The Fun Part: Buying Books!

By now, it's safe to say that 2020 has not met any of our expectations. Instead of spending time with family and friends greeting the spring sun, we've been stuck inside commuting from bedroom to living room to kitchen and back again, trying not to get on our housemates' nerves. To fend off impending boredom, many of us have probably turned to our artists: binge-watching that television show that's been in our Netflix watch list forever—in my sad case, ordering knitting needles and learning from YouTube tutorials—or, browsing Goodreads for the next great novel we will definitely read, this time.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm a pro at the whole "buy books to sit on my shelf as I buy more books" lifestyle, and, too often, I use the 24-hour, buy-and-click option that is Amazon Prime. While under lockdown, Amazon Prime might be a lesser evil than breaking social-distancing codes to visit your independent bookstore, but after I learned about the communities and support indie bookstores offer their authors of color (as I spoke about in my last post!), I'm extremely aware of my power as a consumer. You've stuck with me as I've thrown statistic after statistic at you, but now comes a post on the fun part: reading and shopping! Today, I challenge you to consider these two questions:

1. What do you choose to read?

2. Where do choose to get those books from?

During my research for past posts, I read an interesting article by Sunili Govinnage. An Australian freelance writer, and human rights lawyer, Govinnage was struck by the lack of cultural diversity in the Anglosphere’s book canon. She took a good look at her bookshelves, noticed she was reading mostly books by white, monolingual authors, and decided to make a conscious change to her reading practices. Her experiment? She decided to only read books by minority books for a whole year. Though you can read about her entire experience, here, Govinnage identified many of the systemic problems with the Anglosphere’s publishing industry we’ve already discussed on this blog.

Her first issue was findability. When Govinnage turned to “book reviews, bestseller lists, literary awards, and Amazon.com” (“I read books”), she couldn’t find many books by authors of color to read and decided to ask for suggestions through The Guardian. Though she received many suggestions, she ran into her second problem: accessibility to e-books in the US written by authors from other countries. Though my blog focuses mostly on issues with authors of color being published in the US or UK, Govinnage brings up another important issue: “less than 1 percent of literary fiction and poetry books published in the United States are translations, and more than 60% of those are from Europe and Canada” (Govinnage, “I read books”). These low statistics show just what type of texts the US decides to prioritize translating, or purchasing international rights to. This March, my publishing class and I were supposed to visit the London Book Fair. Understandably, the Fair was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but as many international rights are negotiated at the Fair, I wonder how many opportunities to color our canon this year were missed?

Govinnage experienced similar issues when she tried to purchase books in-person at both independent and large bookstores. In my last post, I discussed how indie bookstores often offer physical spaces for specific readerships to safely gather and develop. These communities grow because of unique seller-customer relationships. Joe Hedinger explains it this way: as The Book Hive’s clientele becomes more diverse, so does its stock to reflect and cater to its growing market (Personal Interview). What we learn here is that indie booksellers pay attention to their customers. As a consumer, it’s worth asking your local bookseller for their book recommendations by minority authors, or if they’ll be willing to stock a specific author for you – they’ll indeed listen to your requests, and you may just see changes in their stock to reflect what you ask for. Don’t ever neglect the power you have as a consumer!

If you don’t have any specific titles you want stocked, by simply choosing to purchase from indie bookstores or directly from small publishers themselves, you are utilizing your power as a consumer. In February, I attended a Carcanet at 50 event. A panel of UK-based, independent poetry publishers pleaded with us to try to purchase through their website directly. Amazon.com, though quick and accessible, offers only 60% commission to publishers on books sold through their website, and that commission can be delayed up to months at a time (Commane, ‘Carcanet at 50 Panel’). Though Amazon offers discount prices, by spending just a bit more and purchasing directly through a publisher’s website, the publisher immediately gets 100% of the profit. And, as we know, purchasing from indie bookstores supports local businesses and the specific, diverse communities within them.

