I’m about to ruffle some feathers. Hell, I’m about to pick up the bird and shake the shit out of it until every damn feather falls off… but here it goes. The publishing industry is a snowstorm. What do I mean by that? I mean that winds are blowing and everywhere you look is white. Sure, every so often you see a silhouette or some colour, but publishing IS and HAS BEEN a snowstorm.
I could go into the foundations that built the system. I could list the dates and the people being allowed to publish and the pen names that were born out of necessity, but the long and short of it is, Black, Indigenous, and PoC voices are insanely underrepresented in publishing. Self-publishing has built a bridge that didn’t really fill the gap, but has allowed a lot of these voices access, but it’s been evident to both BIPOC authors and BIPOC readers that large publishing houses are hard-pressed to accept diverse stories by diverse voices, and when they do, they don’t put their money where their mouth is with these stories.
“But S.J., you’ve said readers are doing it wrong. What exactly are we doing? We don’t control the publishing houses!”
That is and isn’t true. Let me explain. Publishing, just like so many other things, is a numbers game. So many of these houses justify not financially backing their BIPOC manuscripts by saying the numbers just aren’t there, and they don’t want to take a big financial hit on stories there is no market for. Is this true? I could actually rant about this for days, but no one likes a long blog post. So let me tighten up the conversation by saying: no, it isn’t true. There is a market for BIPOC stories penned by BIPOC authors; the issue is reach and marketing. If they aren’t financially backing these stories, there are fewer readers aware of the release; if fewer readers are aware of the release, less go out to buy the books when they are released so said books can find a place on the charts, and if these books don’t place on the Top Seller Charts, they can justify underfunding the next release… all the while ignoring that underfunding the release in the first place was the issue, and they’ve created an endless cycle where they’ve set these books up to fail.
“I hear what you’re saying, but what does this have to do with readers?”
Most readers who aren’t a part of the BIPOC community rely on charts, socials, and the TRENDING tables for their next read. A lot of these things tend to ignore BIPOC works. On top of that, when there is a call for diverse reading, far too many readers want diverse stories from their favourite white authors…
The number of times BIPOC authors have seen readers in the comments of their white authors begging for diversity is insane. More insane is the number of diverse reads by diverse authors already out there. Why is this a problem? Because this is telling publishing houses they are right. That they don’t need BIPOC voices to tell their own stories because the readers are more than happy getting their diversity handed to them by white hands.
Sometimes, it’s hard to see outside ourselves and without actively looking inward, it’s difficult to see how our actions (intentional or not) can help uphold an unjust system. Supporting BIPOC voices is something we can’t do passively. We have to actively look at the authors we consume so we can make a difference in how many of these stories reach our hands.
“So what can we do?”
Be intentional.
Maybe you haven’t been flipping to the back of a book to look at the author, but the truth is, you should. Like reading a blurb, you should not only care what the book is about but who is telling the story.
“I don’t care who is telling the story; I just care if it’s good.”
Okay, but how would doing this change that? How would being intentional somehow shift your reads into something that isn’t good? This excuse implies diverse stories by diverse authors just don’t hold up, which isn’t true. The truth is, too many readers don’t want to make an effort to make a change. This brings us full circle… this is what a lot of readers are doing wrong. They post their stacks for the appropriate month, showing the world they are someone who puts in the effort and recommending books, and a lot of those books shouldn’t be in those stacks at all. Because diversity doesn’t start and end with the characters. Diversity goes all the way through the book to the author.
Diversity matters.
And it takes effort to make sure the publishing world knows this.
