Yet another woman - a writer - sacked after TRA campaign.

[WildishBambino]

Having seen Hachette and the Blair Partnership stand up for JKR, I had some hope for the publishing industry.

There's a series of children's books called The Warrior Cats. Proper children's books, aimed at the 8-12 age range, and not part of YA fiction. Published by Harper Collins, but put together by Working Partners.

The books are written by 'Erin Hunter' which is collective pseudonym for a bunch of female writers. One of which was a Scottish writer Gillian Philip.

When JKR was attacked, Philip changed her twitter handle to include a message of support. This attracted the ire of the TRAs and also it appears the Furries (because of the anthropomorphic cats I assume). She received a huge amount of sexualised abuse via Twitter, which she just retweeted and said 'Bring it on homophobes and lesbian-haters'.

Her twitter feed is now gone, but you can view a cache <a class="break-all" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Qisq_6YhRvwJ:twitter.com/Gillian_Philip+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b-d" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here

As she wouldn't recant, the TRAs facilitated a mass spamming of complaints to her employer Working Partners.

Within 24 hours James Noble is the managing editor at Working Partners personally emailed complainants to say she was sacked.

This really doesn't seem to have been picked up by the media, presumably because it involves a children's author far less well-known than JKR. But it shows what happens to women who step out of line when they aren't too big to cancel.

@Abhannmor

Wtf. I can't understand them caving in to this spam campaign. Lets face it trans community don't read a lot of children's fiction?

Strikes me they're too busy trolling on Twitter to do any reading.

"Stunted emotionally" is spot on.

Maybe the publishers hope to do them all a favour by encouraging them to read? After all, it's only another woman.

I would love to know when these companies are going to stop doing the wrong thing.

It's WOMEN that keep a lot of these recently woke companies afloat not a bunch of disturbed little boys too busy Tweeting from multiple email addresses to go out and spend money.

[quote SenselessUbiquity]@PhasedOut, that makes much more sense to me - that this author was legt go by Working Partners rather than HC - but that goes against someone else saying very authoritatively that it was HC. Perhaps HC brought pressure to bear on Working Partners?

Sorry this may seem like very tedious technical points, but I am really curious to know who did the throwing-under-the-buss and what sort of form it took, as I am sort-of-familiar with all of these organisations and I would really like a sense of which organisation is doing what, and what the various cultures are like.

So a kind of freezing out, non renewal of a contract is different from
a termination of a contract
is different from a sacking

and it kind of makes a difference whether the people she is directly contracted with just decided to do it, or whether HC intervenes too.

HC are part of News Corp. To what extent does the wider organisation set the HC culture?[/quote]
My understanding is the HC told WP they were unhappy, and WP took action. HC is WP's biggest customer I think, so WP threw Gillian under the bus, as you put it, to placate their biggest client. To be honest it was a ruthlessly commercial but morally spineless decision by both parties I think. I honestly don't know whether publishers have always been like this, or whether it genuinely has got worse the last few years. My involvement - which is peripheral at best - with publishing doesn't go back far enough to know but it feels like it's got worse.

Thank you @krustykittens and @PhasedOut.

So, we need to add Harper Collins to the never ending boycott list

Have added to my basket. This whole things gets more frightening by the day.

I read a lot of books. On my kindle.

I never read about the author. I only want to read a good story

I think that’s what reading is about

Not cancelling authors cos of some made up stuff by kid# on twitter

Readers want good stories not red guard telling us who and what we can read

This is trying to control what we can read.

Slippery slope to a control of what we can read.

Publishers doing this sound very very like all authoritative regimes

Read what we want you to,read

Yes, it's me @SenselessUbiquity.

I wouldn't breach confidentiality @JinnyTheWitch. Stella, Posey and Gillian are all happy for the FSU's support for them to be made public.

The Free Speech Union is a great idea but I don't like the fact that it's £50 to join. Free speech should be free.

And it doesn't promise or seem to provide any support bar writing letters?

If anyone's still looking to buy Gillian's books they're still available at hive.co.uk which also lets you support independent bookshops over Amazon

I tried to download bad faith on my kindle but the searches were coming up blank. Found it eventually as it says it's by Philip rather than Gillian Philip. It is a US kindle - not sure if that makes a difference, but may be useful for anyone else having the same problem.

