'Sex and the City' author Candace Bushnell is hacked, excerpt of her new novel leaked online
鈥�Sex and the City鈥� writer Candace Bushnell had the first 50 pages of her new novel leaked online after hacker Guccifer made his or her way into her e-mail and posted the novel excerpt as well as other materials online.
The hacker, who has hacked into other well-known figures鈥� computers and posted information online about former president George W. Bush鈥檚 artistic efforts, posted the novel excerpt online, then tweeted about it from Bushnell鈥檚 account.
鈥淗ere you can read my last book 'killing monica' first 50 pages; enjoy as long as you can!鈥� Guccifer tweeted from Bushnell鈥檚 account.
The hacker then uploaded screenshots of Bushnell鈥檚 correspondence with her agents as they tried to decide what to do, according to .
鈥淭he pages I sent Heather and Deb Futter at Grand Central Publishing from my new book, Killing Monica, have been HACKED鈥� in other words, the beginning of the new book is now online for free,鈥� Bushnell wrote in an e-mail to her agents.
The excerpt from the book, currently titled 鈥淜illing Monica,鈥� features a woman named Pandy, who is telling a cab driver about her problems, including her divorce, as the driver takes her to the airport.
The pages were made available to the public through a link on the tweet made by Guccifer that led to a Google Drive account. The account contained screenshots of the manuscript鈥檚 pages.
Manuscripts leaking online are nothing new, of course. O.J. Simpson鈥檚 book 鈥淚f I Did It,鈥� which detailed how Simpson would have performed the murders of which he was accused if he had, in fact, committed them, was leaked online in 2007. Also in 2007, parts of the last book in the 鈥�Harry Potter鈥� series, 鈥�Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,鈥� were posted online before the book鈥檚 July 2007 publication.
鈥淭wilight鈥� author Stephenie Meyer found parts of her manuscript of the book 鈥�Midnight Sun,鈥� a re-imagining of the book 鈥�Twilight鈥� from hero Edward Cullen鈥檚 point of view, had been posted online in 2008 and Meyer abandoned work on the manuscript after the leak, writing on her that she felt 鈥渢oo sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun.鈥�
More recently, 鈥�Girls鈥� creator, writer and star Lena Dunham had her 66-page book proposal posted online after she submitted it to Random House and, after the website Gawker posted the entire proposal on its site, Dunham鈥檚 legal representation asked that the proposal be taken down. Gawker complied but left excerpts of the proposal in its article.
