News Oh Dear… This Doesn’t Look Good…

[AgentPete]

Yup. Honestly, there's something about her style that feels a bit bogus. It's "hand wavy", if you know what I mean...

 

[BrianY]

Bad publicity is when they spell your name wrong or confuse you with a different person with a similar name.

 

[Jake E]

This is the story that keeps on giving, at least from the Mail's pov. Lead story in today's paper. Including:

Translation - I am deeply regretful I've been found out!

I've just read the story on the BBC. Shifty af

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

Did anyone else read that article, where she says they’d been ‘hard at work’ rewilding the place, and think, “right, so they haven’t done any gardening then”?

They're particularly into wild grasses and nettles - great for insect life.

 

[AgentPete]

They're particularly into wild grasses and nettles - great for insect life.

Well worth doing and extremely easy! We've chucked a few of these around and they're fabulous!

https://www.wildflower.co.uk/products/wildflower-seed-mixtures/butterfly-and-bee/

 

[MattScho]

There really was an easy way around this, fiction, with the ol inspired by a true story tag on the cover

 

[Rachael Burnett]

This story by this point, in both conventional and social media, feels the opposite outcome of the M&S strawberries and cream sandwich. The Salt Path is now a bit of a Me thinks.

 

[AgentPete]

So I haven’t read a single word written by Ms. Winn / Walker, but… here are some conjectures...

* I assume she’s got some real, natural writing talent. What a shame, then, that things have gone off the rails like this. As Matt says above, they really didn’t have to.

* Bev said, early on, that her spidey-sense started to tingle a lot while reading… it didn’t feel right, not sincere, genuine. Why didn’t anyone else (agent! editor!) pick this up, too?

* The disaster-scenario would be that Ms. Winn really can’t write very well/or at all, and this was a project largely engineered by the agent (or less likely, the editor). In this case, Winn could argue were there a court case that – Hey… it wasn’t me! You guys did all the “constructive editing”…. I simply took your advice! That would be nasty, because Winn may not have very deep pockets (now!) but the publisher does, and they might become a target for any US litigation. Hope this wasn’t the case.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

There’s this. Not sure how much it clarifies, because it skips over the embezzlement thing. But it’s quite a sound rebuttal.

https://www.raynorwinn.co.uk/

 

[MattScho]

I don't know how much impact this could have in the US. I think we're quite accepting of the fact that everything is made up, from the White House to Hollywood and back. Prime example, the movie Fargo, says "based on true events" at the start of the film and none of it is even kind of based on a true event (okay, a guy tried to hire a hit man to kill his wife, but he tried to hire an undercover cop so it didn't go far). I did love that the TV series of the same name carried on with that tag, and again; whole cloth

 

[E G Logan]

Why didn’t anyone else (agent! editor!) pick this up, too?

I think someone may have done, had to have done, but day-to-day junior staff would keep quiet once the production process was rolling. It was at the acquisition point where the hard questions – does this really sound right? – should have been asked, by more senior people. Agent included. (Whose website raves about Winn. Even now, today.)

But commercial thinking obviously won out. And, authenticity and ethics aside, her book has sold well, so from that point of view alone, they were right.

 

[E G Logan]

LATEST – from today's The Bookseller

"Penguin Michael Joseph delays publication​

of Raynor Winn's next book"​

The Bookseller said: "Penguin Michael Joseph (PMJ) will delay the publication of The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s next book, On Winter Hill, following an investigation in the Observer over the weekend that suggested her debut memoir was not entirely true.

"A statement from the publisher read: "Given recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health condition which has caused considerable distress to Raynor Winn and her family, it is our priority to support the author at this time. With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, have made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October. We will announce a new publication date in due course." "

 

[MattScho]

LATEST – from today's The Bookseller

"Penguin Michael Joseph delays publication​

of Raynor Winn's next book"​

The Bookseller said: "Penguin Michael Joseph (PMJ) will delay the publication of The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s next book, On Winter Hill, following an investigation in the Observer over the weekend that suggested her debut memoir was not entirely true.

"A statement from the publisher read: "Given recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health condition which has caused considerable distress to Raynor Winn and her family, it is our priority to support the author at this time. With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, have made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October. We will announce a new publication date in due course." "

I think in non-PR speak this is saying "There's a bit of a Raynor kerfuffle right now, but it should completely blow over if we back up a year."

 

[E G Logan]

I think in non-PR speak

Absolutely. So so cynical. But not a surprise. I hope that fence they are sitting on proves majorly uncomfortable over time.

So now we await a move from the agent – and the gushing literary agency.
(I'll bet they are on the phone right now to their solicitors. And if not, they would be well advised to do so.)

 

[AgentPete]

So now we await a move from the agent

Agents rarely carry the can for this sort of thing. Unless they actively participated in / knowingly connived with / the deception in question, they usually aren’t involved.
However…
I can’t imagine it will do their reputation with the publisher much good!

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

And the saga rumbles on with more coming to the surface:
MSN

 

[MattScho]

The friends of mine who have published non-fiction narratives, similar to this, have all gone through years of fact checking and lawyer vetting by their publishers. Claudia has worked with authors on several similar books and her share of the fact checking has lasted months each time.

 

[BrianY]

Matt, when the book first came out, it was just another hiking/walking/travel work with a sad subtext. (not unusual for the genre) It didn't call for deep fact checking until it was way too late.

In my experience, publishers do little beyond confirming correct foreign word spellings and outright plagiarism. Houses like Hippocrene - famous for their multicultural titles - are relentless spelling checkers and asked nothing else.

"Name" journalists are held to a higher standard and also command bigger advances.

 

[MattScho]

Matt, when the book first came out, it was just another hiking/walking/travel work with a sad subtext. (not unusual for the genre) It didn't call for deep fact checking until it was way too late.

In my experience, publishers do little beyond confirming correct foreign word spellings and outright plagiarism. Houses like Hippocrene - famous for their multicultural titles - are relentless spelling checkers and asked nothing else.

"Name" journalists are held to a higher standard and also command bigger advances.

This is fair, as my friends and the people Claudia has worked on are all working with mid-6 figure advances, and major publishing houses.

 

[AgentPete]

And the saga rumbles on with more coming to the surface:
MSN

Yeah, the Mail also did further much-racking and name-calling the other day, too. At this point, I don’t know that it’s going to sway her readers, tho…? She may get the sympathy vote, find she’s pretty much unpublishable by trad pubs, and go on to sell gazillions self-pub! p.

 

[MattScho]

So the notion that there's no such thing as "bad" publicity is once again confirmed!