Gendered Book Marketing - Is a Boycott Really Fair to the Author?

Recently, The Independent newspaper announced that they will no longer review gender-specific children's books, arguing that marketing books in this way gives  a child an impression of how their gender should be defined.

'Sugar and spice and all things nice, that’s what little girls are made of.' wrote Katy Guest, 'And boys? They’re made of trucks and trains and aeroplanes, building blocks, chemistry experiments, sword fights and guns [..] At least, that’s the impression that children are increasingly given by the very books that are supposed to broaden their horizons.'

Guest goes on to cite the Let Books Be Books campaign, which aims to discourage gender-specific book marketing in the children's book industry.

The Independent's decision has been met with a lot of response - both praise and skepticism has been thrown in its direction. When I first read of it, I was impressed and happy that a big voice in the media was targeting gendered books. I am fed up of gender specific book covers determining and restricting an author's work to a limited demographic. Equally, I began to wonder if The Independent's boycott was really fair to the authors of these texts.

Lilit Marcus has claimed that The Independent's straight refusal is 'counterproductive' - most author's do not get a say in how their creative work will be marketed and to whom it will be targeted. 

Marcus explains: 'Those decisions are made by highers-up at publishing companies, with the actual writer just hoping that their book will manage to somehow stand out from the pack of new releases. Choosing to boycott a book based on to whom it’s being marketed is kind of like boycotting a band based on who goes to their concerts – there is not much that the actual creator of the work can do'.

Of course, we must ask how we can judge a book (the actual texture of a piece of writing) as good if we do not even spare it a chance past its cover and poor choices made by a publishing company's publicity staff? By boycotting gendered children's books, The Independent is oversimplifying an industry-wide issue and ignoring (possibly forcefully shunning) the writer and their potential reputations.