Faber stops supplying Sally Rooney books in UK over royalties law

What happened

Faber has stopped supplying Sally Rooney’s books to the UK after the author’s commitment to fund Palestine Action created a legal obstacle to paying her royalties. The decision, agreed with Rooney, affects every format of her work in the British market, including some of the country’s bestselling contemporary novels.

UK customers can no longer buy ebook editions. Printed copies remain available at many bookshops, however: Waterstones said Faber had told retailers they could continue selling books already in stock. Rooney’s novels were still being sold in central London on Wednesday afternoon.

Rooney explained on Wednesday that carrying out her UK publishing contracts could expose those involved to criminal liability. She said the decision followed discussions and consideration with Faber, rather than a unilateral move by the publisher. She has publicly committed to continuing her financial support for Palestine Action despite its prohibition in the UK.

Faber said the problem lay in its inability to transfer UK income to the author under current legislation. It regarded continuing to earn money from her writing while being unable to pay her as unacceptable. Its publishing relationship with Rooney continues, and it will keep selling her books in other territories.

The withdrawal reaches a substantial readership. NielsenIQ BookData puts Rooney’s worldwide sales above six million copies, with 2.3 million sold in the UK. The affected novels include Normal People, Conversations With Friends, Beautiful World, Where Are You and Intermezzo.

The background

The government designated Palestine Action a terrorist organisation in July 2025, citing its record of criminal damage. The direct-action group has targeted arms businesses connected to Israel’s war in Gaza. Proscription brought support for the organisation within the scope of UK terrorism offences.

In August 2025, Rooney set out her intention to keep directing income from her work towards the group in an opinion article in the Irish Times. She distinguished the legal position in Britain from that in the Republic of Ireland, where Palestine Action is neither proscribed nor otherwise prohibited.

The dispute had already affected her travel. Rooney cancelled a visit to Britain to collect an award because she feared arrest over her support for the organisation. That decision preceded the present interruption to the supply of her books.

She also submitted a statement to the High Court backing the challenge to proscription. In it, she raised freedom-of-expression concerns and warned of two possible effects on her career: the disappearance of existing titles from British shops and obstacles to publishing future books in the UK.

Normal People, published in 2018, has sold more than a million copies in Britain. Conversations With Friends and Beautiful World, Where Are You have each passed 500,000 UK sales. Those figures show that the consequences extend across several successful titles, rather than a single recent release.

How the law affects payments

The financial issue centres on section 15 of the Terrorism Act. It criminalises supplying money or other property when the person providing it knows, or has reasonable grounds to suspect, that it could be used for terrorist purposes. The maximum prison sentence is 14 years.

That provision concerns the circumstances surrounding a payment and its possible use. In Rooney’s case, her stated intention to fund a proscribed organisation has affected whether businesses can pass earnings to her. Faber has connected its decision to that payment problem, rather than to anything contained in the novels themselves.

Television earnings have also been affected. Rooney said last year that the independent producer behind the adaptations of her work had advised her that paying royalties could breach terrorism law if it knew or suspected she would use the money to finance Palestine Action.

Both adaptations were broadcast before the organisation was banned. The BBC adapted Normal People and Conversations With Friends, bringing her fiction to audiences beyond bookshops. Normal People’s television version arrived in 2020 and helped establish the acting careers of Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones.

The scale of that audience was considerable: Normal People recorded 62.7 million views and was the BBC’s most-streamed series of 2020. The advice Rooney described therefore concerned continuing income from an established television success, not simply payments for a production made after proscription.

What people are saying

Rooney has presented her position as a deliberate choice for which she accepts responsibility. She said she had sought to make both her political beliefs and her intended use of earnings plain to the public, and was prepared to bear the resulting consequences.

Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action who brought the legal challenge to the ban, praised Rooney for maintaining her stance despite the effects on her career and finances. Ammori argued that access to an author’s writing should not depend on abandoning political convictions.

For Ammori, the withdrawal also illustrated a wider restriction on expression following proscription. She linked Rooney’s publishing difficulties to the treatment of solidarity with Palestinians and argued that the author’s books should remain accessible to British readers.

Kerry Moscogiuri, chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said concern about the case should extend beyond people who agree with Palestine Action. She warned that legislation aimed at terrorism was affecting artistic expression and peaceful political opposition, bringing an author’s livelihood into conflict with the expression of her beliefs.

Moscogiuri also identified a possible effect on other writers and campaigners: witnessing the professional cost to Rooney could deter them from speaking publicly. Her intervention focused on that potential deterrent as well as the immediate consequences for one novelist.

What happens next

The legal challenge to Palestine Action’s proscription is due before the Supreme Court next month. That proceeding concerns the organisation’s banned status, the measure underlying the restrictions now affecting Rooney’s earnings. Ammori’s challenge remains active while the publishing decision takes effect.

More than 3,700 people are believed to have been arrested in the UK on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action since the ban. Around 2,500 have been charged, but none has yet been tried as the challenge continues. Most arrests involved people displaying placards opposing genocide and expressing support for the group.

Most of those arrests and charges fall under section 13 of the Terrorism Act, which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison. That is a different provision from the section 15 financing offence relevant to the concerns about payments to Rooney.

Why this matters

For UK readers, the practical distinction is between remaining shop stock and future supplies. A printed copy already held by a retailer can still be sold, but Faber will not replenish it. Digital buyers already face the removal of ebook editions from the UK market.

For publishing and broadcasting, the case demonstrates how restrictions on payments can affect the commercial availability of creative work. The consequences reach beyond an author’s public statements to the businesses selling her novels and paying for adaptations, linking cultural access to the application of terrorism-financing law.