According to UK’s The Bookseller, four or five employees at Hachette UK do not want to work on JK Rowling’s new children’s book due to her ongoing remarks about the transgender community. The publisher offered a statement in response: “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.”
On June 10, JK Rowling posted a lengthy statement of her own, explaining her recent tweets that have been criticized as transphobic. But that statement has done little to stem criticism and perhaps only furthered it. Four authors represented by London-based Blair Partnership—the agency that represents all of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter work—have resigned after accusing it of declining to issue a public statement of support of transgender rights. Blair Partnership said it could not compromise on the “fundamental freedom” of allowing authors the right to express their thoughts and beliefs, nor is it willing to have staff “re-educated” to meet the demands of a small group of clients.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
