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Sarah Wynn-Williams cant do interviews.
She cant post on social media or go on tour or give a talk.
Her family cant speak on her behalf, and her friends are afraid to.
Its selling out in New York bookstores and prominently displayed in the ones that still have it.
3 on the Amazon best-seller list) can be called those things.
Ooo, yeah, everyones reading this one, he said.
Her publisher, Flatiron, knew the subject matter was risky.
Stone said he didnt think so.
The goal was just just to point out that much of this had been reported previously.
The book turned out to contain much more.
She reprints what appear to be excerpts from company emails and DMs.
A few days afterCareless Peopledebuted, I called Megan Lynch, Flatirons publisher and executive VP.
I asked her how Wynn-Williams was doing.
Nervous, but soldiering on, Lynch says.
Gratitude about having done that outweighs the extreme difficulty of the personal situation that she is in.
But how are sales?
Lynchs voice brightened: Obviously, its been fun to see the Amazon pop!
Lynch had never heard of Wynn-Williams, who is 45 and lives in London.
The author and agent handed off a nearly complete manuscript that persuaded Lynch to put in a bid.
I mean, there have been Facebook-whistleblower books before, you know.
That wasnt what drew me to this book, Lynch told me.
Sarah, come to bed, she orders her loudly while their co-workers turn their gazes to the floor.
(The author, at this point massively pregnant and distraught to be traveling at all, refuses.)
Flatiron paid Wynn-Williams a healthy advance, Lynch said, confirming only that it was north of $500,000.
Then began the problem of how to keep the book a secret.
Then, obviously, we had to announce that it was not Taylor Swift, she said.
Fortunately, there was a lot of overlap between Swifties and ARMY, so nobody got too upset.
Lesson learned: No shell listing forCareless People.
Lynch had to move fast.
Drawing on my experience with BTS, I felt like the No.
While some of Wynn-Williamss former colleagues haveposted in supportof the book, others havedisputed her account.
If this is true, its not an aberration.
They also emphasize that this is standard for first-person memoirs.
Or as Lynch puts it, Shes not a journalist.
Shes not a historian.
Its her personal recollections.
Its not a book of news.
And of course, Macmillans legal team vetted all of it.
Again, she said, thats a question for the lawyers.
(The lawyers, in the end, couldnt speak to me.)
I think Metas problem is using this to not answer the questions themselves.
The book reiterates again and again that she did not stray to the dark side.
even though I didnt think that was a fair question.
She often seems to be insisting that what Facebook is doing is not really what Facebook is about.
They share a major interest: collecting civilian data.
Wynn-Williams was not forthcoming even during the interviews she was able to do before the gag order.
She has been vague about her activities since leaving Facebook in 2017.
When I asked Lynch this,there was a pause on the line.
Um, said Lynch.
Just … yeah, I just have to let her answer the question.
I dont recall her talking about the experiences.
It just seemed like she was on the same page, Steinhorn says.
There were times where I would say something and she would nod and affirm it very intensely.
But after hitting a series of roadblocks, she withdrew her proposal and the matter was dropped.
They dont appear to have been successful either.
A lot of the time, companies wont enforce NDAs against whistleblowers because it makes them look like villains.
And the optics of Metas gag order on Wynn-Williams are terrible, White says.
But Im guessing its not about her, right?
Whatever she wrote, its already out there.
You cant put it back in, he says.
This is to let the next person know: We are actually going to enforce those agreements.
No matter how bad we look, well still get you for what you said.
Shes doing a noble, brave thing, but I worry that shes destroying herself, says White.
First off, she may never work again.
Financially, the damages from this could be astronomical.
All of that will be a footnote to this.
That might not be a bad thing.
Commenters rushed in to block his victory lap: i am now 500 more interested in this book!
great sales pitch - thx big dog.
Thanks for the heads up.
Hadnt heard about this one, but now excited to read it.
