jensen

It is not just figures in the public eye however, who can find publishing deals problematic. Michael Jensen and David Powers King had written a YA fantasy novel called Woven that was accepted for publication by Utah based publishing house Cedar Fort Publishing and Media. Yet it was not the content of the book that worried their publisher but two lines in Jensen’s author biography in which he stated that he lived with his boyfriend, and which was omitted in advance copies. His editors argued that as their parent company was church owned and they were publishing in a socially conservative area, the biography could not go ahead as written. It seems that Cedar Fort was bowing to the pressures of their marketplace but Jensen’s copyright has been returned to him, so perhaps we will see the work in print somewhere else soon.

These are just three examples of the many times that publishers or authors have cancelled book contracts of planned publications because of a variety of reasons from legal concerns to commercial constraints. It seems wrong for publishers to allow anything but the merit of the book to affect their decision to publish but they remain businesses who need to make a profit. It is up to us to make sure that our output reflects the type of publishers that we want to be.

Anna Cunnane