I’ll end with this personal anecdote. To keep busy during quarantine, my mom reorganized our home library. On a FaceTime call, she gave me a virtual tour of our new library, we came across my first claim to authorship: The Mean Cinderella, a retelling of the classic fairy tale I had written in a summer school class when I was nine. For kicks, my mom read out the opening pages to me. While taking a trip down memory lane, I smiled, amused at my overuse of cliché and my poorly-drawn crayon illustrations. It was only later that week, when I was re-watching Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk “The Danger of the Single Story,” that I realized I had drawn my Cinderella and her stepsister as white girls with fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. As a nine year old Chinese-American girl, I had not even considered main character could have my dark brown eyes and straight brown hair. And, as a twenty-three year old woman, I did not find sadness in my choice until I was reminded by another author of colour.

The Mean Cinderella was an important reminder to me that book culture is something that is taught to us as kids in school, and is perpetuated by what books and media we choose to surround ourselves with as adults. I hope after reading this post you are aware of both what you choose to read, and where you choose to get those books from. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: we are all part of the positive feedback loop that creates the Anglosphere’s book culture, and we can do our part to help diversity it, and normalize that diversification of it, even as consumers.

Source: amazon.co.uk

I’ve just received Raymond Antrobus’s The Perseverance, Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem, and Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings: A Reckoning on Race and the Asian Condition. Like Sunili Govinnage, I’m going to try and expand on my own reading choices, and read outside of the cultures I most identify with. Even as a person of color, I realize I need to do a better job of expanding my own reading choices to include all cultures and minority experiences. I’m excited to crack open these spines start that process, and I hope you’ll join me and help do you part to color the canon.

Stay healthy, and keep reading!

Kaci

P.S.

If you'd like some inspiration on where to start, below are the books Sunili Govinnage read during her 2014 experiment. You can also always check out my "Book Recommendations" page on the blog that I'll continue to add to!

Books Read by Sunili Govinnage

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

• Another Country by James Baldwin

• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

• Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke

• Open City by Teju Cole

• Saree by Su Dharmapala

• Tiddas by Anita Heiss

• Manhattan Dreaming by Anita Heiss

• Paris Dreaming by Anita Heiss

• The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez

• Butterfly Song by Terri Janke

• The Disappearance of Ember Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina

• The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina

• The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

• Supernova by Dewi Lestari

• The Astrologer's Daughter by Rebecca Lim

• Twilight in Jakarta by Mochtar Lubis

• Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko

• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

• Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa

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Works Cited

Commane, Jane, panellist. Panel discussion. Carcanet at 50, 25 Jan. 2020, Dragon Hall, The National Centre for Writing, Norwich, UK.

Govinnage, Sunili. "I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is." Washington Post, 24 Apr. 2015. washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fposteverything%2fwp%2f2015%2f04%2f24%2fi-only-read-books-by-minority-authors-for-a-year-it-showed-me-just-how-white-our-reading-world-is%2f. Accessed 18 May 2020.

Hedinger, Joe. Personal Interview. 27 Apr. 2020.

Indie Bookstores are an Author's Best Friend

One of the many stereotypes about Asian people is that we’re good at math. It’s one I wish were true, but I’m here to confirm I still suck at it. My latest dalliance with numbers was a mock-up profits and loss sheet for a literary magazine I pitched called, Between the Boxes. Though I may write about Between the Boxes later, for now I’m here to look at the marketing and distribution of books by authors of color.

Part of my profits and losses sheet projected my budget for Between the Boxes’ marketing campaign. In place of that number, I put in an optimistic placeholder, and continued merrily on my way to brainstorming publicity strategies. I was very focused on what Sarah Braybooke, Scribe UK’s newly appointed editor, taught my publishing class about marketing and publicity. The main difference between the two, is that marketing, such as through print or digital ads, are tailored directly to consumers or booksellers and cost the publisher money, whereas publicity, such as through interviews, reviews, and social media, is usually free (Braybrooke, ‘Marketing & Publicity’). Easy, right? Up the publicity and limit the marketing!

As Lee & Low’s 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey reports a majority 74% of North American marketing teams identify as white, possibly it’s that simple, if the book in-question is by a white, monolingual author.

