There’s a big problem with the publishing industry
Michelle Herrera Mulligan
Publishers can help authors of colour.
explains.
When it was released in January, Jeanine Cummins’s novel American Dirt was promoted as a socially important examination of the border crisis — until critics dissected Cummins’s inauthentic portrayal of Mexican society and migrants. The novel’s social significance now comes from the conversations about why she and the book got so hyped in the first place: Who gets to write about under-represented people? How much are these stories worth?
It’s a good thing that these questions are now standard. But as an editor and author who has worked in magazine and book publishing for more than 20 years, this moment feels anticlimactic. It’s important that figures such as Oprah Winfrey are hosting the discussions, as she did after facing criticism for choosing American Dirt for her book club. But we already know what has to change. A recent Lee & Low Books survey of publishing industry professionals found that only six per cent of people who work in publishing identify as Latinx.
One major barrier to entry is publishing industry salaries. Editorial assistant jobs, the typical entry point to an editing career, pay an average of US$36,534 to US$43,761. It’s almost impossible to live on that salary in
New York, where many jobs are concentrated. And getting in the door is just the start.
To your colleagues you’re often cast in the role of advocate and ambassador. I’ve had to fight to prove that books that don’t have easily identified comparative titles can still be profitable. I also cannot count the number of times I’ve had to explain that most Latino people living in the United States were born there.
To Latin communities, you’re cast as either a resource or a politician. You’re under constant evaluation — judged as either lifting up your communities or being a sellout.
For Latina editors already working in the field, the “conversation” on race and representation in publishing houses may be uncomfortable and exhausting — especially during the conversations about American Dirt. Some of the writers at Winfrey’s town hall have been called “whitetinas” or “vendidas” — meaning sellouts — on social media just for agreeing to appear on the show.
But there are simple steps that all of us can do to make things easier for writers and editors of colour.
If you are a publisher, stop asking editors of colour whether their ideas will appeal to a “book-buying audience” — people of colour are a book-buying audience. If you are an advocate, promote books by people of colour on your social media, rather than simply waiting to tear down a problematic book by a white author. We need to make sure the great books we all say we want can find the audiences they deserve.
The Washington Post