By Wendy
Coakley-Thompson | Published January 7, 2013
Much
is written about the publishing industry’s woes, from diminishing margins and
accusations of price fixing, to the ceding of territory to self-publishing in
both print and digital formats. But for writers of color, the concerns are more
personal. All over the Internet and the blogosphere, writers of color lament
the difficulty in getting a deal from mainstream publishing’s Big Six: Hachette
Book Group, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon
& Schuster. All of this has led many to speculate that maybe big publishing
is just “not into” writers of color anymore.
In
a November 15th missive reprinted widely, authors Virginia DeBerry
and Donna Grant got straight to the point. The best-selling duo, after
assurances that neither of them was ill nor had a fallen out as friends,
dropped this bombshell: “…our writing career is officially on ‘HOLD.’ ”
DeBerry
and Grant (pictured above) went on to lament how the industry has changed, requiring
an omnipresent cyber presence through social media, as well the pressures to
crank out a book a year to meet an industry’s unrealistic expectations for
them. Before poignantly closing, they share that “there are no more DeBerry and
Grant novels in the pipeline. Whew…that was hard, but also a relief.”
Say
what you will about DeBerry and Grant, they engineered their own exit from
publishing. Other writers of color have not been as lucky.
Raul
Ramos y Sanchez, the award-winning Neo-Latino Renaissance author of America
Libre and House Divided, was told by his publisher Grand Central
that his considerable platform (in addition to his marketing and PR background,
he hosts MyImigrationStory.com) wasn’t enough. They dropped him from their
roster, citing anemic sales.
Take
Carleen Brice, who in 2010 released her debut novel, Orange, Mint and Honey, which became Sins of the Mother, a Lifetime television
movie starring Jill Scott. Sins of the Mother and its star Scott won NAACP Image Awards for
Outstanding Television Movie and Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie respectively.
Today, Brice is without a mainstream fiction book deal.
Best-selling
author Bernice L. McFadden was so respected that she routinely wrote industry
commentary for venerable organs like the Washington Post. She had even published
chick lit under the pseudonym Geneva Holliday. But in 2009, two agents were
unable to persuade any publisher to pick up her latest offering Glorious.
These
tales are, unfortunately, not unique among writers of color. You get to know
enough writers, and you’ll see that many have lost their books deals or have
moved onto other ventures in order to survive. A sampling of the LinkedIn
profiles of several authors bears this out. Authors who’d once topped
bestsellers lists now tout the work they do for others. One novelist famous for
a memorable photo of him spinning with his open coat flailing in the wind now
says he is a claims representative with a national insurance company. His
former occupation—novelist—now bearing an asterisk, like post-season records
achieved in baseball. Another author whose work had been made into plays now
primarily plies her trade as an organizational psychology professional. Many
authors have taken refuge in academia. Others have taken to lucrative
ghostwriting.
After
two decades that saw an explosion of works published by writers of color,
things have cooled considerably. What happened?
“I
think mainstream publishers are interested in any writer whose work the public
wants to read,” said Rakia Clark, who until she was laid off in 2009, was an
editor for Kensington’s Dafina imprint. “For a short spell in the 1990s, that
was black women writers writing about relationships. Within the past three
years, it’s been vampires and zombies. This year it’s erotica for moms. Next
year it may be something else entirely.”
Clark adds, though, that “the big disadvantage writers of color
have is that there are few people of color working for the publishers who are
often more likely to receive submissions from minority authors. But believe me,
publishers want writers with talent and the potential for a strong sales
record. They’ll accept it in whatever form it comes.”
Best-selling
author Connie Briscoe appeared on the scene in the early 1990s, an era which
she called a “sort of a dawn of this new flowering of black books and authors.”
Terry McMillan had apparently single-handedly led the rediscovery of authors of
color in general and black authors in particular with the 1992 breakout novel Waiting
to Exhale. When Briscoe’s debut novel Sisters and Lovers came out in
1994, it sold 750,000 copies. She draws parallels between the publishing
industry then and now.
“A
lot has changed in so very little time, mainly because of technology and the
Internet,” she says. “The publishing industry is in a period of upheaval which
I liken to the dawn of the printing press. We’re still trying to sort all the
changes out. It will take a while, but I think when things settle down we will
be better for it.”
According
to Briscoe, the current climate is conducive to a writer of color attaining
such heights. However, says Briscoe, “I think it’s harder for a few reasons.
