What's Missing in the Boycott of Repeater Books

There is a boycott petition currently underway. It is asking writers, publishers and readers of Repeater Books to cease from buying anything from the company due to its owner’s investments in Israeli AI companies and the removal of the name of Repeater from a pro-Palestine petition in November 2023 (“Publishers for Palestine”). But this is not the only scandal the press is facing.

There are also reports that the staff at Repeater attempted to get other staff members fired for signing authors that they disagree with ideologically and a detailed report from autonomist Marxist writer Rhyd Wildermuth that describes how his book at Repeater was censored and then sabotaged in its promotion. Thus far, the organizers of the current boycott have either denied these claims of censorship or in the case of Mattie Colquhoun, they have seemed to somehow justify them. This begs the question: why would Repeater Books bring on leftist authors that the staff of the press disagreed with so vehemently that they would censor and sabotage their books? Clearly, more than just conflicts over Palestine were taking place behind the scenes at Repeater Books. In his account of the origins of the current boycott, Craig with Acid Horizon surprisingly ignored any mention of Wildermuth’s case. Craig instead blames me for breaking solidarity with Palestine because I spoke to the management of the press about the reports of censorship and to inquire into why the press stopped commissioning new books in 2024. Craig’s accusation is highly confusing because Tariq Goddard and his team which included Craig and others with Acid Horizon and Mattie Colquhoun never made a public call to other authors not to speak to the management of the press and nor did they make a call to boycott the press. It was only after they had all left the press and after these reports have come to light that the boycott came about.

It was the exiting of Goddard and then later his entire team that has allowed these stories of the toxic and censorious internal culture at Repeater to surface. It is an account of these specific behaviors that is missing from the recent call to boycott Repeater that has led me to refuse to sign the petition. And let me be clear that I believe it was anathema to the founding vision of Repeater to have the publisher’s name removed