In a Chicago Triune article, Nara Schoenberg quotes Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania: “Fewer than 40 books by African-American authors for adolescents were published in 2015….Every year thousands of books for kids and teens are published, and every year we don’t seem to be able to get that number much over 100.”
If we did a count across publishers for how many books written by minority authors or whose main characters are multicultural children, the numbers for Latin American, Native American, Asian American, Indian American, and so forth are substantially fewer than what is shown here for African American children’s books. And even with the “We Need Diverse Books” movement, I imagine we won’t see much higher numbers for 2016. It's a big ship to turn, I know.
The publishing industry is stuck in this area, and our “stuckness” stems partly from a self-defeating mind-set that repeats, like truth, “Multicultural books don’t sell.” But if we don’t publish multicultural books, how will they sell? We publish millions of mainstream books that flop harder than Moby Dick in the Pacific Ocean, but somehow we get to multicultural books and become really conservative, saying things like, "The market has spoken."
The industry needs to quickly and intentionally make every effort to overcome this mind-set and reset our intentions to meet the needs our diverse audiences are crying out for.
Here are four ways I think we can reverse this destructive mind-set and negative expectation when it comes to publishing and selling multicultural children’s books:
1. Stop saying that!
It’s time we stop repeating the negative confession all over the book publishing industry that “multicultural books don’t sell.” We need to start recognizing that they do, just not how we pictured they would or should. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been in over the last almost thirteen years that I’ve heard this statement hammer down in the middle of the room with the finality of a judge’s gavel. Court is NOT adjourned. This statement will only remain true if we keep believing it and carry on in our day-to-day duties as if it is true.
I sometimes sit in meetings, like, “Hello, I am actually in the room. I can hear you. Hello, I, the buyer of diverse/multicultural books, disagrees with what you're saying. And there are a lot more like me.” Sometimes I do speak up, and sometimes something really cool comes of my speaking up. (I’ll deal with what to do if you’re blessed to have ethnic insiders like me on your team when I get to number 4.)
Our belief system in the industry affects what we acquire as gatekeepers. We must be intentional about our positive expectation about the need for diverse books and the need to effectively market and promote diverse books to the untraditional audiences that buy them. We need to think of it as less of a need and more of a consumer felt need—a desire.
There’s an eleven-year-old girl, Marley Davis, who got tired of waiting for us to figure things out. “Sick of reading about white boys and dogs,” she started a drive to collect one thousand books in which black girls are the main characters, not background or minor characters. It is tagged in social media as #1000BlackGirlBooks. Check it out. She set a goal to collect these books buy February 1, 2016, and she reached it. You can learn more about what Marley plans to do with these books by clicking here.
What’s crazy is that she had the ingenuity and courage to find what she and lots of girls like her want to read. Do we have the ingenuity and courage to back up what we say we want to provide for people to read? Do we believe that there are many other girls and boys like Marley who want to see fun and really good books with lead characters who look like them?
My ten-year-old son was so amped about Public School Superhero by James Patterson. He came running out of his room to tell me, “Mommy, this character has brown skin and curly hair like me.” He practically read that book in one sitting. Kids know when they are included and when they are not. No, Mr. Patterson is not black, Hispanic, or Asian--that I know of--but he saw a desire multicultural kids have to see themselves in books and he filled it. I thank him and all the other writers and writers of color who are working hard to do this despite the near impossible odds of being traditionally published.
How can we change the conversation and stop saying, “Multicultural books don’t sell”? We need to start saying, “We may not know how to sell multicultural books, but we need to invest in learning how to sell them--and fast”? This leads me to number 2.
2. Study and learn the buying habits of people of color, then follow through.
According to an article on OutcryBookReview.com, “Blacks do not buy books using the bestseller lists. African Americans buy books and products through the recommendation of a relative, a friend or a neighbor. Sixty-five percent of books being published by the main stream publishing companies are of no interest to the Black communities.” I imagine that this would be true for other ethnic groups as well. There is something about hearing a recommendation from someone who intuitively knows you vs. someone who doesn’t seem to have this level of “knowing.”
People of color watch the lists put out by diversity-focused blogs and book reviewers who feature indie authors and small, indie publishers.
Could the book publishers find the value in discovering the buying habits of people of color and meeting them where they shop to end the excuse that diverse books don’t sell? It would seem to be worth it.
According to a recent Nielsen report, black people have $1 trillion in buying power but advertisers spend less than 2 percent of their ad budgets marketing to us. The buying habits of black people in the US are different than the mainstream in almost every category. Corporations are leaving lots of money on the table. Wouldn’t it seem financially prudent to spend the time and money to learn this powerful consumer group? And to study the other ethnic groups' habits too?
Who will do this and use what they learn? Whoever does, wins!
3. Publish “mainstream” stories with intentional insertions of multicultural characters in both illustrations and in text.
Hey, editors, just do it, especially in children’s literature. Ask yourself does this character have to be white? Could the story or illustration work just as well if this character were a minority? Then suggest revisions to your writers and illustrators that include inserting diverse characters. Be intentional. Buy cultural histories and biographies, but also buy stories that have nothing to do with race but are centered on the lives of children of color. Like, just do it. Though it may be hard to believe, people of color live regular, fun, challenging lives that sometimes have nothing to do with race. (Excuse my sarcasm, but we are still wrestling today with what Zora Neale Hurston wrote in an essay some sixty-five years ago.)
4. Hire and promote multicultural insiders.
Find the people of color who are already on your team. Assess if they are all in the right place to help make publishing decisions about diverse book submissions. Bring them into the discussion. And not just one in a room full of white people. Bring in several. Ask them what they think of a title, cover, character, or the overall book concept. Let them tell you if it is authentic. Encourage them to bring galleys or submissions home to read with their families. Hire them on your decision-making teams.
Maybe you are not in a hiring manager position. You can still put together an unofficial diversity book publishing panel who will inform your decisions as a gatekeeper. You can have your “multicultural consultants” on speed dial to review books for you.
People of color have the inside scoop on what works for readers/consumers in their ethnic group. No, they can’t be the voice for all, but their voice is a lot more intimate than that of someone who is not within that group.
It Takes a Village to Raise Multicultural Books
Even indie bookstores are jumping in on overcoming this damaging mind-set by developing creative ways to hand-sell diverse books and build trust with their diverse consumers so that they can retire the “the age-old ‘that won’t work here’” sentiment. (Publisher’s Weekly)
Ending this “multicultural books don’t sell” mind-set will require all hands on deck from publishers and book sellers, marketing and sales people, and editors and writers of all colors and creeds.
I realize haven’t come close to reaching any surface by what I've posted here, but as one of the very few book publishing professionals of color, I felt compelled to break my silence on this issue. I am surrounded by people of color (and even white people who love diverse stories) who read books by people of color, so I am hardly ever OK when I hear that our books don’t sell.
What thoughts do you have about the idea that multicultural books don’t sell—children’s titles or otherwise?
Data disclaimer: My stats are focused around black American consumers. At the time of my writing this blog, I was checking out numbers for black Americans because I am a black American. I imagine that similar trends would show up for other minority groups. If you have real numbers regarding book buying and spending habits for nonblack minority groups, please do post them in the comments. The terms multicultural and minority are not synonymous with only black or African American.