The Book Manufacturers Institute, a trade association for book printers and their suppliers in North America, is joining the industry’s fight against book bans. Through the “BMI Challenge,” the association is encouraging its 110 members to donate to We Are Stronger Than Censorship, an initiative cosponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association and EveryLibrary Institute; if members raise $16,000, BMI will match that sum with its own $16,000 donation.
We Are Stronger Than Censorship uses donated funds to purchase two books from independent publishers for every book that is banned or challenged. The books are then given to schools and libraries affected by bans and challenges.
“We don't have a foundation arm or a charitable arm, but we've always been interested in supporting these types of efforts,” said BMI executive director Matt Baehr, “and it’s good timing.” The BMI Challenge will officially launch this fall in New York City, at the BMI Book Manufacturing Mastered conference on September 16, “with the goal,” Baehr said, “of raising the funds between now and then.”
Lee Wind, IBPA chief content officer, and Tasslyn Magnusson, an independent researcher affiliated with EveryLibrary, teamed up to launch We Are Stronger Than Censorship in September 2024 after the two became friends through Magnusson’s Zoom support meetings for authors of books that have been challenged or banned. Wind’s No Way, They Were Gay? Hidden Lives and Secret Loves (Lerner/Zest Books, 2021) has been challenged repeatedly since its release, and he sought support by joining the Zoom meetings.
The idea for such an initiative was sparked,Wind said, when Magnusson related the story of a Wisconsin school, where one person challenged 400 books in its library, which resulted in all of those books being removed for review; most of them were placed back on the shelves four months later.
“Truly, all of those kids in that school lost access to all of those books for practically a whole semester,” Wind recalled. “We were trying to figure out, how can we make the numbers work against the book banners? That's where this idea came from: for every book challenge, we're going to try to buy and donate two books to offset that challenge.” He added, “If those people know that if they challenge 400 books, 800 books are going to be purchased—it might slow them down.”
Wind also noted that sales to schools and libraries are down 50% for independent publishers reporting to IBPA since book bans started spiking a few years ago, which is why IBPA and EveryLibrary decided to buy books, rather than ask publishers to donate them, to help pump up sales of such books.
To date, the initiative has raised $16,000, and more than 50 companies have partnered with IBPA and EveryLibrary on it. That success prompted BISG to award Wind its 2025 Industry Champion Award, given to an individual whose efforts have advanced the industry as a whole. Wind said that when he received the award at a BISG ceremony in New York City on April 25, he issued a challenge to the audience to partner with IBPA and EveryLibrary on this initiative.
Explaining that several BMI board members were present when Wind issued his challenge, Baehr said that the plan for BMI’s challenge to its membership was quickly approved at the next board meeting. “If we hit $16,000 in member donations, and then the association matches it with another $16,000 contribution," he said, “then we get 4,000 books out there, in circulation.”
“We would love for other organizations in the publishing sphere to follow the example of BMI's leadership,” Wind said, “and create similar challenges to their members to help us raise the numbers and really pull the emergency brakes on this.”
