Penguin Random House & Melville House throw the book at each other in Twitter spat
Two publishing powerhouses have locked horns in a bizarre weekend Twitter spat after New York based independent publisher Melville House dared to post a photoshopped picture of an outsized baseball cap being lowered outside their head office.
Bearing the legend ‘Make publishing great again’ the head piece was captioned ‘LOWER, goddammit, LOWER’, a post which immediately drew the attention of rivals Penguin Random House who tweeted back, ‘Don’t you have work to do?’
LOWER, goddammit, LOWER pic.twitter.com/5c82JjEcyY
— Melville House (@melvillehouse) October 16, 2015
What followed was a lengthy schoolyard spat as Penguin Random House called on Melville to focus on making books, eliciting a tongue in cheek rebuke as Melville House offered to send across some emergency books.
I am sending @penguinrandom some emergency books and I urge you all to do the same pic.twitter.com/Shs8YBlzlk
— Melville House (@melvillehouse) October 16, 2015
From there the two way conversation degenerated further into a slanging match as both sides sought to belittle one another, a rather unedifying spectacle for curious observers looking in.