From the That Didn’t Take Long Department: Just days after MobyLives reported on the furor that erupted over a deal between UK publisher Sceptre (an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, which is owned by Hachette) and Waterstone’s to sell Glen David Gold‘s book Sunnyside exclusively through the giant chain retailer — leaving indies to wait for the paperback release in the fall — there’s been an abrupt about-face. Hachette UK CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson went on the radio Friday to announce the deal was off.

“We got this wrong, and so I’m cancelling the exclusivity with the kind permission of Waterstone’s,” he said, according to a Guardian report. “In retrospect it was a mistake anyway, and choosing between confusion and conspiracy it was definitely in the confusion camp.”

Hely Hutchinson appeared on the Radio 4 show “Today” along with James Daunt — the owner of Daunt’s, one of London’s most preeminent indie booksellers. According to this report from The Bookseller, Daunt didn’t know ahead of time that Hely Hutchinson was going to make the announcement, but he said “he was pleased by Hely Hutchinson’s u-turn, adding that the deal would have set a dangerous precedent, and were not, as Hely Hutchinson stated, common.”