JK Rowling donates pen name damages to charity
The Harry Potter author gives damages and future royalties from the Cuckoo’s Calling to the Soldiers’ Charity after her alter ego, Robert Galbraith, is revealed.
Ms Rowling was awarded damages from law firm Russells after the high court ruled that one of its partners, Chris Gossage, breached her confidentiality by revealing that her latest book had been written under a pseudonym.
The author donated her substantial damages from the action to the Soldiers’ Charity, formerly the Army Benevolent Fund, and will also give them global royalties from sales of the Cuckoo’s Calling for three years from the date her secret identity was revealed.
Ms Rowling was unmasked as crime novel writer Robert Galbraith by the Sunday Times on 14 July. Russells law firm contacted her agent a few days later to disclose that Gossage had revealed her identity as the book’s true author to a friend, Judith Callegari, who then passed the information to a journalist on Twitter.
Ms Rowling’s solicitor said the novelist was “left dismayed and distressed by such a fundamental betrayal of trust”.
Ms Rowling said: “I always intended to give the Soldiers’ Charity a donation out of Robert’s royalties but I had not anticipated him making the bestseller list a mere three months after publication – indeed, I had not counted on him ever being there!”
Russells, Mr Gossage and Ms Callegari have apologised and the law firm will also reimburse Ms Rowling’s legal costs.
Sales of the book rose 500,000 per cent after her alter ego was revealed. Ms Rowling said she had hoped to keep the secret for longer because writing under a pseudonym had been “such a liberating experience”.
“It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback from publishers and readers under a different name,” she said. “Robert fully intends to keep writing the series, although he will probably continue to turn down personal appearances.”
