Top author says Nicola Sturgeon book launch could harm his sales
The Orwell Prize winner took to Twitter/X to say he was 'disheartened' that the release of Sturgeon's new book coincided with his, writing: 'A famous political figure could publish any day of the year and sell tens of thousands of copies. Nicola's publisher decided to go the same day as me.
READ MORE: JK Rowling responds as Nicola Sturgeon blames her for 'vile' gender row abuse
'They probably didn't even know, let alone care, when they set their date back in March – I'm a drop in the ocean of public consciousness. But the implications for my book could be serious.'
Sturgeon's book had been pencilled in for release this Thursday, however it went on sale on Monday. McGarvey's book is released on Thursday.
(Image: NQ)
It has attracted widespread publicity, with the SNP MSP doing a slew of interviews to promote the nearly 500-page work.
McGarvey added: 'So much oxygen is being sucked out of the room with drip fed revelations dominating airwaves and column inches.
READ MORE: Seven things we learnt from Nicola Sturgeon's autobiography Frankly
'Every bookstore has to make a choice every week about which book to give a big push. And every potential reader has to make a choice about how to spend their hard-earned cash.'
McGarvey admitted this was a 'first world problem', adding: 'I wish every author publishing this week the best of luck – including Nicola. Its a bruising experience even when it goes really well.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
8 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Cancel culture? I'm not to blame, says Sturgeon in wake of Fringe venue Forbes ban
Nicola Sturgeon is under fire after denying blame for the ' cancel culture ' which led to deputy First Minister Kate Forbes being banned from an Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue. She also refused to apologise to the women vilified for opposing her botched gender reforms. The Scottish Tories accused Ms Sturgeon of being 'delusional' for not accepting she had fuelled a cancel culture by branding her critics intolerant and bigoted. Her 'obsession with gender ideology and intolerance towards women's groups poured fuel on the fire', the party said. During the official launch of her memoir, Frankly, at the Edinburgh book festival, she said: The world is 'literally' her oyster and she may move abroad It could be another 10 years before SNP policies have an effect She received cruel messages about rape and her miscarriage online Summerhall Arts venue this week caused outrage after indicating Kate Forbes won't be allowed back because of her views on trans issues. The Scottish Daily Mail revealed how bosses apologised to performers after the Deputy First Minister appeared at a Fringe event last week. Some artists set up a 'safe room', claiming to be 'terrified' by the 5ft 2in MSP. The venue said booking Ms Forbes, who has criticised gender reforms and backs single-sex spaces for biological women, was an 'oversight' they would prevent 'happening again'. It led to calls for a recent award of £608,000 of public funding to be withdrawn. After appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival yesterday, Ms Sturgeon, who now admits she should have 'paused' her gender reforms, was asked about the ban. She said: 'I don't agree with cancel culture and I don't agree with that.' The Book Festival has been criticised for failing to include gender critical writers, including the authors of the best-selling essay collection The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht. While the National Library of Scotland has been accused of 'cowardice' for pulling the book from a major exhibition after staff complained about it promoting 'hate speech'. Asked if she bore responsibility for the 'censorious atmosphere', Ms Sturgeon said: 'No, I don't.' Pressed on whether she would say sorry to people who felt vilified for their gender-critical views, she said: 'No, I won't apologise. People on both sides of this debate are vilified. I've been vilified and received some awful abuse - nothing like the abuse trans people are getting right now. 'I tried to stand up for rights of one of most stigmatised minorities in the country. I don't believe that is in conflict with the rights of women which I have stood up for and will continue to stand up for.' She added: 'As a frontline politician for three decades, I am not without responsibility for the state of public discourse. I've got to take my share of collective responsibility. 'But I think we've also all got to just stop shouting abuse at each other and take a step back and try to find out a way of find a way of agreeing and disagreeing.' Conservative MSP Roz McCall said: 'It's frankly shameful that Nicola Sturgeon still refuses to apologise to women and girls for putting them in harm's way. 'For years she arrogantly dismissed their valid concerns, vilified them, and sacrificed their rights to appease extremist gender activists. 'Across Scotland, public bodies are still unpicking the chaos caused by her botched gender reforms - yet Nicola Sturgeon and her partner in crime John Swinney refuse to admit they were wrong. 'We saw that this week at the Fringe and it's delusional for her to deny that this cancel culture doesn't stem from the gender policies she pushed. 