Simon & Schuster said Thursday that it would cancel the publication of an upcoming book by Senator Josh Hawley, one of several members of Congress trying to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Mr. Hawley, a Republican Missouri and an ally of Trump, has been criticized for challenging the outcome and is accused of helping incite the crowd that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday. His book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” would be published in June.
“We have not taken this decision lightly,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement. ‘As a publisher, it will always be our mission to strengthen a variety of voices and views: at the same time, we take our greater public responsibility seriously as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in a dangerous threat. ‘
The senator’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cancellation marked the pitfalls facing mainstream publishers as they sought to displace the partisan chasm in a hyper-polarized and volatile political environment. The largest commercial publishers have long released works by Democrats and Republicans, and most have dedicated prints to works by politicians and experts on the right. But some publishing professionals wondered if the violence at the Capitol would make it unbearable to work with conservative writers who questioned the legitimacy of the election or took other burnt offerings.
In the last four years, a number of people from the inner circle of mr. Trump got bookstore. Macmillan published a memoir by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the president, released a book with Hachette and published another.
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 ‘Too Much and Never Enough’, by Mary L Trump, a cousin of the president; “Rage,” by Bob Woodward; and “The Room Where It Happened,” by John Bolton, a former national security adviser to the Trump administration. It has also published conservative firearms such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
The presidential transition
The rampage in the Capitol further complicated the already-loaded question of whether publishers would publish a memoir by President Trump.
During most election cycles, publishers are busy picking up books from the former president and first lady and from former government officials. But the increase in the rhetoric of the president and of his supporters over the past few weeks has probably changed the calculation for editors and publishers who are careful to provoke a backlash from readers and employees.
Simon & Schuster have been put under pressure in the past for public pressure when working with controversial writers. In 2017, the planned publication of a book by right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was halted after he was subjected to weeks of criticism of the deal.
Last year, another member of the Big Five, Hachette, canceled plans to publish a book by Woody Allen after sustained pressure led to a strike by employees and a conviction of Ronan Farrow, Mr. Allen’s son, published by Hachette. The book was later released by Arcade Publishing, a print by independent publisher Skyhorse, who also published books by pro-Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
The subject of the book by mr. Hawley, who was already available to pre-order on Amazon and other retailers, is not about the election or Mr. Trump not, but about technology corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Its cancellation was remarkably rapid and raised questions about how publishers would approach future books by conservatives who supported Trump’s efforts to invalidate the election.
It is unclear whether Mr. Hawley will have to return his book advance, or Simon & Schuster will forfeit it. After the company read the book by Mr. Yiannopoulos canceled, he sued Simon & Schuster for alleged breach of contract, but later dropped the case. It must also be seen whether Mr. Hawley went looking for another publisher to publish the book himself.
Referrals on Twitter are directed at Simon & Schuster for the plans to publish the book, come from several authors and at least one Simon & Schuster writer. But conservative publisher Regnery, which released a book in the fall by Senator Ted Cruz, another leader of the pressure to reverse the election results, does not appear to be for similar pressure.
Tom Spence, president and publisher of Regnery, said the company currently has no further deals with Mr. Cruz had not, but that he would work with him again. Mr Spence also said that if we were to cancel Simon & Schuster’s Hawley book deal, “we would be interested.”