“Let Us Worship” founder Sean Feucht told the Todd Starnes Show his book deal with HarperCollins was dropped after “woke” junior-level staffers complained.
“I guess it was my views were too political that they didn’t agree with my political views,” Feucht told host Todd Starnes Tuesday. “They had some internal issues with their marketing team and specifically to people on their marketing team that came to the boss crying, saying that they refused to market my book.”
After traveling to 150 cities and leading worship against resistance in some cities like Portland and Seattle, Feucht was in the process of writing a book about what it means to live a courageous and bold life today.
“How do we raise our children in boldness in an era of, you know, where they’re trying to tell them, there’s 87 genders? How do we have bold relationships even in places where we disagree? How do we carry bold faith in the midst of a culture that wants to silence us?” Feucht explained.
Feucht recently had former President Trump at a “Let Us Worship” event and on New Year’s Eve, he prayed over Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his wife, Florida’s first lady Casey DeSantis. Click here to watch that prayer.
A few days later, he found out the book was canceled because of two upset staffers in the marketing department.
“This is unacceptable,” Starnes said. “And again, if these two marketing staffers, if they’ve got a problem with Sean’s book, they can take their concerns to the publisher. The publisher, I’m sure will hear them out. But ultimately, the person calling the shots… is the job of the publisher, not a couple of junior-level woke marketing executives.”
HarperCollins did not respond to inquiries seeking comment.
The following is a rush transcript of Todd’s interview with worship leader Sean Feucht. The pro-Trump Christian says HarperCollins canceled his upcoming book project after two marketing staffers complained about the book’s content. Click here to listen to the full interview.
TODD: [01:36:09] with us, ladies and gentlemen, welcome this is the Todd Starnes radio show. Don’t forget, sign up for the newsletter. Over a quarter-million of our listeners now subscribe to the Todd Starnes newsletter comes out every day and is just chock full of great stories information that you will not find anywhere else so you can do that again. ToddStarnes.com. So, like many of you have either heard of or attended a let us worship rally, they’ve been held all over America. Shawn Voit is the founder of that incredible movement and is just doing some incredible work. A wonderful musician and he’s been writing a book. He signed a contract with HarperCollins and a big publishing house there in New York City and got word that Harper Collins has canceled his book. Sean Feucht is on the Patriot mobile newsmaker line right now. Shawn, good to have you with us. Tell us what happened.
SEAN: [01:37:13] Well, it was a surprise. You know, I had signed a deal with Harper Collins, and we had been moving forward on this book since November, beginning of November and. We had a manuscript is due the end of this month, so just a few days ago we were discussing cover options, title options. And they contacted me yesterday so that they were going to drop the book. And they said that it was to my, I guess it was my views were too political that they didn’t agree with my political views. They had some internal issues with their marketing team and specifically to people on their marketing team that came to the boss crying, saying that they refused to market my book.
TODD [01:38:03] Is that right? All right. So I want to back up here. DO you know what division of HarperCollins was going to publish the book?
SEAN [01:38:13] Thomas Nelson, I believe the I don’t know. I guess the division of HarperCollins that does these books kind of their face division?
TODD [01:38:24] Sure. OK. And a Thomas Nelson and a lot of people might remember Thomas Nelson used to be an independent publishing house that was absorbed into Harper Collins, which is and I’m not sure if they were still owned by Fox News Channel, but they are one of the top publishing houses in America now. Sean, did you sign a contract with HarperCollins?
SEAN [01:38:49] Yeah, we have. So we have a deal memo that was signed in early November. And what that deal memo is is it’s something agreed to by both parties, and it goes through the scope of the book, the distribution of the book, the signing bonus of the book, the deadlines. The premise and really is is is the beginning of starting the entire project. And so we signed that in November and we were working with their agent every single, you know, really even up until three or four days ago.
TODD [01:39:24] And did they you know, and typically and a lot of these cases, they will give you a book advance and a lot in my case, I publish with Simon and Schuster and you’ll get a portion of that when you sign a portion, when you turn to the manuscript and then you get the rest of it when the book actually comes out. Was there any sort of a financial transaction between you and HarperCollins?
SEAN [01:39:48] No, they had not yet sent or come up with or sent over the first part of that distribution, we agreed upon an amount and the breakdown of that amount. And I don’t know if that’s why they were withholding because of this issue. I don’t know exactly what happened.
TODD [01:40:09] So. So tell our listeners what was the book about and what was the working title?
