end of an era

13 Dec 2020 news 0 Comments

Screen Shot 2020-12-13 at 10.59.07 AMFor a decade, Edi and I have compiled an annual list of MG and YA books by Black authors. I wasn’t looking forward to posting the list this year and have finally decided to step down. Our list always drew from Edi’s year-long list of BIPOC new releases so it makes sense for her to carry on; you can find her 2020 list and analysis over at the Crazy Quilt Edi blog. Has tracking US publishers’ support of Black authors made a difference? I don’t know. Our lists definitely get a lot of hits throughout the year, and I hope some educators and librarians discovered the many Black kid lit creators who aren’t on Times Square billboards and don’t have publicists booking them on The Today Show. The NY Times just published an article about the appalling lack of diversity in publishing and I just read a piece in The Atlantic about the proposed merger of two corporate publishers—the “Big 5” is now the Big 4. What’s at stake?

As the big houses have become bigger and bigger, their business has become more about making money than art or protest, so that small publishers now provide a far wider variety of literature, politics, history, and journalism, of art making and truth-to-power-speaking, of actual risk taking—and from a far more diverse group of authors —than the commercial conglomerate publishers. And the bigger the big publishers get, I told the DOJ attorneys, the more risk-averse they become. The less willing they are to lose money. Audiences need to be expanded, not necessarily diversified. And then the safer, less boat-rocking, bigger-demographic-satisfying stuff they publish becomes what the marketplace they dominate adapts itself to sell. The risk aversion becomes systemic.

My publisher is the one gobbling up everyone else—will that improve things for a Black author like me? Probably not. If I had to fight for my series and for fair pay before, I’m not likely to be treated any better now that the publisher is even more invested in blockbusters. I’m going to try not to think about the industry as I work on finishing this picture book and revising my two novels over the holidays. It’s been a rough year and I’m ready to bake a little, play my favorite carols, and lose myself in the magic of Christmas.