Hachette cancels plan to publish Woody Allen memoir

[Denis Enko]

Source: The Guardian

Martin Pengelly in New York
Fri 6 Mar 2020 17.08 EST

Hachette has dropped plans to publish a memoir by Woody Allen, the Oscar-winning film director who has been accused of sexually abusing his daughter.

“We take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly,” the publishing company said in a statement.

The decision to kill Allen’s book deal came on the heels of a staff walkout at Hachette’s New York office and calls of solidarity from staffers at Little, Brown and Grand Central Publishing, both imprints of Hachette.

Dylan Farrow on Friday welcomed news of the cancellation and thanked staff members at the three publishing groups for standing with her and her brother, Ronan Farrow, a journalist whose work has documented alleged sexual abuse by powerful men and fuelled the #MeToo movement and whose work has been published by Hachette.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/06/woody-allen-memoir-hachette-books

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Maybe this doesn't belong in LBN. Personally, I think pedophilia is important news of national interest, especially when it comes to people who have avoided its legal consequences.

[Princess Turandot]

1. It turns out that they made this deal in 3/19 but did not make that generally known until this week.

..even internally. That's why the staff just walked out this week.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/03/woody-allen-autobiography-apropos-of-nothing-published
...
A memoir by Woody Allen, rumoured for years and once thought unpublishable in the #MeToo era, is coming out next month. Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, announced on Monday that the book is called Apropos of Nothing and will be released on 7 April.
...
Financial terms were not disclosed for the book, which Grand Central quietly acquired a year ago, and a spokesman declined to provide further details about the book’s contents. In addition to the US, Apropos of Nothing will be released in Canada, Italy, France, Germany and Spain, followed by releases in “countries around the world”. Allen will do “several interviews” for the book.
...
An Allen memoir nearly came out more than a decade ago. He had reportedly reached a multimillion-dollar deal with Penguin in 2003, but changed his mind. In 2018 and 2019, several publishers, citing #MeToo concerns, reportedly rebuffed an Allen representative who was seeking a deal for his memoir. But, according to a Grand Central spokesman, a deal was reached in March 2019 after publisher and senior vice-president Ben Sevier read a complete draft of the book.

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. I imagine he gets to keep his advance though n/t

[wiley]

3. Stupid move by Hachette

If you don't want to buy something, don't. How is this any different than Trump's call to muzzle all press against him? Or employees in a publishing company refusng to print or mail out gay themed literature? Or porn? Or history books that include a realistic description of slavery? And like with Woody Allen I can't prove Trump's a pedophile, but I'm certain he is, but I would never call for a ban or to not publish a book written by him. It's not like this book won't be available through Amazon or other retailers, anyway. So are we going to advocate that no public library or college library have the book on their shelves like Republicans and other people have done for decades with books and magazines they thought were sinful or indecent or contrary to their political beliefs? Do we really believe the Republicans will not use this as a precedent to stop things from being published?