In a Facebook post dated 2.20.18, Milo Yiannopoulos announced he is terminating his lawsuit against Simon & Schuster. He wrote:
“A tough decision, but I think it was the right one. Let me explain my thinking.
After finally being able to personally review the documents that Simon & Schuster disclosed, it was clear to me that they wrongfully terminated my contract in bad faith. Based on the documents, I think they signed my book knowing they’d never publish it and then tried to make me walk away with excessive editing (you’ve all seen the manuscript!) and demands. In the end, they just nuked it and took their chances.
Having earned well over a million dollars from publishing my New York Times best-selling book Dangerous myself, it was always going to be hard to prove damages, as anyone who has ever hired a “damages expert” will know. I don’t want to spend all the money I made from my book, and the next two years of my life, on a lawsuit. I would rather use it to help other authors reach the conservative audience that Simon & Schuster hates so much (but is happy to profit from, naturally).
Simon & Schuster will tell you they paid nothing in this lawsuit. That’s a lie. Not only did I keep the advance they retroactively claimed I owed back, but they have spent enormous funds on lawyers because they refused to admit they had done wrong. The damage to their reputation among conservatives has been incalculable. Simon & Schuster will be forever remembered as the publisher most implacably hostile to popular conservative authors — even New York Times bestselling ones.
Worse, Simon & Schuster is the publisher who proved we don’t need them. Independently publishing my book was the most profitable thing I’ve ever done — and now I have my own imprint, Dangerous Books, which will publish all my future titles and the titles of many other conservative authors too. Conservative and libertarian authors no longer need a liberal publishing house to succeed. That’s great news for everybody.”