But, as we’ve established in previous posts, authors of colour’s books often need extra attention to ensure parity of standards compared their white, monolingual counterparts. What makes marketing strategies for authors of color’s books any different? Though marketing and distribution are the areas of publishing I know the least about, throughout my readings, I’ve found three ways marketing teams can maximize the success of their authors of color, while doing so respectfully.

1. Hire a Culturally Specific Marketing Director

In my posts on agents and editors, we’ve seen respectfully preparing an author of color’s text for publication is difficult, but when it comes to their marketing campaigns it’s an even more complex task. As much of a book’s publicity comes from its author giving interviews on their work, and speaking to their connections to their text, marketing teams are tasked with marketing not only an author’s text, but also the author themselves. The idea of “selling” an author doesn’t sound great on paper, but Braybrooke explains it this way: marketing a book is difficult, but marketing a person is much easier because the person – through their social media accounts, interviews, and life stories – gives audiences something tangible to latch onto and identify with (‘Publishing & Marketing’).

Source: The British Library

Braybrooke brings up a fair point. For example, for Tessa McWatt’s memoir, Shame on Me: An Anatomy on Race and Belonging, her marketing team required a straight-on author’s photo that did not obscure her face (Personal Interview). As Shame on Me uses Tessa’s own body and facial features to explore her cultural identity, the team knew readers would want to see Tessa, and if they could, the book would sell better. This marketing decision makes perfect sense, however, Tessa’s author’s photo also allows for increased scrutiny of her face, rather than focusing on what her face has to say. Many of authors of colour in the UK report that “their ethnicity was the main focus of their publisher’s publicity campaign rather than any more universal aspect of their book” (Spread the Word 8). In my last post, we saw that first-hand in “the single cover” treatment many of the Anglosphere’s covers receive. This brings us to the critical question: How do the Anglosphere’s marketing teams ensure they’re respectfully promoting their authors of color?

One option is to create a culturally specific marketing campaign. Publishing houses can go about this in two ways: either ensure a marketing director on staff is trained to do so, or, hire a consultant publicist who will focus on the book’s culturally specific publicity, while the publishing house concentrates on traditional press. Why is this important?

Kima Jones is the owner of Jack Jones Literary Arts, a book publicity company that specializes in culturally specific marketing. (Visit their site: here!) She argues that marketing authors of color is not as easy as contacting the nearest cultural agency (qtd. by Ho, “Diversity”), and as her company boasts a 98% clientele of women writers of color, she’s the expert. Just because a text is written by a Chinese-American author, does not mean all audiences who identify as Chinese will want to pick it up. And, self-identifying as a person of color “doesn’t automatically render a publicist culturally competent in promoting books by diverse writers” (Jones qtd. by Ho, “Diversity”).

The job requires in-depth conversations with the author to figure out who they want their book to reach, and specific research and strategies to ensure those communities are reached in the right way. Just as Braybrooke points out that successful marketing must be done within the country a book is being sold, due to the cultural cues, languages, and mores of that country (“Marketing & Publicity”), the same attention must be applied to specific communities within an author of color’s audience. Jones’s specialized marketing strategies tailored to communities of color, and her connections to reviewers, and culturally-specific literary organizations and publications, allow her to ensure her clients’ books are read by the right people, at the right time.

While it is essential to reach a minority author’s cultural audiences, it is unwise to ignore the universal aspects of their texts when marketing. After all, the most successful authors will be those who hone into both their locality and universality (Braybrooke, “Marketing & Publicity”). In order to ensure authors of color reach their every potential reader, culturally specific publicists like Jones can make sure an author is portrayed respectfully and locally to communities of color they identify with, while the house can focus on what is universal and relatable about that author’s unique experience. It follows that you also need reviewers who can speak to both locality and universality. This brings us to the next suggestion: consider your book reviewers.

