Two grassroots organizations, People of Color in Publishing and Latinx in Publishing, received more than 200 submissions in response to their survey of professionals who work in various departments at Big Five publishers as well as independent presses. While 16 percent of respondents said they did not feel they had experienced racism or microaggressions in publishing, the survey organizers say that when they reviewed respondents’ answers to other questions, they could find at least one such experience for each respondent. (The survey did not define either of those terms.) The report then speaks to white people directly: “Read these words attentively and share them widely. We ask that you do not approach any of your BIPOC colleagues to discuss this information, but instead call on your white colleagues.”
The report includes a range of insightful anecdotes, including this one from page 36: “While discussing the potential acquisition of a book by a POC, a comment was made that ‘we already have X’ (X being another author of the same background). A (white) manager stepped in and asked, ‘How many books do we have about sad white girls, and how often do we compare them and say there are too many?’ I really, really appreciated this, because it’s not something I felt like I could say myself (and it made people in the room rethink their comments).” Download the report.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