SEAN [01:40:16] Well, we’re working the book is about boldness, it’s about courage, it’s really about bold faith and which I think is just, you know, the irony behind this is pretty thick. You know that we would be writing this book about boldness and courage. And you know, one title we were thrown around was fear not, you know, and just in this era of intimidation and fear in the pandemic and the paranoia and then cancel culture and all this kind of stuff, you know that God was raising up people with boldness and how that boldness would translate into all aspects of your life. You know, how do we raise our children in boldness in an era of, you know, where they’re trying to tell them, there’s 87 genders? How do we have bold relationships even in places where we disagree? How do we carry bold faith in the midst of a culture that wants to silence us? You know, that was kind of a theme is how that boldness. And then it was correlating to my story, which you alluded to in the beginning of the program of how we’ve taken let us worship across 150 cities in America, and we’re really seeing revival breaking out every city that we go to. And we’ve had incredible amounts of resistance. And so, you know, with the story of let us worship, but also the story of how, you know, this is not just about an event, this is about a lifestyle of boldness.
TODD [01:41:45] On The Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line, Sean Feucht, who is facing a bit of controversy with HarperCollins. Sean, I’m curious when they called you when they reached out to you, did they specify what set off these, these marketing workers employees that that made them cry?
SEAN [01:42:07] I’m not. I’m not really sure. I don’t know what the specifics were. I just think that it’s wild, that it points to an era in America where you can have woke workers, woke liberal workers that can actually steer and call the shots for giant companies like this. You know, it wasn’t like the day that we had to put in work. It wasn’t like that. We had gone through a good bit of the premise in the manuscript. It wasn’t like they didn’t know my political affiliation and the fact that, you know, I had President Trump give an address at something. And then I recently had dissenters at a New Year’s event in Florida. It wasn’t like they didn’t know that. And so it was just like these woke employees got so loud and so annoying to them that they just folded. And that, to me thought, I feel like is the bigger story.
TODD [01:43:02] No, I’m with you here and again, I mean, why would you know we were there’s a publisher at my publishing house. You know, I pitch books. They either accept or reject and they have if they accept the whole team gets behind it. And it’s no business of the marketing team, whether or not you know, something is good or not.
SEAN [01:43:26] Exactly, I mean, that’s exactly the issue here, and, you know, with the publisher of this big, you know, the second and first or second biggest in America in the world, you would think that they would allow the rudder of their ship to be turned by a bunch of woke employees. That’s the part to me that I don’t understand, and I asked him that question. And they said, Well, if we don’t have a marketing team behind you and doesn’t believe in your book, then you know, then it’s really hard for us to for them to get excited about it. And I said, Well, why don’t they just do the job that you tell them to do? Do they have to agree with every single book that comes across that they market?
TODD [01:44:06] How about just how about this, Sean? How about this? You know what? I don’t care if you don’t like the book. I don’t care if you like Sean, you’ve got a job to do. We pay you to do that job. But if you don’t want to do that job, you can pack your bags and walk on out the door.
SEAN [01:44:21] That is a hundred percent. My thought, and that’s what’s so wild about this, Todd, is that we are allowing these companies, these corporations does not just with me, you know, I’m a victim of it, too, but you know, and by the way, got this message, you’ll get out. And I believe that the resistance to this message only proves how much we really need it, you know? But we’re a lot. We’re seeing this start to happen in these big companies and these big corporations in their fold in the leadership is folding to the demands of the few that are whining. And I just think it’s it’s it’s bad for America. It’s bad for business, bad for where we’re going as a nation.
TODD [01:45:04] Well, it’s it’s really sad and and I’m sorry to hear this. I’m not surprised. And this is what has happened to other authors out there. So, Sean, we want to wish you the best of luck. I’m going to reach out to my publisher over at Simon and Schuster and, you know, see if they might be, you know, might be willing to chat with you about what happened. And maybe we can we can rectify this, but this is absolutely unacceptable. And you keep us informed on what happens.
SEAN [01:45:34] Appreciate it. Thanks so much. All right.
TODD [01:45:37] All right, Sean Feucht, ladies and gentlemen, and you know, just a couple of weeks ago, he was down in Florida doing a big worship event. You might remember this. They actually prayed over Governor DeSantis and his wife, who has been struggling with cancer. And it was a beautiful moment. And you had AOC and all these horrible liberals out there, you know, criticizing the governor for taking time off to be with his wife at the hospital, and she’s recovering from cancer. And so this guy, Sean prayed over. There was a beautiful prayer, a beautiful moment. Harper Collins and Fox News, it all used to be one company, and they split it up a couple of years back. And I haven’t been I haven’t been paying that much attention. But Fox News and Harper Collins do have a partnership now. This is unacceptable. And again, if these two marketing staffers, if they’ve got a problem with Sean’s book, they can take their concerns to the publisher. The publisher, I’m sure will hear them out. But ultimately, the person calling the shots on what books they are or are not going to publish, that is the job of the publisher, not a couple of junior-level woke marketing executives.