Kerfluffle as author pulls own book (Patreon)

Alright, I'm going to wade into the entire issue about  Amélie Wen Zhao pulling her debut $500k, 3 book advance series from publishing at the moment. As I understand it, advanced readers believed there to be racism in her first book, piled on in Twitter and she decided to delay the publishing. Potentially forever.

Let's start with the basics. I am NOT going to comment on the actual book content since I don't have access to a copy and can't do it justice.

I will say this. When your description of the book is as per this:

In a world where the princess is the monster, oppression is blind to skin color, and good and evil exist in shades of gray…comes a dark Anastasia retelling that explores love, loss, fear, and divisiveness and how ultimately it is our choices that define who we are.

You are setting yourself up for anyone who wants to get upset about racism (on any side of the line) to come after you. It's a hot button topic and like say 'gun control', it's going to generate controversy. Her (or her marketing team) really messed up on this, no doubt at it in my mind UNLESS they were specifically pushing for this market  (the 'woke' area). Which, they might have been and just got hammered badly.

On another note, one thing I see a lot of people complaining is that she's 'backing down'. I want to discuss a very important business aspect - if you, as a writer, get a $500k advance and release a series that does not sell or make profits, you have wiped out your career. One of the best pieces of advice I've seen about 'new' authors isn't to grab the largest advance you can get, but get the largest advance that you can reasonably cover.

Remember - the advance will eventually pay out and you'll get royalties IF you sell well. If you only sell mildly well, you are MORE likely to get a 2nd / 3rd contract because you aren't a loss for the publishing company. 

Now, noting that, if the publishing company is realising (and sharing) information that she might not be able to cover her advance, she might be doing the RIGHT thing to back off publishing while everyone is making a fuss.

Stands are nice. A long-lasting career is nicer (aka outlive the bastards). 

Anyway, this is all speculation. I have no idea what is happening on her side or why. But it's something I thought I'd comment on, mostly privately in here.