'Vile abuse on either side of this debate is completely unacceptable, but it's impossible to deny that Nicola Sturgeon's obsession with gender ideology and intolerance towards women's groups poured fuel on the fire.' The ex FM also revealed she received a rape threat and vile comments about her miscarriage after the release of her memoir. She said: 'These are people who call themselves feminists, standing up for women's rights, saying things about me, such as when I described my miscarriage experience the other day, 'I haven't laughed as much in years', accusing me of making it up, people saying they hope I'm raped in a toilet. These are the kind of things that go in both directions.' Earlier, on stage with broadcaster Kirsty Wark to discuss her memoir Frankly, Ms Sturgeon was cheered by fans for taking a swipe at Joanna Cherry, KC. The former SNP MP, who was ostracised by party colleagues for opposing gender reforms, said this week Ms Sturgeon was 'Stalinist' in how she ran the SNP. Ms Sturgeon said: 'There are certain people in this world who spend a lot more time thinking about me than I spend thinking about them.' She also admitted her flagship pledge to close the attainment gap in schools could take twice as long to deliver as she promised. She vowed in 2016 to end the gulf in exam results between rich and poor areas in a decade. But she suggested yesterday it could be another 10 years before SNP policies had an effect - as she hadn't realised tackling poverty was needed to address the poverty-related problem. She said: 'Unless you're changing the conditions kids are growing up in, then you're not going to have the impact, and that's what I learned along the way. 'Some of the things that I am proudest of are the Scottish Child Payment, the doubling of early years education, the baby box. These are things that are lifting children out of poverty, and I believe in time will make a difference.' Ms Wark replied incredulously: 'In time? That was ten years ago. That gap has not been closed. 'In time' is leaving a whole generation of children without that.' Ms Sturgeon: 'It will take longer than I appreciated or allowed myself to appreciate at the time, and that was my mistake. But it will work through the system. 'I absolutely believe that things like Scottish Child Payment, if we're looking back 10 years from now, the benefits of that in school attainment, in the attainment gap, will be seen.' Scottish Tory education spokesman Miles Briggs said: 'Nicola Sturgeon claimed that education was her top priority, but her record was disastrous - and now she says it will be another decade before progress is made on the flagship promise she made 10 years ago. 'It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious for the young people she has let down.' Asked why there was so little in her memoir about Scotland's drugs deaths crisis on her watch and if she owed the public an explanation, Ms Sturgeon said: 'It's for the public to read my book and make up their minds about that and other issues.'
Edinburgh Reporter
9 minutes ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Sturgeon touts her book to a room full of fans
Now she says she is living through her adolescence, the most obvious illustration of which is a tattoo which now adorning her forearm. (Shock news – there may be a second sometime soon). During the intervening period she has lived her life largely in the public eye. Now, after announcing her imminent retiral from politics her memoir of eight and a half years in office as First Minister and as a politician of varying degrees since her late teens is published. Frankly is widely available but has been on sale in branches of Waterstones since Monday – apparently in breach of an earlier embargo. The audience at the sell out Edinburgh International Book Festival event in the McEwan Hall was clearly made up of Sturgeon fans, ranging from those who individually thanked her for her leadership during the pandemic to the warm applause at various things she said. Ms Sturgeon said that Alex Salmond was a 'strong charismatic individual' and the two of them together became 'an incredibly successful partnership. But Kirsty Wark who was conducting the interview issued the first of carefully barbed comments against Salmond who died suddenly almost a year ago, suggesting that Salmond would have been upset 'if you had delivered independence'. She also referred to his dual person saying he could be 'both charming as well as a bully', and said to Ms Sturgeon ' I think he undermined you a lot of the time.' Sturgeon rejected that notion replying that he 'also bolstered me a lot of the time. He was so integral to some of the happiest times of my life.' Wark also accused the former female First Minister of failing to achieve closure of the attainment gap as she had promised. Sturgeon admitted it is 'possibly one of my biggest regrets' but that her policies to introduce the Scottish Child Payment, funding for early years education and the Baby Box are lifting children out of poverty and will continue to have an effect in years to come. She also claimed the Scottish teaching profession is the highest paid in the UK and that child poverty is falling right now in Scotland in contrast to the rest of the UK. On gender recognition reform, her regret is that she did not pause