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The Saint Martin's Press boycott is ongoing.
I’ve been seeing a lot of people discrediting it by saying it will harm the authors, despite it being made clear that it is a MARKETING boycott - you can still buy and read the books! Just don’t post about them. Finding the publisher of a book is easy too, hence these graphics I made!
You can find these graphics to download/share and more info about the boycott here.
Queer book haul!!
I went book thrifting yesterday and picked up all these books! Can't wait to read them!!
YA contemporary
Let's Talk About Love - Claire Kann
Black ace FMC, Japanese-American LI, MF romance
Stay Gold - Tobly McSmith
Trans MMC, cis FMC, MF romance
We Are Okay - Nina LaCour
Sapphic MC
Exploration of grief
Fantasy
The Brilliant Death - Amy Rose Capetta (YA)
Nonbinary MC, genderfluid LI, all latine cast
Book one of a duology
Teo is a mafia don's daughter, who uses her magic to turn her family's enemies into decorative objects. When her father is poisoned, she must travel to the capital disguised as a boy in order to save his life.
Infinity Son - Adam Silvera (YA)
Gay rep
Book one of the Infinity Cycle trilogy
Urban fantasy
Two brothers live in a world filled with specters who violently steal the essence of magical creatures.
The Sunbearer Trials - Aiden Thomas (YA)
Trans boy MC, all latine cast, MM rivals to lovers romance
Book one of The Sunbearer Duology
Every decade, ten semidioses are selected to compete in the Sunbearer Trials, where the loser will be sacrificed to Sol. When Teo is unexpectedly chosen, he will have to compete against more powerful opponents in order to survive.
Amberlough - Lara Elena Donnelly (Adult)
MLM
Book one of The Amberlough Dossier trilogy
Le Carré meets Cabaret in this debut spy thriller as a gay double-agent schemes to protect his smuggler lover during the rise of a fascist government coup
YA Horror
These Fleeting Shadows - Kate Alice Marshall
Sapphic MC
Haunted house story
In order to receive her inheritance, including her ancestral home Harrowstone Hall, Helen must live on the grounds of Harrowstone for one full year or be left with nothing.
Blood Countess - Lana Popović
Sapphic MC
First book of the Lady Slayers series
Toxic lesbian vampires???
Anna works as a scullery maid for the Countess Elizabeth Báthory but is elevated to the position of chambermaid when Elizabeth takes a liking to her. And then the murders
Historical romance
Something Fabulous - Alexis Hall
Demisexual MC, MM romance
Grumpy x sunshine
A delightfully witty romance featuring a reserved duke who’s betrothed to one twin and hopelessly enamoured of the other.
Readers For Accountability have made a new comprehensive website with details about the SMP boycott.
There is a day of action organised for March 11, where we are being encouraged to post about the boycott, email the publisher, and sign the petition if you haven't already.
I'm still seeing a lot of people on here reblogging stuff about books from wednesday books especially, and I know tumblr isn't the forefront of the book community, but it's not that hard to refrain from posting about a couple books! We all know reading is political. If you've ever talked about the importance of diverse books (and I know yall love to do that on here), you should understand that an imprint promoting itself as championing diversity that lets systemic racism run unchecked in their company is bad, actually, and we should be demanding better from them!
so, the saint martin's press boycott.
I was offline for a few days a week or two ago and during that time SMP made an (okay) statement, R4A deliberated and eventually accepted terms and declared an end to the boycott, people got mad at R4A because the statement wasn't good enough, R4A panicked a bit and basically ended up disbanding/deleting their content. I don't know all the details of everything, but here's some summarised thoughts, since I have been one of the only people posting about the boycott on here:
firstly - I did see SMP's statement and think, eh, it was better than their previous ones, but it was still noticeably very vague on the catalyst of all this (it mentions Islamophobia and Gaza but it's not really centred or as emphatic as it could be) - so I totally understand people being angry that it was seen as good enough. The boycott is because of anti-Palestinian bigotry and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
However, people upset at R4A started claiming that there were no Palestinians/Muslims in R4A, that it was all white people, which are both untrue. There were accusations of sucking up to SMP bc people want arcs/money and typical internet dogpiling and threats, which is... not really productive at all, to say the least, and starts to drown out reasonable criticisms.
Some people (the ones that feel safe enough to come forward, which is not everyone, due to said threats) have come out and discussed exactly why R4A decided to end the boycott. Mari's video here is worth watching - essentially it's that SMP clearly made massive steps to meet the demands, and the ones they didn't they're legally not able to (ie any explicit reference to the employee or what they said would probably get them sued).
A large group of (primarily bipoc) SMP authors have started talking about how they were working behind the scenes to urge SMP to respond - and reiterated that yeah, there's no legal way for them to comment on what the employee said and did.
I think most people understand strikes/boycotts are about negotiation, not necessarily getting every single demand. And it's an immense achievement to get a major publisher to respond and make changes. The way R4A fell apart at the end is pretty disappointing - they genuinely had the platform to make a lot of change going forward, and I hope that the change that was made isn't going to be undone because of that.
It kind of seems like the people who are encouraging continuing to boycott have changed from a marketing boycott in order to bring change to just a 'this company did a bad thing so don't engage with it ever' boycott. Which is valid, but said company has no incentive to meet the demands in that case.
But I also totally understand the opinion that the point of this - racism against Palestinians amidst a genocide - has been pushed to the side. It's extremely reasonable to be angry while watching an ongoing genocide. It's very reasonable to want someone with such despicable views to be fired (even if there's no actionable way to make that happen, and that was never an r4a demand). SMP also hasn't made any kind of statement about the unsolicited sex toys they sent people either, so like....there's that too.
I haven't decided exactly what I'll do - I've only read two SMP books since this started and tbh there's only a handful of other SMP books I'm interested in reading. But I'm considering, if I do decide to post those, donating the cost of a book to a GFM/esim/etc any time I read/review a SMP book. That feels like the most direct thing to bring things back to the point.
It's been 274 days since the Saint Martin's Press boycott started, and they still refuse to take any of the simple actionable steps laid out by Readers For Accountability, to prove that they can protect the influencers they work with.
Learn more about the boycott on the R4A website
Sign the petition that has already accumulated over 8k signatures!
Email St. Martin’s Press as you would your representatives.
Do not review or post about any book from a SMP imprint.
Is the st Martian press book boycott still on going??
Yup, they still haven't said or done anything. Which is pretty embarrassing for them, since reportedly this is being actively discussed at many publishing events by other publishing professionals. Not to mention how many authors under them fully support the boycott.
R4A sent another email a few days with suggestions of what steps they could take to meet the (extremely basic!) demands, but still, nothing!
We still have yet to hear an acknowledgement and smp taking accountability for what their staffer posted and how they are going to change their behavior. The rhetoric spewed was racist and harmful. #speakupsmp If you would like to be in solidarity with us and want to see smp speak up, here are some steps you could take. @stmartinspress-blog
How I feel having just finished the second brilliant book in the past month and a half that I can't talk about because St. Martin's Press refuses to do the right thing and address Readers for Accountability's concerns.
