What I want to say is that from my perspective I just don’t get why publishers would think I would be less likely to buy a book by a woman or by a PoC or if it has a PoC on the cover etc. That assumption they make about me, and I’m not special in this respect, that my critical faculties are so feeble that I can’t get beyond such superficial matters as the author’s name or colour to investigate the actual text is quite insulting to me.

So, well said.

Congratulations on your imminent debut, btw. I am currently weighing options on where to buy/order my copy. (I already give too much of my soul to Amazon, really want to support an indy but the closest one disdains genre fiction and romance fiction especially, which I find more than a little absurd, seeing as they stock every other form of genre fiction…)

I’m not going to spend any more energy on this, either, because you’re not actually listening to me, as evidenced by the fact that you’ve just responded to a bunch of stuff I didn’t actually say.

It’s a shame, too, because if you are in the industry then you’ve got a unique perspective and I think you might be able to contribute something new to the conversation… but it is a conversation, after all. And if all you’re going to do is refute points that haven’t been made, then you’re really just talking to yourself. Which is fine, but why do that on a stranger’s blog?

Anyway, thanks for chiming in.

In all honesty, I wish the very best for both the authors, and the publisher involved. Changing a couple of covers is likely a fairly expensive lesson for them, and hopefully the publisher will pick covers that better represent the books in the future.

However, basically threatening a lawsuit based on “racist” practices (as evidenced by a couple of covers) is like swatting flies with a hand grenade. If such a tactic were attempted, my prediction is that it would backfire badly.

I’m posting anonymously for a reason, but I’ve been involved with publishing for many years. I’ve helped write and market several NYT bestselling novels(including a few featuring non-white protagonists). I also know the industry. With all of the recent mergers, I can count the editors at the major NY houses on my fingers with a couple left over. They talk with one another, and all of them are VERY risk adverse. A couple of lawsuits and a little too much bad press, and (in my opinion) they’re more likely to simply pass over any future books featuring POC than they are to capitulate and grovel for approval.

However, that’s just my opinion. As you’ve reminded me, I can’t possibly understand POC, so there’s no point seeking common ground. Apparently, it’s not my fight, so I’m signing off. Once again, my best regards to Jaclyn Dolamore, N.K. Jemison, and even Bloomsbury, who seems to be trying to do the right thing.

Several points.

First, living overseas really isn’t the same thing as spending your whole life as a person of color in a predominantly-white country. The experience can help you understand what it’s like to be a minority, yes, to a degree. But growing up in a country that bombards you with ugly messages about yourself and everyone like you — being raised by parents who’ve been bombarded with such messages themselves, and internalized them — having your own history and all positive depictions of yourself hidden so as to reinforce the message that you’re nothing, you’re worthless, you’re a waste of space… no. Being a white foreigner in another country (especially if that country has ever been colonized by Europeans) is in no way the same.

Second — of course whitewashing isn’t done by cackling moustache-twirling villains scheming in seedy corporate boardrooms to Keep The Brown People Down. But note what I said about how the experience of people of color in the US (since we’re talking about US books here) is one of constant bombardment with horrifying racist messages. Whitewashing adds to those messages by saying: brown people are ugly. They’re so repellent that they can’t sell books. Our readers are so racist that they’ll never buy a book with a brown person on it, so let’s trick them into buying it. I mean, really. This kind of thinking doesn’t even make sense; if brown people are so bad, why publish books with brown protagonists at all? Whitewashed covers insult the intelligence of the entire reading public, PoC and white alike.

And there’s no excuse for it. By this point we’ve seen that books with PoC covers will sell. Octavia Butler’s books would not still be in print if only black people were buying her stuff — and for the past 20 years her covers have been plastered with racially-accurate depictions of her characters. (Who are black, Asian, Latino, and multiracial.) There are other examples of books with brown faces selling well to the whole reading public — so there’s no logical reason for whitewashing to still be taking place. Then again, racism has nothing to do with logic.

Which is why you’re right on one level; these anti-whitewashing protests might cause a backlash… for a short while. But I don’t think it will last, because I don’t think publishers are stupid. They’re in this to make money, and they understand there’s a great deal of money to be made from appealing to the whole reading public, not just white readers. That reading public — particularly in YA — is already very diverse, and becoming more so as the country’s demographics change. To sell to that audience, the publishers are simply going to have to change, and shed their old racist habits. If the worst they get is a PR black eye or two in the process, they’re lucky. It could be much worse — nobody’s talking lawsuits or filing discrimination charges, which has happened in other American industries that kept up racist practices long past the point of logic.

So again, my quibble is with one specific method of protest that’s been proposed. But all the rest of it? The angry blogging and the letter writing and so forth? I think that’s precisely what’s needed.

There’s a good reason publishers don’t always listen to the author, as I’ve come to understand: authors are writers, not visual artists, and not marketers. We have no idea what matters re: typefaces and composition and how to draw the eye to this or that element. Frankly, go troll through the self-published books on Amazon sometime. See what happens when authors have total control over their own covers. It’s not pretty.

So usually, the idea is that a professionally-published book will have professionals involved at all levels: not just the writing but the art/cover design, and so forth. Having someone in charge of your cover who actually went to school for this stuff and actually has some visual-art talent, can produce amazing results. The two things that have probably helped my book get buzz even before the reviews started coming out have been the title and the cover art — neither of which I composed. The cover art especially; people effing love my cover art. So when it’s handled right, by a company that really cares about the author’s work, book covers can be a phenomenally successful marketing tool. (I love my publisher. I’m not just saying that because they’ll read this, either. =P)

As far as the book covers, though, I’m just not sure it’s an intentional slight. I’ve seen any number of unicorns on science fiction books and all manner of heroes and heroines bearing no resemblance to the characters in the book. Cover art is usually picked/commissioned by marketing folks who are more interested in getting it correctly shelved by retailers, and noticed by buyers than insuring an accurate portrayal of the protagonist.

However, maybe I’m wrong, and the whole thing is an intentional campaign to disenfranchise POC, perpetuated by the evil and oppressive publishing industry. If that’s the case, I STILL think that the boycott, an angry letters, and (sometimes ludicrous) demands are unlikely to achieve the desired result.

Bloomsbury has already replaced one cover, and will probably replace the other (which looks more Mediterranean than white to me), losing a substantial amount of money in the process. The current outrage has given them a dandy of a black eye. However, those editors will now be turning that freshly-blackened eye toward manuscripts submitted by POC, and doubtless asking if publishing them is worth the risk. Editors make many decisions based on the quality of the manuscript, but they ALSO consider how difficult the author (and the author’s audience) is to work with. I’m afraid that any further concessions are likely to be Pyrrhic — a few covers and a public apology followed by years of reluctance to consider work featuring, or written by, people of color.

At any rate, I wish you well however this plays out. This was an intelligent and well-constructed article, and if your books show the same attention to detail, your future looks bright indeed.

I think the best way to go is (as you state) email, blog and sign the petition. Also I want to see more bloggers reviewing books about POC, that will really help. I’m currently working on seeing which publishing house has the most diverse book options, it hsould be interesting.

Great post!