the progress of legislation but claims that the debate is toxic on both sides. Nicola is now reconciled with Kezia Dugdale ('we are now good friends') after the 2017 leaders debate, but clearly has no friendly thoughts towards Joanna Cherry, KC, who has said she will reveal information about a conspiracy against Alex Salmond in her own memoir to be published next year. Ms Sturgeon said: 'There are certain people who spend a lot more time thinking about me than I do about them.' King Charles came in for a mention during the hour long talk and according to Sturgeon she feels that the monarchy 'should end soon'. And in a word directed to her SNP colleagues for whom she was a leader without parallel, winning eight elections in a row, she brushed off any thought that they were scared of her. She said: ' I wasn't as uncollegiate as my critics would say.' Did we learn anything we didn't know about Nicola Sturgeon before? Probably not. To find out if there are any revelations in the book – well you will have to buy it to find out. Nicola Sturgeon in 2023 after her resignation as First Minister Photo Martin McAdam Like this: Like Related
Glasgow Times
17 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Sturgeon tells of fresh abuse in ‘toxic' trans rights debate
While the former Scottish first minister said she does not 'spend a lot of time looking at the bowels of social media', she is aware some people online have 'laughed' about her miscarriage, and said they want her to be 'raped in a toilet'. She spoke about the miscarriage she had in 2010 as part of events and interviews in recent days to publicise her memoir, Frankly. She says in the book that she 'should have hit the pause button' on controversial legislation to allow trans people to self-identify and gain legal recognition in their preferred gender without a lengthy medical process. Despite fierce opposition from some women's rights campaigners who feared this would give biological males access to female spaces, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was passed by Holyrood – though it has never been enacted after being blocked by Westminster. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Thursday, Ms Sturgeon said the debate was 'toxic on both sides'. Highlighting comments made on social media this week, she said: 'There are people who call themselves feminists, standing up for women's rights, saying things about me such as when I described my miscarriage experience the other day 'I haven't laughed as much in years', accusing me of making it up, people saying they hope I am raped in a toilet.' She accepted that 'in all of the tone and tenor of this I am not saying I was blameless at all', saying she 'desperately' wished she had been able to 'find a more collegiate way forward' on the controversial issue. Nicola Sturgeon's memoir, Frankly, was published this week (Jane Barlow/PA) She described transphobia as 'the soft underbelly of other prejudice'. Ms Sturgeon insisted not all opponents of gender reform are either transphobic or homophobic, but the issue of trans rights 'has been hijacked and weaponised by people that are transphobic and homophobic'. She said she was 'worried' that if she paused the gender reforms at Holyrood, this would have seen her 'give in to that'. However she said: 'I might have been wrong, and I probably was wrong about that.' Ms Sturgeon also made clear her support for transgender rights, saying: 'To my dying day… I will just never accept that there is an irreconcilable tension between women's rights and trans rights. Nicola Sturgeon has been publicising her memoir, Frankly (PA) 'I don't believe you have to choose between being a feminist and standing up for one of the most stigmatised minorities in our society. 'Who has threatened women for all the years I have been alive – abusive men have threatened women. 'You get bad people in every group in society but you don't tar the whole group with the bad people, and that I really regret appears to be what some are trying to do with trans people, to take some people and say that is representative of the whole trans community. 'My life might be easier if I just gave in on this issue and said 'yeah, I got it wrong' and we should never try to make life better for the trans community. 'But I will never, to make my own life easier, betray a stigmatized minority, because that is not why I came into politics and it is never what I will do in politics.' She later confirmed she had not contacted the police about the abusive comments. She told journalists: 'I think in terms of online abuse, sometimes we just have to kind of all take a step back and stop doing it, rather than think that the recourse is always to go to the police.' But she also said she feared the abuse politicians receive could 'drive out so many good people' from politics, with the former first minister warning this 'will be a disaster for democracy'. While she said there were now more women in senior positions, she added: 'In many, many ways it is more difficult for women now in politics because of the toxicity and social media. 'I don't have the magic answer to that but I do know that unless we get to grips with it and address it better, we're going to drive out so many good people, women and men, from politics and that will be a disaster for democracy.'