2. Choose Relevant Reviewers

Part of a successful marketing campaign is sending advance proofs to reviewers who, will hopefully write quote-worthy reviews that can be placed on covers, or advance information sheets that help booksellers consider which books to stock. Marketing teams for authors of color need to ensure they’re reaching out to reviewers who can speak to the author’s culturally specific readership, and their general one. During this process, marketing teams might ask themselves: Are my reviewers representative of the readership my author wants to reach? Will they be able to engage with the cultural or linguistic aspects of the text, and pick up on essential cultural cues? Are the reviewers from the same educational background?

In a 2011 New York Times study, they found that 90% of books reviewed in the Anglosphere are those by white authors (qtd. by Govinnage, 'I read books').

And, as a whopping 80% of book reviewers in North America self-identify as white (Lee & Low, ‘Diversity Baseline Survey’), the questions above become particularly important to ask, and highlight the necessity of publicists like Jones who can help their authors of color’s books reach the relevant desks within the remaining 20%.

My last question above regarding the educational background of reviewers might come as a surprise, but a 2018 study conducted by Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds found that reading contexts affects what aspects of texts resonate with readers. The study asked two reading groups—one comprised of “non-professional,” pleasure readers, and the other of academics from the University of Oxford—to read three contemporary books by Black British authors: Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love (2010), Nadia Mohamed’s Black Mamba Boy (2010), and Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone (2014).

Source: Amazon.co.uk & Goodreads

The study found that “though black and Asian British writing is often marked as exotic or different… readers of all ages [and colors] were able energetically to put those imposed meanings to one side” (Boehmer & Lombard 116). The readers who connected most with the universal aspects of texts and “locat[ed] experiences related to their own in very different contexts” were the so-called “non-professional,” pleasure readers (Boehmer & Lombard 116). The academic readers, though understandably more critical of the texts, were also warier of trusting their perspectives, and did not allow themselves to personally identify with them as much (Boehmer & Lombard 116-7). What we learn from this study is that though receiving a review from my neighbour John Doe is not as prestigious as one from critically-acclaimed poet Kaveh Akbar, when considering who to ask to review books, do not neglect your everyday reader.

Like with “the single cover” trope we even see in the covers above, some author of color’s publicity campaigns focus too heavily on their ethnicity, and do so in the wrong way. It is important to highlight a book’s universality to help deconstruct that perceived “Otherness” and normalize books by authors of color in the canon. There is, after all, more that connects us than divides us, and possibly reviews from these everyday readers can help us to see that.

3. Utilize Your Independent Bookstores

Part of a marketing team’s job is to pitch books to booksellers. Though distributing texts through big-name booksellers like Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon is definitely necessary for both accessibility and publicity, Jones argues that marketing teams too often neglect utilizing their local bookstores for author of color campaigns. “The independent bookstore is by far our best friend… it’s about getting the book to the bookseller, [and] putting it on the staff recommend shelf,” Jones argues (qtd. by Ho, “Diversity”).

Source: The Book Hive

Whereas Waterstones might focus too heavily on a text’s otherness and categorize books by authors of color in distinct sections of the bookstore, small, independent booksellers do not need to follow such segregating rules. Take Norwich’s The Book Hive, for example. Part of The Book Hive’s ethos is to stock books that both reflect the diversity of its customers, and encourage customers to read diverse texts (Hedinger, Personal Interview). By refusing to categorize its books on the bookshop’s shelves, this ethos is reflected in The Book Hive’s display practices. Readers shopping in store are not allowed to immediately gravitate to sections or genres they identify with, and might give another book a chance.

Photo by Brian W. Carter

Like The Book Hive, many indie bookstores collate unique stock that will appeal to a specific market of patrons. In doing so, they become physical spaces where literary communities feel safe to gather and develop. One example of such a place is Eso Won Books in Los Angeles, California. Co-owned by Tom Hamilton and James Fulgate, Eso Won books has been stocking texts primarily by African-American authors for thirty-plus years, Eso Won Books hosted President Barack Obama’s first book-signing in 1995 to an audience of ten people, five of whom worked at the store (Ho, “Diversity”). They welcomed him back for his second book signing in 2006 to a crowd of a thousand fans (Ho, “Diversity”). President Obama’s story just goes to show that unlike Waterstones or Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores are willing to support their new, minority authors at all stages of their career. Needless to say, publicists for culturally specific marketing campaigns should not neglect their indie bookstores, and consumers should consider paying a little extra to support them, knowing that they are often ensuring essential communities can continue to thrive.

