#speakupsmp

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!

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

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 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.

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. 

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.