Insta-edit

One of the stories that I’ve been following in the news recently has nothing to do with research for my fourth novel but has everything to do with the process. And I’m pretty sure that authors everywhere are just as interested as I am.

That story is, of course, centers around Elin Hilderbrand and Instagram.

Hilderbrand is a best-selling author, currently published by Little, Brown and Company, one of the imprints of the Hachette Book Group. Hachette is one of the “big five” (soon to be big four, pending the sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House).

The backstory: Hilderbrand’s most recent book, Golden Girl, was published on June 1. By June 3, a reader on Instagram criticized a scene where character dialogue makes a reference to Holocaust survivor Anne Frank.

On June 4 – one day later! – Hilderbrand and Little, Brown had responded by issuing apologies, announcing that the e-version had been modified, and proclaiming that future printings would have the reference to Frank removed.

Is this the new world order in publishing? Will readers “edit” books once they’ve been released?

Certainly, from my perspective, I value the reader critiques who point out typos, and I make corrections. I have not altered the material that has offended readers, however. I see that as a very different proposition.

For example, in False Assurances, there is a scene which offends animal lovers. I’ve been called out on it numerous times, and maybe telling that story is fodder for a future blog post. But other than that, it has never occurred to me to edit or to change the scene to appease that criticism.

I’m torn whether to respect Hildebrand for responding so quickly and so definitively. She owned her words, and it is her choice (presumably, though maybe it was the publisher’s choice, I suppose) to change those words in future editions of her story. 

But should she have responded quite that way? Quite that quickly? Should she have considered the precedent that she has set for future stories, and indeed for every word that she’s written thus far? Twenty-two novels, I think; that’s a lot of words. Is the Instagram army going back to re-read all of them?

It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? Are readers now emboldened to demand that writers retract all content that is perceived as offensive?

And all the while, the cynic in me wonders whether this may all have been staged, in order to boost publicity for the book…

What do you think? Drop me a note at quadrantpublishing@gmail.com

Thanks as always for reading,

Christopher