Many (I hope ALL ) publishers are having conversations about how to support BIPOC in this industry. There have been some threads talking about the employee side... I want to talk, as someone who worked for a Big 5 publisher, about what publishing needs to do for BIPOC authors.

There are a LOT of questions that I feel need to be considered from the ground up.

How is a book described when it’s launched in-house? What are the talking and promotional points that marketing and publicity focus on? How do the sales reps talk about the books to their accounts?

At launch: Is a book being presented the way a book by a white author would be, where the focus is on story? Is it being boiled down to a single issue or an exoticized identity (which is reductive and harmful)? Is it about the storytelling or are you just playing diversity bingo?

Descriptions in the internal system: What are the keywords and BISAC codes used for these books? Are they overwhelmingly concentrated on racial identity? When other teams look up these books to refresh their minds, how are they going to summarize it?

Are you defaulting to #OwnVoices as shorthand for an “important story” in which the importance is solely focused on the author’s identity, and there’s no discussion of the artistic value, the brilliant worldbuilding, the unconventional form, the irresistible love story?

In brainstorming: What’s being pinned down as the salient points in your promotional plans? How are your choices LIMITING who might find the book? Should an Asian American book be pitched to AsAm outlets? Yes. Should those be the main thrust? NOPE.

What kind of language is being used in press releases, in advertisements? This gets tricky because there’s a balance to be struck: We need more attention on BIPOC authors right now. But the goal is to reach a point where BIPOC authors are on an even footing with white authors.

So…yes, FOR THE TIME BEING, everyone needs to be loud about BIPOC identities. But there needs to be a shift towards thinking about these books the same way anyone thinks about any other book.

Here’s a thought exercise for every brainstorming group: If you were to pretend this author is white…what kind of marketing and publicity plan would you create? THAT should be where the conversation begins. Then it can move into making sure smaller communities find the book.

What kind of language goes into the marketing materials? Are the sellsheets boiling down works of fiction into nothing but the authors’ identities?

In an ideal world there would be sensitivity training in every team to prevent ignorant decisions, to encourage white publishing employees to learn without leaning so heavily on their BIPOC coworkers as to contribute to burnout.

This sensitivity training would also be crucial for sales reps! Because: How are sales reps taking these materials from marketing and going out into the field? How are they talking about the books to booksellers, who will then echo their language?

All of the above is mostly behind-the-scenes stuff, which is CRUCIAL to how selling a book works, of course. However, BIPOC authors need to FEEL supported. And that means that even though certain things don’t really move the needle, if they’re visible, they’re needed.

I’m talking about tweets, and Instagram posts, and features on your sites and in your pamphlets. Cover reveals don’t do as much these days as they once did, BUT—it is a layer of outward, visible support that reassures BIPOC authors that stuff is happening for them.

Within the author community I see all the time how authors desperately want things that their publishers feel don’t do all that much to sell the book. The thing here is that because publishing SO Lacks transparency, authors are starved for signs that they’re being supported.

I mean, that above issue could take up its own long thread. I believe strongly that more transparency would help everyone. So those are just my thoughts for if we’re continuing to operate within the current system and practices.

Also, I realized: I started this thread from a place of a book already being acquired. But this is a systemic issue and the problem exists from way before that.

How many authors of color are being acquired? How many of them are being prioritized by marketing and publicity?

Ummmmmm. I feel like I had more to say. I’ll come back and add to this thread if I think of it.