Though this post only discusses a few ideas based off of what I read, already I see the careful mitigation that must come when marketing authors of colors and their texts. In today’s world, unfortunately the words “authentic” and “exotic” have become interchangeable, and it is a delicate dance to not ignore an author’s ethnicity, while also ensuring it does not become a text’s only selling point.

Thanks for reading—next time I’ll be talking more about a particularly relevant topic: the power of you, the consumer!

Stay safe and healthy,

Kaci

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Works Cited:

Boehmer, Elleke & Lombard, Erica. “Publishing, the Curriculum and Black British Writing Today.” Wasafiri, vol. 34, no. 4, 2019, pp.115-121. Scopus, doi: 10.1080/02690055.2019.1635836.

Braybrooke, Sarah. “Marketing & Publicity.” Publishing: A Practical Approach, College of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing, 10 Feb. 2020, University of East Anglia Campus, Norwich, UK. Lecture.

Govinnage, Sunili. "I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is." Washington Post, 24 Apr. 2015. washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fposteverything%2fwp%2f2015%2f04%2f24%2fi-only-read-books-by-minority-authors-for-a-year-it-showed-me-just-how-white-our-reading-world-is%2f. Accessed 18 May 2020.

Hedinger, Joe. Personal Interview. 27 Apr. 2020.

Ho, Jean. “Diversity in Book publishing Isn’t Just About Writers—Marketing Matters, Too.” Code Switch: Race and Identity, Remixed, 9 Aug. 2016, npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/08/09/483875698/diversity-in-book-publishing-isnt-just-about-writers-marketing-matters-too?t=1584319992973. Accessed 18 May 2020.

Lee & Low Books. “Where is the diversity in publishing? The 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey Results.” The Open Book Blog, 28 Jan. 2020, blog.leeandlow.com/2020/01/28/2019diversitybaselinesurvey/. Accessed 18 May 2020.

McWatt, Tessa. Personal Interview. 27 Feb. 2020.

Spread the Word. Writing the Future: Black and Asian Writers and Publishers in the UK Market Place, edited by Danuta Kean. Spread the Word.org.uk, 2015.

The Editor Wears Glasses?, Part II

Not bored yet? If you're still here, you must not be -- thank you for returning for Part II of "The Editor Wears Glasses?"

In my last post, I introduced you to the man who has replaced Miranda Priestly as my image of "editor": Philip Gwyn Jones, who, at the time of publication, was the editor-at-large of Scribe UK. His description of the many hats editors wear was extensive, and important to understanding the incredible influence editors have over their authors of colour. Today, I hope to expand on three of those hats, so grab a cup of tea and let's get started.

The Investor & Main Gatekeeper

Although split into two roles in my previous post, the roles of investing in authors and gatekeeping their entry into the publishing world are undeniably linked. By making an offer on a manuscript, editors become the main gatekeepers to publication, and as main gatekeeper, the same argument I wrote about in my post about agents applies. When making offers, editors need to remember they determine whose voices are heard in the Anglosphere.

Philip likens editors to the two-headed god, Janus; his simile is a good one. When deciding to invest in an author’s work, editors are always facing the worlds of both publishing and culture. On one hand, editors need to consider submission quality, and how it will continue their house’s ethos; and, on the other hand, how that manuscript will fit into and shape book culture. Should an author of color’s work meet a house’s high standards, editors need to recognize investing in their submission is also investing in the Anglosphere’s future book culture. I've spoken about it to death, but the US and UK will soon see its most diverse populations yet. Editors who publish multicultural and lingual stories will capitalize on a changing readership, and set their publishing houses apart as diversity-conscious and responsive businesses.

