The solicitor who revealed JK Rowling as the author behind the pseudonym Robert Galbraith has been fined £1,000 for breaching privacy rules. Christopher Gossage, a partner at Russells Solicitors in London, has also been issued with a written rebuke from the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority (SRA).
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Sales of The Cuckoo's Calling soared after it was revealed that Robert Galbraith is JK Rowling's pseudonym. Photograph: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images The lawyer who catapulted a promising but obscure new crime writer into the bestseller lists by revealing the author's true identity as JK Rowling, has been fined ÂŁ1,000 for breach of confidentiality.
The publisher of The Cuckoo's Calling, Little Brown – which also published Rowling's first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy – organised hasty reprints as the book, which up to that point had sold 1,500 copies in three months, shot 5,000 places to the top of the Amazon bestseller lists. In the week after the story broke it sold almost 18,000 copies.
Rowling sued both Gossage and Callegari and received a fulsome apology and her costs, and the firm paid undisclosed substantial damages to the Soldiers Charity. Rowling also donated royalties from the book to the charity, explaining that they had helped with the research for the book's ex-army hero, Cormoran Strike.
Rowling's solicitors made it clear that the revelation came from them, not the author.
Rowling's secret identity was actually revealed after a partner at a law firm told his wife's best friend. The friend then revealed Rowling's identity to a Sunday Times journalist. "I was a bit unlucky the way it happened," the Harry Potter creator told BBC Radio 2's Graham Norton.
The law firm Russells confessed in a statement, apologizing "unreservedly" for the breach and saying that one of the firm's partners, Chris Gossage, had "reveal[ed] to his wife's best friend, Judith Callegari, during a private conversation that the true identity of Robert Galbraith was in fact JK Rowling." Callegari ...
She chose the moniker because Robert is one of her favourite names and Robert F Kennedy is her hero. When she created the Robert Galbraith pseudonym, she gave him a military background, as she said it was the “easiest and most plausible reason for Robert to know how the Special Investigation Branch operates.”
I certainly wanted to take my writing persona as far away as possible from me, so a male pseudonym seemed a good idea. It doesn't consciously change the way I write. I think I write differently, because it's a very different genre.
J.K. Rowling's original 'Harry Potter' pitch was rejected 12 times — see it in new exhibit. A new exhibit in the British Library features a number of magical delights!
The Cuckoo's Calling is a 2013 crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
Robert Galbraith Heath (May 9, 1915 – September 21, 1999) was an American psychiatrist. He followed the theory of biological psychiatry that organic defects were the sole source of mental illness, and that consequently mental problems were treatable by physical means.
Books To Read If You Like Robert GalbraithJackal. by Kelly Oliver. Release Date: September 21, 2018. ... Death by the River. by Alexandra Weis & Lucas Astor. Release Date: October 2, 2018. ... What I've Done. by Melinda Leigh. Release Date: September 18, 2018. ... Field of Bones. by J.A. Jance. ... Juror #3. by James Patterson & Nancy Allen.
However, the author of the series, J. K. Rowling, describes herself as a Christian, and many have noted the Christian references which she includes in the final novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Are pen names legal? Yes, an author can legally use a pen name or pseudonym to publish their intellectual property. Pen names are legal, as long as you have purchased the rights to your pen name, and have copyrighted your name. An author of a copyrighted work is allowed to use a pseudonym or a pen name.
Absolutely not. Except, according to basically one crazy person on the internet, you could. The Norwegian film director Nina GrĂĽnfeld came out the gates back in 2005 with some nuts claims, like the one about J.K. Rowling being an actress paid to be the face of an entire enterprise of ghost writers.
Many characters in the series are named after other characters, including Harry, whose middle name honors his father. Rowling simply liked the names Harry and Potter. Potter was also the surname of Rowling's childhood friends and neighbors.
JK Rowling: a question of identity - digested read podcast. Sales of The Cuckoo's Calling soared after it was revealed that Robert Galbraith is JK Rowling's pseudonym. Photograph: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images. Sales of The Cuckoo's Calling soared after it was revealed that Robert Galbraith is JK Rowling's pseudonym.
The lawyer who catapulted a promising but obscure new crime writer into the bestseller lists by revealing the author's true identity as JK Rowling, has been fined ÂŁ1,000 for breach of confidentiality.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has also issued a written rebuke to Christopher Gossage, of Russells solicitors, who confided to his wife's best friend that Robert Galbraith, author of The Cuckoo's Calling, was really one of the most famous and wealthy authors in the world.