Word Count 102: The Salt Path controversy, Unbound was doomed from start

Plus a weird alphabet that hampered children, and Grabbity with her brother from back in 2013

Hi there,

The UK’s on the brink of another heatwave, this one longer and hotter than the two we’ve already had. I’m very likely to spend much of the next week hiding in the bedroom where the aircon is.

I’m also going to spending a lot more time working on my new business so that I can keep Grabbity and Copurrnicus in the manner to which they have become accustomed. I’ve been working with coach Rob Stubbs — who is absolutely amazing, btw — on how I can turn my love of story into a meaningful business. That means that I’m going to put Word Count on hiatus for a month and a half so that I have time to focus on earning a living. I’ll be back in your inboxes on 19 August!

Accusations The Salt Path author lied

The big stooshie in the book world this week has been revelations from The Observer that Raynor Winn, real name Sally Walker, lied in her best selling memoir The Salt Path. Journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou discovered that Walker had been under investigation for embezzlement by the North Wales Police just before she and her husband, Moth, real name Tim, embarked on the 630 mile walk that forms the backbone of the book.

The Salt Path was not just a bestseller, it was also turned into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, but there are now serious questions about the veracity of Walker’s story. In particular, neurologists have cast doubt on the idea that Tim could possibly be suffering from corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a serious but rare condition which is similar to Parkinson’s.

Walker’s publisher, Penguin, has so far said nothing. Film production companies Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features said that they “undertook all necessary due diligence before acquiring the book”, according to Deadline. In a statement, Walker denied the accusations.

Scott Pack has written a long and interesting thread about the story, and raises what I think are important questions. Although publishing contracts usually contain an indemnity clause that “in which the author guarantees certain things, such as confirming that it is their own original work and they are not libelling or defaming anyone” and “covers the publisher’s arse”, does the publisher still have an obligation to fact check a memoir? Does a production company? How much digging would have been required pre-publication falsify or confirm Walker’s claims?

Walker’s fourth book, On Winter Hill, is already available for pre-order and sounds very much like it’s a set up for some sort of miraculous ’recovery’ for Tim. It’ll be interesting to see whether Penguin pulls it and what other steps they take next.

Update 10 July 25: Sally Walker/Raynor Winn has published a statement on her website, in which she almost denies them, but doesn’t quite. As Scott Pack says:

It is a well-crafted statement. It opens with something any decent person would deplore. And then manages to avoid denying the key accusation and focuses on lots of other areas.

Make of it whatever you will.

Unbound was doomed from the start

This piece by Henry Jeffreys in The Critic about the unravelling of bankrupt publisher Unbound indicates that the company never worked as advertised. Indeed, it seems to have never really properly functioned as a publisher, failing to do really basic things like editing, marketing or actually printing books. Though they were happy to blow £1m on an app “which could (supposedly) predict revenues based on authors’ social media following with 80 per cent accuracy”.

Furthermore, according to Mitchinson, the money wasn’t enough: “We only ever raised enough money to cover the initial run for subscribers for a specific book but not enough to cover the print run required by the trade and never enough to cover all the company’s overheads.”

So they weren’t raising enough from the beginning, used money earnt by authors to run the business instead of putting it in a separated escrow account, wasted money profligately on an app and magazine, and were largely incompetent in day-to-day publishing tasks. I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did, to be honest.

The alphabet that left children unable to spell

The Guardian has a great piece on a weird 1960s/70s educational experiment that left many children unable to spell.

The Initial Teaching Alphabet was a radical, little-known educational experiment trialled in British schools (and in other English-speaking countries) during the 1960s and 70s. Billed as a way to help children learn to read faster by making spelling more phonetically intuitive, it radically rewrote the rules of literacy for tens of thousands of children seemingly overnight. And then it vanished without explanation.

Whilst some have said that “there’s not enough evidence to prove ITA had a bad impact on spelling”, or that it genuinely helped some students, there’s no doubt that randomly messing about with children’s education based on zero evidence has had a negative impact on quite a few people.

It seems there’s no easy answer to the nightmare-on-stilts that is English orthography, no matter how much educationalists wish it.

Obligatory cat picture

A blast from that past, this one!

Here’s Grabbity on the left and Sir Izacat Mewton on the right, from back in 2013 when they were just 3 years old.

That’s it for this month. Have a fabulous summer and I’ll see you again in late August!

All the best,

Suw