While on the topic of investment, it's worth remembering that when an editor invests in an author, the author invests right back! While the editor is the author's champion at the publishing house, that's not necessarily true for the entire publishing house (Thompson 88). A marketing team will market any book their house sets before them, and while they can be replaced, an editor cannot be. If an author finds an editor they love, the author is usually dedicated to their editor, and will follow their career (Thompson 88). As editors are publishing houses' strongest links to their authors, they should consider who they hire or promote as editors if they want to take on and keep their authors of color. When analyzing their house's employment diversity, publishing houses can examine what Mokades suggests at the end of this blog post.

The Designer

There’s the famous saying: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” We’ve all heard it, disregarded it, and completely fell into its trap. Let’s be honest—we all judge books by their packaging before we read a word inside, and in a world with too many books and too little time to read them all, that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, publishers utilize cover art to categorize books, which allows readers to visually identify books they might enjoy. Such categorization becomes concerning, however, when publishers use it to "shape, or even condition and confine, [readers’] expectations of books and narratives,” which could “act as barriers to certain books, not least so-called ‘BAME’ books, being picked up by readers” (Boehmer & Lombard 119).

Let’s take novels with an African connection, for example. Many novels that travel to or take place on the African continent often get what Stephen Simon calls the “acacia tree sunset treatment” (qtd. by Boehmer & Lombard 119). Aminata Forna’s The Devil that Danced on Water (2002), is a good example. The orange and yellow cover features acacia trees shading the silhouettes walking beneath them. Above the tree line, a girl with African features gazes into the distance. Just by looking at the cover, one could not guess that besides investigating her father’s assassination in Sierra Leone, Forna also writes of caravan rides through Scotland with her white, Scottish mother, and her experiences at an English boarding school (Boehmer & Lombard 118-9). The cover is misleading, and visually exoticizes what might be a text that resonates with a many audiences’ experiences. It only tells one part of a complex story, while serving to emphasize difference.

Collage of "acacia-sunset-treatment" covers, compiled by Simon Stephens

Whereas Adichie warns against perpetuating the “the single story,” Ross cautions against “the single cover,” some of which, as we see above, “have been designed by someone whose principal idea of [Africa] comes from The Lion King” ("The Dangers"). Indeed, in looking at the collage above, I can almost hear the opening wail of “The Circle of Life.” Don't worry Simba and Nala, all our faces looks like yours right now, too.

Another popular cover cliché for Black women writers is what Kewellhampton calls the “soulful-black-woman-with-colorful-smudges" that grace many of Adichie’s UK edition covers, much like the one for Half of a Yellow Sun, below (Ross).

Unsplash

From Adam Talib's presentation "Translating for Bigots"

Unfortunately, the "single cover" trope is not specific to stories that travel to Africa. It also perpetuates stereotypes about women in the Middle East, as seen in the covers of Arabic-to-English translations that features the “Arab woman… wrapped in ten layers of fabric” (Qualey, "Translating for Bigots"). And, if we kept looking, I’m sure we could only find more cover tropes like these.

Though the editor’s hand is not the one that wields the artistic paintbrush, it is the one who commissions and signs off on the book jacket and cover’s final designs. Editors hold power over how readers identify and categorize texts before picking them up, and must ensure that, like the texts inside them, author of colors’ book covers are not degradingly capitalizing on or highlighting a text’s exoticness.

The Editor

What is outside the text is what gets audiences to pick it up, but what is inside is what gets them to buy it. When editing texts, editors, must be aware how they define the act of “improving" their authors of colour’s stories. Improvement does not mean inserting unwanted Whiteness, dumbing down characters so they appear less educated, or changing vernacular so characters sound Othered. Improvement means editors situate themselves to suit the author’s genre and voice to champion what the author has already created.

While there are testimonies of editors that White-wash texts, other authors of color sometimes experience the flip-side of that pitfall. In a recent poetry submission, I wrote poems in English that delved into Mandarin Chinese and Hawaiian. Despite pointing out areas for improvement in my critical commentary, I got a surprisingly decent grade on it. I was more surprised to hear a white, more experienced peer of mine, had received a lower grade. Although grading creative work is subjective, I uneasily wondered if I had received my grade because my white marker felt uncomfortable critiquing a language she knew little about?

