‘Obsession with diversity’ is threatening future of books
‘If you’re publishing mostly books by people of colour and people who are gay, then where’s the diversity?’
DIVERSITY “box ticking” could mean the next John Grisham or Dan Brown is lost, a leading publisher has warned.
Stephen Rubin, who has published more than 4,000 books, including 23 of Grisham’s novels and Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, said that an “almost bizarre reliance on diversity and inclusion” threatens the future of books.
Mr Rubin, a consulting publisher for Simon & Schuster, who has been in the industry for four decades, said that writers are having “potentially wonderful books” rejected because of a preoccupation with being politically correct.
“The almost knee-jerk response to diversity and inclusion has ultimately – and ironically – made publishers less diverse,” he said.
“If you’re publishing mostly books by people of colour and people who are gay, then where’s the diversity? It’s a tremendous irony that, by ticking all the boxes, they become less diverse.
“I’m being critical of the fact that there are too many books like this,” he said. “That [is] a very disturbing thing. I don’t care who you are. Nobody wants to only read those kinds of books.”
Mr Rubin, who said he has always published works by black, Asian and gay authors including E Lynn Harris, Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead and Ismail Merchant, added: “A very prominent agent told me he couldn’t sell any books.
“I asked why. He said, ‘because I only represent old white guys’.”
Mr Rubin began as a journalist, writing for The New York Times, before joining Bantam Books in 1984. In 1990 he became president and publisher of Doubleday, where he remained until 2009, including three years in London as chairman of Transworld Publishers.
While there, he published novels by Paul Auster, Hilary Mantel, Tina Brown, Ian McEwan and Margaret Atwood, among many others.
Speaking ahead of this month’s publication of his memoir, Words and Music: Confessions of an Optimist, Mr Rubin said that quality has always been most important to him, no matter the subject or politics. He added that today’s publishers are obsessed with finding a bestseller just like the last one, rather than exploring something new.
“A lot of publishers have become risk-averse,” he said.