#LittleBrownWalkout

Shit is complicated

Yesterday, employees of Little, Brown, as well as several other imprints under the Hachette umbrella, walked out in protest of the announcement, three days earlier, that Little, Brown/Hachette would be publishing Woody Allen’s memoir in April (NB: this is not the usual amount of lead time!!) . Ronan Farrow, who is also a Little, Brown author, had publicly condemned this decision in a tweet the day before, and cut his ties with his publisher.

There is not much more reported as I write (this will surely change soon). Organizers of the walkout have not made statements that I can find. There is a hashtag, #LittleBrownWalkout, and much social media solidarity, and some discussions about the guts of those who walked out given how hard it is to get a job in publishing.

Allen’s book, Apropos of Nothing, is currently the #280th bestselling title on Amazon.

I have some early thoughts about what happened:

-Someone asked me if Belt Publishing would say no to publishing Allen’s memoir, even if it …