Similarly, my friend of color is writing a book in non-standard English, and has struggled to make that voice consistent—something that was pointed out to her by peers and tutors. In her most recent submission, she hoped her current tutor would comment on notably “problematic” parts of the protagonist’s voice, but she received only complimentary feedback. My friend was frustrated, unable to trust her white tutor’s commentary. Her frustration stems not from the quality of feedback, but from the fact she has to ask. She’s right—should my marker, or my friend’s tutor, had been people of color, particularly from our own backgrounds, we arguably would not have doubted our feedback as we did.

Philip argues that editors are language chameleons who can adapt to many different genres and vernaculars to make an author’s work the best it can be. He urges authors to trust their editors with their work, but if an author experiences something similar to what my friend and I did, I wonder how much an author of color has to doubt that trust? Should we have to? I truly believe Philip to be sincere, but if a text is written in a pidgin or code-switches between English and a non-English language, can monolingual editors honestly say: I am equipped to deal with this? Editors might ask themselves: Am I willing to look up unfamiliar words, or seek outside counsel on cultural aspects of texts? Do I ask my authors to include footnotes to cater to monolingual audiences? Am I able to critique and comment on languages and cultures I’ve never been a part of?

If the answer to those questions are in the negative, the editor needs to find someone who can offer equitable linguistic and cultural feedback that authors who write for monolingual audiences would receive. No single editor, no matter their genes, could possibly understand every language or cultural experience, but part of an editor’s job is to ensure parity of standards. Editors: your voices should not drown out your authors’, but also don’t let their manuscripts go to print with authors still wondering if it was their best work.

In retrospect, I may need to amend one of my first statements in my last post. Philip and Miranda not only share a quiet authority that earns respect, but also a sincere passion for the work of those they patron. I remind myself, although my blog may sound like a harsh critique of the Anglosphere’s publishing industry, it is not because I think every individual or aspect of the industry is poor. Philip, a White editor, helped Tessa McWatt, a proud author of color, publish her phenomenal memoir Shame on Me the way that she wanted it to be. Shame on Me is proof that authors of colors’ books can be published in the Anglosphere’s current industry and published well. It serves as an important reminder to me, one I want to remind readers of: agents and editors, particularly those like Philip, are not in publishing only for the money—they’re in it because they love great stories and want the world to hear them!

I started this blog hoping that we, as consumers, may become more aware of the book culture that powerful publishing houses, who may prioritize the bottom line over the integrity of their authors, set and perpetuate. I write not to accuse each aspect of the publishing industry for their lack of cultural diversity, or support for authors of color, but rather to encourage them to realize that every single person from author, to agent, to editor, to consumer, are part of a positive feedback loop that we all have the power to change, no matter where we are in that circle. My dream is to create a future that allows authors of color to publish their books the way they want to be published, and to share those diverse stories with equally diverse audiences who feel they can write culturally honest stories, too. That’s it.

Thank you for going on this journey with me. Next time, we’ll discuss what inspired me to look deeper into colouring the canon: how a book and author are marketed.

Stay happy and healthy,

Kaci

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Works Cited:

Boehmer, Elleke & Lombard, Erica. “Publishing, the Curriculum and Black British Writing Today.” Wasafiri, vol. 34, no. 4, 2019, pp.115-121. Scopus, doi: 10.1080/02690055.2019.1635836.

Jones, Philip. “Publishing.” Publishing: A Practical Approach, College of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing, 20 Jan. 2020, University of East Anglia Campus, Norwich, UK. Lecture.

Ross, Elliot. “The Dangers of the Single Book Cover: The Acacia Tree Meme and 'African literature.'"Africa is a Country, n.d., africasacountry.com/2014/05/the-dangers-of-a-single-book-cover-the-acacia-tree-meme-and-african-literature/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2020.

Thompson, John B. “The Rise of Literary Agents.” Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century, Polity Press, 2013, pp. 59-100.

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