One of them is simply that there is much more competition among writers. When Sisters
and Lovers was published, there were one or two handfuls of black authors
writing such novels, and as we found out back then black women were hungry for
novels with characters who looked like them and lived as they did. Now there
are dozens of black authors and one book is less likely to be such a
sensation.”
Adds
Briscoe, “We are also competing with technology and the Internet now. When Sisters
and Lovers was first published there was no Internet, at least not as it is
today. There was no 24-hour, gazillion-channel TV, no On Demand Movies, no
caller ID or email. All of these things compete with the time spent reading
novels. I also think our brains are being rewired to high speed and needing
instant gratification…This isn’t conducive to lounging on the couch with a
500-page novel for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. In fact, publishers
often don’t even want 500-page novels anymore for that reason.”
If
perception is reality, then what do the authors think is big publishing’s
attitude towards authors of color? Ramos, who insists his work is more James
Patterson or David Baldacci than Oscar Hijuelos or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, says
“We’re still seen as part of that whole literary ghetto.” Authors whose work
does not fit a particular mold have a hard time finding an audience. It is,
says Ramos, a “self-perpetuating thing.”
There
are, however, a few authors of color who are doing well. Kimberla Lawson Roby,
Eric Jerome Dickey and Toni Morrison frequently make the bestsellers list. And
Junot Diaz has not just topped the charts but has garnered a Pulitzer as well
as other awards for his works.
ReShonda
Tate Billingsley, a former television newscaster who now writes full time, is
also no stranger to various best-seller lists and awards. The film adaptation
of her novel, Let the Church Say Amen, directed by Regina King and
produced by Queen Latifah’s Company, Flava Unit, Royal Ties and Bobbcat Films,
just wrapped and will be released in 2013 as part of BET’s new original
programming line-up. BET also will make three of her other books into films.
Victoria
Christopher Murray is also a successful author of Christian fiction. Simon and
Schuster’s Touchstone and Gallery Books imprints have published her latest
nineteen novels.
“I’ve
been really blessed,” she says. “When I came to Simon and Schuster, I was with
a team who really wanted me there. From the publisher, all the way to the
people in marketing. They also knew that I would work very, very hard. While
they did a lot for my career, I was always willing to go the extra step.”
Both
Billingsley and Murray have seen the publishing industry shift over their long
publishing careers. For one thing, says Billingsley, “the market is saturated.
And a lot of it is not quality material. That makes it hard for readers to want
to invest in new material. On the flip side, it allows voices that might not
otherwise be heard a chance to shine. And of course, the whole digital era.”
Digital
publishing has been the most popular choice for authors. Its egalitarian
nature, along with the ubiquity of the technology has put it in the reach of
any author. Mashable.com reports that eBook sales will reach almost $10 billion
by 2016, this while, according to per industry heavyweight Publishers Weekly,
print numbers decline. These developments happen as the numbers of Americans with
eReaders has doubled since July of 2011, according to eBookReader.com.
This
past November, Ramos digitally published Pancho Land, the third book in his
Class H trilogy (after America Libre and House Divided) though
Kindle. He sees it as a way keep his audience and build on it. It’s another
incarnation, he says, a “second life.”
Other
authors forsaken by big publishing have found refuge with small independent
publishers. McFadden, who describes parting with big publishing as “the best
thing that could have happened to me” has flourished at Brooklyn indie publisher
Akashic. She has received numerous accolades and accomplished much since
Akashic published Glorious in 2010. The Gathering of the Waters
and a reissue of her 2001 novel The Warmest December followed.
“Publishing with Akashic Books is a collaborative experience.”
Brice
has found a home with Agate Publishing, an independent press in Chicago, which has acquired her
next nonfiction work, The Not So Fearless Writer.
Like
DeBerry and Grant, and hundreds of others, Connie Briscoe has opted out and
left what she calls “the writing scene” behind. But she’s happy for the mark
she and others have left.
“I
think that I and others blew the door wide open for black authors. It had been
cracked open by the literary giants who were too good for the industry to ignore,”
said Briscoe. “We all know who they were–Baldwin, Hurston, Morrison, Walker to name a few. Then a
dozen or so more of us, led mainly by Terry McMillan, who kicked it wide open.
A lot of books and authors have come through since then, some of them maybe
more desirable than others. But at least the door is open.”
(Wendy
Coakley-Thompson is an award-winning author and columnist. She published her
latest book, Writing While Black, digitally).
