Panic at hack … Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell. Photo: Jim Cooper/AP
Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell has become the latest victim of the hacker Guccifer, with the opening of her new novel and her fraught attempts to have it taken down posted online on Tuesday.
After targeting George W Bush and other political figures, the hacker who uses the pseudonym Guccifer turned to Carrie Bradshaw's creator Bushnell, breaking in to her EarthLink email account and tweeting a link on the author's Twitter feed to screenshots of the first 50 pages from her new novel, Killing Monica.
The hacker also revealed Bushnell's reaction to the hack, showing screenshots of her emails to her publisher and agent in which she writes, "Oh dear, this is terrible", and where they discuss how to have the pages taken down. The Google Drive Guccifer linked to is still live, however.
Although Bushnell appears an odd target for a hacker who, according to the Smoking Gun, "has previously claimed that his hacking interest revolves around exposing members of the Illuminati [and] Bush administrations", she is not the first author to have her work appear online against her wishes. In 2008, Stephenie Meyer found that her draft of Midnight Sun – a followup to the Twilight stories told from the vampire Edward's perspective – had been leaked. Meyer said at the time: "I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely."
Bushnell has not, as yet, said any such thing. And at Digital Book World, publishing consultant Jack Perry suggested the leak could actually be a "major opportunity" and "a chance to launch this book in a much bigger way than before".
"The pages are not edited nor approved for consumers. But her fans know that and will be thrilled to get a 'sneak peak'," he wrote. "This is great publicity for a book that isn't even written yet ... People will remember when the book comes out that is was the one that was hacked and released. The publisher can work to take it down and spend a lot of energy fighting this or they can embrace the chaos and go with it. Once it leaks, it will always be available. So why not work with it?"
After targeting George W Bush and other political figures, the hacker who uses the pseudonym Guccifer turned to Carrie Bradshaw's creator Bushnell, breaking in to her EarthLink email account and tweeting a link on the author's Twitter feed to screenshots of the first 50 pages from her new novel, Killing Monica.
The hacker also revealed Bushnell's reaction to the hack, showing screenshots of her emails to her publisher and agent in which she writes, "Oh dear, this is terrible", and where they discuss how to have the pages taken down. The Google Drive Guccifer linked to is still live, however.
Although Bushnell appears an odd target for a hacker who, according to the Smoking Gun, "has previously claimed that his hacking interest revolves around exposing members of the Illuminati [and] Bush administrations", she is not the first author to have her work appear online against her wishes. In 2008, Stephenie Meyer found that her draft of Midnight Sun – a followup to the Twilight stories told from the vampire Edward's perspective – had been leaked. Meyer said at the time: "I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely."
Bushnell has not, as yet, said any such thing. And at Digital Book World, publishing consultant Jack Perry suggested the leak could actually be a "major opportunity" and "a chance to launch this book in a much bigger way than before".
"The pages are not edited nor approved for consumers. But her fans know that and will be thrilled to get a 'sneak peak'," he wrote. "This is great publicity for a book that isn't even written yet ... People will remember when the book comes out that is was the one that was hacked and released. The publisher can work to take it down and spend a lot of energy fighting this or they can embrace the chaos and go with it. Once it leaks, it will always be available. So why not work with it?"
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