We are faaaar down the rabbit hole if a writer who’s not even the named author on a series of fantasy books about cats gets canned. What a ridiculous state of affairs. Shame on both HC and WP for allowing this to be any sort of issue.

The books are written by 'Erin Hunter' which is collective pseudonym for a bunch of female writers. One of which was a Scottish writer Gillian Philip.

And the other 2/3 of that collective very quickly showed their submission to the mob by posting the trans flag as a heart. The mob approves. For now.

twitter.com/selneversleeps/status/1277685132686766082

“I can’t believe Vicky Holmes punched Gillian Philip in the face”
“Can't believe Kate kicked her afterwards.“
“vicky holmes took gillian phillips to the ring and jumped off the ropes onto her“

It may depend which series you’re working on, how much you earn from it and whether you have invested in a mortgage based on those earnings. Given Gillian was working on spin-offs, it’s likely she wasn’t earning much, and though that differential is problematic in itself, it does mean she has more opportunity to walk away.

This is where consumerism above all else gets us. HC values profit over authors, who are largely disposable unless they are as big as JK Rowling. And the Working Partners method, where authors write under a pseudonym means they are completely replaceable.

@TobyYoung

I really hope that Gillian Philip is able to get some redress by the involvement of the FSU. It is quite shocking that in a Western liberal democracy, authors are being sacked for wrong think. I think this is deliberate targeting. Pour encourager les autres. What is also shocking is how few powerful public figures are prepared to stand up for freedom of speech. Good luck to Gillian and FSU. This onslaught against freedom of speech must be challenged.

Students, retirees and those on benefits can join for £24.99/year. And whether you're a discount member or a part-time member you can pay monthly, so discount membership starts at £2.49/month:

freespeechunion.org/join/

Letter-writing is certainly one of the things we do, but we also offer a range of other services, including providing people with pro bono legal support in certain circumstances. We did that in the recent case of Mike McCulloch:

unherd.com/thepost/liked-tweets-nearly-cost-me-my-university-job/?=frpo

I really worry about the effect this will have on literature, children's and YA literature in particular. If you can only be published by adhering to a very narrow set of beliefs, then the quality and diversity of what is published has to suffer.

The twitter accounts in that thread where they are talking about the author putting up a rainbow heart - they all sound really young. They use words my daughter and friends use - 13 - 14.

This whole thing is really disgusting. I'm sure it tells us about the precarious employment arrangements for people on those sort of jobs, but for Harper Collins ( & and Working whatever they're called) to behave like that is so stupid & short sighted. All these organisations are telling the world - " if you can get a mob together on social media we will do what you tell us. We have no idea what type of thing we'll be pushed into doing in the future but whatever it will be is fine by us. Join the queue to push us around here."

Just checking that this is the right book www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Faith-Philip-ebook/dp/B07BYKVFZK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1593682947&sr=8-1

It would be fantastic if we could push it up the kindle charts as a gesture of support for gillian. It's already at the 6000-ish mark which is really good and it won't take many sales to propel it into the top 1000.

Aside from anything else, it sounds great. 'Think 1984 without the livestock' - I'm very ready for that.

This surely has to be discriminatory enough to take to court?

@AbsintheFriends Yes that's the one

Where do you see its ranking?

I've emails -

I'm writing to express my disquiet at the apparent sacking of author Gillian Philips from the Erin Hunter series of titles because of her views on feminism. As the one chooses the books we buy for our children, I would be reluctant to support a company that stifles the voices of women campaigning for their rights. Should you persist in taking Ms Philips’ work from her, I will no longer feel able to purchase Beast Quest, Rainbow Fairies and any of the other series I’ve given to children over the years.

I hope you are able to reassure me I am misinformed and Ms Philips remains on your roster.

I look forward to hearing from you
WendyH

Thanks for the hive suggestion @DangerFrog. I have ordered Firebrand. I would have ordered the lot but they’re not in stock. I have searched on a few sites now and you really have to look for these books - searching by author’s name brings up a list of random other gillians and jillians.

Thanks bogoblin

Where do you see its ranking?

It's in 'product details' Binglebong - more difficult to find on a mobile device than on a laptop. Amazon sales ranking. I can see this one has actually slipped down a bit, but of course it's Thursday, which is release day in publishing so there will be a lot of competition today. Waiting until tomorrow to download on kindle might be a better idea.

I think I'll get the paperback for DD. It sounds great, and from the summary, I can understand why she's stuck up for what she believes in.