I want to start by saying that I stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
I’m glad that a spotlight is being shone on both the blatant and structural racism that exists within our societies.
I also want to urge the book community to continue to speak out about the injustices inherent in our societies, and I would like to encourage each and every one of us to think about how we might use our platforms for good.
| Contents Why is Diversity in Publishing Important? How Can the Book Community Work Together to Improve Diversity in Publishing? |
As a graduate of Politics (MA) and Criminology and Criminal Justice (MSc), I was exposed through the course of my studies to the ways in which race and ethnicity play a role in how somebody is treated in society.
I could write a whole post about the relationship between race and outcomes in the criminal justice system, for instance. Instead, I will leave this brilliant illustration here for your consideration:
You, also, only need to read Breakfast at Bronzefield by Sophie Campbell to understand how deeply prejudice runs in the criminal justice system in the UK.
However, I want to use this space on my book blog to share some ideas about the ways in which the the book community (book bloggers, bookstagram, booktube, book twitter, et al) can work together to do our bit to tackle the issue of the lack of diversity in publishing.
While most of this blog will focus on issues relating to the UK publishing industry, here’s a small insight into how the US publishing industry is doing in terms of diversity:
Across the board (rightly so), there has been a lot of chat in the book community this week about diversity in publishing.
As a result, I’ve been thinking about how we can work together as a book community, in the long term, to ensure that we hold publishers to account on their claims to want to make a difference and to want to publish and promote work from a diverse range of authors.
The focus this week has been predominantly on Black authors, but here I talk more generally about diversity in publishing (taking into account race, ethnicity, gender, social class, disability, sexuality).
Why is Diversity in Publishing Important?
I feel like if I need to explain this to you, you’re probably on the wrong person’s blog, but here we go…
Diversity across all aspects of life is important for many reasons. The main reason in my eyes is quite straight forward:
Diversity, in both the publishers who publish books, and in the authors that are being published, is essential. In my eyes, this is because they are interrelated and dependent on each other.
For example, if only White upper-class women work in publishing, then they are more likely to publish books written by White upper-class women. This means that the books which are then available likely speak to White upper-class women. In turn, this may exclude some people from engaging in literature, increasing their likelihood of having low levels of literacy (a whole another problem in itself).
While this is a gross over-simplification of this issue, it potentially gives you an idea about why I feel diversity in publishing is important.
Diversity in literature makes literature more accessible, engaging, dynamic and exciting: for people who identify in all kinds of different ways.
In particular, many people have said that seeing themselves in the characters of books has brought them such comfort, joy and a feeling of connection. This, in itself, is special and wonderful and worthy of celebration.
To speak for myself: I want to read books that speak to different people in different ways. I want to know that there are books in the shops written by people from all walks of lives. I want to hear untold stories and learn about other people’s lived experience.
I’ve always been that way. From reading Noughts and Crosses as a White teenager and realising how weird societal structures actually are; to learning about Chinese culture from a female perspective through Adeline Yen Man’s Cinderella Story.
Learning about other people’s lived experiences has always been really important to me.
That’s why I find this statistic especially startling:
If you’re interested in reading more about publishing in the UK, the full report published by Publishers Association makes for an interesting read.
As you read, please interrogate these statistics closely and be critical of what you read.
In particular, I would encourage you to ask yourself such questions as:
- Why is it that a disproportionately large number of people working in publishing have attended a private school? What barriers to publishing might be faced by somebody who has not attended a private school?
- The publishing industry is predominantly dominated by women (69% of publishers are women). Why is this? What does this mean for the representation in literature of people who don’t identify as female?
- If there are gaps in publishing in the young and older age ranges (despite these people being of working age), what does this do to the type of stories that are told? Could it go some way to explaining why there is little representation in books of older characters? Again, what barriers stand in place for these specific groups of people?
- Overall, the publishing industry in the UK appears at first sight to be reasonably well-balanced in terms of race as compared to the general population. By that I mean: 13% of publishers are ‘BAME’. This is in comparison to 14% of the general population. However, it’s important to consider how each distinct racial group within the umbrella term ‘BAME’ is treated. Further to this: where are Black male voices in publishing?
- Another issue that is worth considering: Who is holding the power in publishing? Who are the decision makers?
It was a Twitter user, Emmanuel @emansiji, who made me think about some of the complexities of these race-related statistics in a thread he created:
How Can the Book Community Work Together to Improve Diversity in Publishing?
As a community, I see that we have influence and audience: two key indicators of the power we have within the wider world of books and publishing.
I personally think this is a power we should use for good.
In the past week, we have seen the ways in which when we pull together and work as a collective, we are a stronger and better community.
I’ve been glad to see so many people speaking out against racism and prejudice and I hope that these people make good on their resolutions to change their reading habits and to make their bookshelf more diverse.
Here are the ways in which I see that we as a book community can pull together to use our collective power to make a difference in the publishing world:
- Take stock: What is on our shelves? Who wrote those books? What did we read this month/year? How does it compare to the previous year? Do we see progress or do we see a regression in our aims to diversify our bookshelf? Any change takes time, perseverance and determination.
- Engage critically with literature: What is the message of this book? Why is it important (if at all)? What does it contribute to our understanding of the world around us? Is it possible that your understanding of a book has been limited or shaped in some way by your own lived experiences?
- Think about what you promote: So you got a book from a publisher and now you feel like you have to post about it? Very few (if any) bookstagrammers are paid in any way to promote books. So what books do you want to accept from publishers? What kind of books do you want to promote? What kind of books do you want to shine a spotlight on? Whether you have 30 followers, 3,000 or 30,000… this is something we should all be thinking about.
- Speak to publishers about anything that features in a book that is problematic. Many of us read books before they are launched out into the world. So is it not our duty to hold publishers accountable for publishing problematic books?
- Look at the world through your new critical lens. If you go to a book event and the panel is dominated by White voices, use the question time to say something about it. Black authors have told us that they are constantly asked to comment on diversity in the book publishing world, yet White authors do not report being asked the same. Let’s ask those questions. Also, let’s not just wait until the event. Are you looking at a panel line-up and seeing that it’s dominated by white, cis, able-bodied people? Contact the event organisers beforehand to make your feelings known. Say to them that you would like to see them use their events to give platform to a range of different voices.
- Make an effort to seek out, listen to and support the content of creators who speak about these and similar issues. This will keep you accountable in your goals and ensure that the social media algorithms (start to) show you content which keeps you critically engaged in these topics.
I hope that some of what I’ve said here has been useful, in some way, to someone. Please do take what is useful and leave the rest. I’d also love to hear of anything that you’ve heard spoken about or have thought about yourself, that could help us, as a book community, to campaign for greater diversity in publishing.
READING WITH KT 