Anyone work in publishing and know if they are duty bound to fact check this book? Because I have a feeling that he has no bloody idea what he's going to write, and is going to take inspiration from his followers' stories in comments, and even suggestions here. Whatever he thinks will be sensationalist and get readers/likes.
Don't work in publishing. But reading your post brought an Oprah scandal to mind.
There was a book written by James Fry called "A Million Little Pieces" which became a huge bestseller. It was sold as a
memoir and told the (alleged) story of the author's personal journey as a raging drug addict.
The scandal only began when the author appeared on Oprah for an interview, and soon after a fact-checking Smoking Gun article exposed that Fry had largely fabricated the story; there was only little truth and much exaggeration to his memoir. It may not have mattered to most readers beforehand, but he lied on national tv to Oprah about the veracity of story, and that didn't go over well.
The publisher first stood by the author, because it was such a huge succe$$, and pointed out it's a
memoir. Memoirs are just that, the author's
memory of what occurred, so there's wiggle room for embellishment and "mis-remembering".
But after Oprah and her hoard of housewife viewers got mad, the publisher offered customer refunds. Thereafter, however, they simply recategorized it as fiction and/or added a note to the book.
All this to say, I don't think they are 'duty-bound' to fact check every detail of a memoir. And to be fair, how could they? We know Jon has a weird family and he went to a spec-ed school; there's little else they can do to fact-check claims like whether he has imaginary friends or feels his "true self" is a woman named Jozelle.