A long-simmering dispute between St. Martin’s Press and a group of influencers called Readers for Accountability has heated up after the publisher reportedly sent an unsolicited PR box for Casey McQuiston’s The Pairing that contained a sex toy. A representative for the group said many of the influencers did not know they would be receiving a box or what would be in it.
The McQuiston controversy comes months after Readers for Accountability began a "marketing boycott" of SMP titles to protest what the group called racist, Islamaphobic, and anti-Palestinian sentiments sent by an SMP marketing department employee. The group said it first raised concerns to SMP in December 2023, but was not satisfied with the publisher’s response, and launched the #SpeakUpSMP marketing boycott, through which the group is refusing to support SMP titles until their concerns are addressed.
In addition to more forcefully denouncing the marketing employee’s comments, the group also wants SMP to take steps to ensure the safety of influencers, authors, and employees. An online petition has generated nearly 10,000 signatures so far.
On Friday, SMP posted a comment to its “publishing community,” though it did not specifically cite the comments it was responding to. The post reads in part: “The St. Martin’s Publishing Group is committed to publishing a wide variety of books from many viewpoints and perspectives. We condemn racism in all forms, including Islamophobia and antisemitism. This is a value of our company, and one that we hold ourselves accountable to every day.”
The statement continued: “We want authors, readers, media professionals, social media influencers, booksellers, librarians, and employees to feel respected, and in particular to have their privacy protected. Some have questioned our values and made allegations about our data privacy practices, none of which are accurate. We have responded to emails sent to us directly and answered the questions to the best of our ability. We took the claims and concerns seriously and thoroughly investigated all of them. Our investigation did not find anything to support the claims.”
