Simon & Schuster said on Thursday that he would cancel publishing a book by Senator Josh Hawley, one of several members of Congress who tried to overturn the presidential election results.
Hawley, a Missouri Republican and Trump’s ally, was criticized for defying the results and accused of helping to stir up the crowd that invaded the Capitol on Wednesday. His book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech”, was scheduled to be published in June.
“We did not make that decision lightly,” said Simon & Schuster in a statement. “As a publisher, it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and points of view: at the same time, we take our broader public responsibility seriously as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what has become a dangerous threat. “
The senator’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cancellation signaled the pitfalls that conventional publishers face in trying to overcome the party divide in a hyper-polarized and volatile political environment. The biggest commercial publishers have long launched the work of Democrats and Republicans, and most have exclusive prints for the work of right-wing politicians and experts. But some editorial professionals wondered whether violence on Capitol Hill would make it unsustainable for them to work with conservative authors who questioned the legitimacy of the election or took on other incendiary positions.
Over the past four years, several people in Trump’s inner circle have closed deals on books. Macmillan published a memoir by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, released a book with Hachette and published another on his own.
Simon & Schuster, one of the “Big Five” book publishers in the United States, which Penguin Random House agreed to buy in November, has released several major political books in recent years, including Mary L.’s “Too Much and Never Enough” Trump, a president’s niece; “Rage”, by Bob Woodward; and “The Room Where It Happened,” by John Bolton, a former national security adviser to the Trump administration. He also published conservative arsonists like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
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The Capitol turmoil further complicated the already worrying question of whether or not publishers would release a President Trump memoir or not.
During most election cycles, publishers quickly buy books from the former president and first lady and from former government officials. But the escalation in the rhetoric of the president and some of his supporters in recent weeks has probably changed the calculation of editors and publishers who are afraid to provoke a reaction from readers and employees.
Simon & Schuster has been the target of public pressure campaigns in the past, when he worked with controversial authors. In 2017, she canceled the planned publication of a book by Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing commentator, after supporting him during weeks of criticism of the deal.
Last year, another member of the Big Five, Hachette, canceled plans to publish a Woody Allen book after constant pressure that included an employee strike and the sentencing of Allen’s son Ronan Farrow, which had been published by Hachette. The book was later released by Arcade Publishing, a brand of independent publisher Skyhorse, which also published books by pro-Trump legal scholar Alan Dershowitz.
The subject of Hawley’s book, which was already available to order from Amazon and other retailers, is not about the election or Mr. Trump, but about technology corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Its cancellation was remarkably rapid and raised questions about how publishers will approach future books by conservatives who supported Trump’s efforts to invalidate the election.
It is unclear whether Hawley will have to return the advance on his book or whether Simon & Schuster will lose it. After the company canceled Yiannopoulos’ book, he sued Simon & Schuster for alleged breach of contract, but later dropped out of the suit. It also remains to be seen whether Hawley will seek another publisher or publish the book on his own.
Twitter scolds directed at Simon & Schuster for his plans to publish the book came from several writers and at least one Simon & Schuster author. But conservative publisher Regnery, who released a book in the fall of Senator Ted Cruz, another leader of the campaign to overturn election results, did not appear to be facing similar pressure.
Tom Spence, president and editor of Regnery, said the company no longer had business with Cruz at the moment, but would work with him again. Mr. Spence also said that if Simon & Schuster canceled the contract for Hawley’s book, “We would be interested.”