So last week I was up to my neck in a discussion over at Dear Author about the lack of a multicultural presence in romance. Their rather self-serving solution was to have more white authors write multicultural characters, I guess as a sort of gateway to encourage white readers to read more multicultural characters. At least that’s the way I and several others interpreted the post. However, they subsequently claimed that they didn’t mean white authors, they meant “seasoned” authors to include best-sellers like Beverly Jenkins and Brenda Jackson. Of course that makes no goddamned sense. Why would authors who already write multicultural characters need encouragement to do so?
It was only after people pointed out the potential for cultural appropriation, and the fact that white readers have no problem reading about “others” as long as the author is white they started backpedaling like crazy. They then trotted out that old chestnut that they’d love to read more black books. Jane claimed they would review more black books, but the ones they’ve read are just crappy. They further claim that publishers are saying the same thing, because you know those Negroes can’t write. I’m amused that it never dawned on them that they are filtering these books through privilege. That they can’t connect because the women don’t look like them. J.R. Ward understands that phenomenon. That’s why the heroes of her books are black in all but melanin content. It allows white women access to big black d!@k without the loss if privilege that comes with actual you know, big black dick. Much like those people who flipped out over Rue in “The Hunger Games.” Many white people have a problem with connecting with black people on an intimate level because they struggle to see our humanity. So books with black heroines will never go over with them, and that’s their problem with multicultural romance; IT’S NOT ABOUT THEM.
You’re hearing it from me first folks, within the next year or so there’s going to be a multicultural bestseller. Written by a white woman featuring a white or biracial heroine with a black man slathering all over her. They’ll all go apeshit over it, and exclaim that it’s soooo cutting edge and original and well-written. Why aren’t there more multicultural books? Don’t waste your time telling them about the thousands of multicultural books out there. What they really want are books by white authors.
So today someone posted an article on an author loop about the dearth of black books being reviewed in the New York Times. Someone actually took the time to study this and present actual data. Of course, those of us who are authors already knew this. Most of us have repeatedly requested reviews from mainstream sites only to be met with crickets. One of the reviewers at Dear Author mentioned that they don’t get many requests for reviews of black romance books. That maybe we think they’re biased. Uh duh. We KNOW they’re biased. Of the thousands of books they review each year I doubt that more than a dozen have a non-white author. And aside for a few Asian authors I can’t think of any that have gotten above a B and most receive Cs. They even gave Sharon Cullars’s Gold Mountain a B. I don’t bother to read their reviews because I learned long ago that most of the books they rave about are utter garbage. Bottom line or me is I don’t care if most of them never read or review my books. I know from experience that I won’t get a fair shake. But I would appreciate them leaving the genre alone, and certainly stop patting themselves on the back for “rescuing” multicultural romance.
I don’t know how Jane can say they don’t review black books because they are crappy. I read DA reviews three years straight. I used to love the site. I can’t tell you how many awful books they reviewed by white authors. So how can Jane say black books are too crappy to review? Please! I see the mess they review on Dear Author and how they tear the book to strands because it’s so bad. So in other words they don’t mind reading and reviewing crappy books from whites, but not blacks.
Excuse my language but it’s bullshit. I am really upset by that comment. I scanned that debacle and it was sickening to see what some folks were saying so I just didn’t read anymore. I did see some of your comments, Roz.
Sigh. You know I contacted Jane twice for a review and both times she was “full”. Now I am not the only black author who has been told this because I’ve talked to other black writers who say that DA refused them reviews too. So it didn’t take long to realize that they just didn’t wanna review any black books. The only few they ever touch is from Kimani.
And I would love to see what black books Jane was reading because I don’t believe she’s read any. I think that was a straw man argument if anything!
I am THROUGH with Dear Author! I haven’t been going there anyway but every once and a while because of the neglect of diversity but I will no longer even look on that site. I am disgusted, pissed and hurt by the things that were said.
I mean to say all the black books you read were crappy? I bet she hasn’t read ONE. I want to know who were these “black” authors she’s read and what were the titles? What genres? Did she read enough to make a substantial opinion of black books? With millions and millions of black titles that I am sure has been sent to DA, I am sure that she would’ve found many that weren’t “crappy” if she wanted to.
I bet there would be nothing but crickets if someone asked that question.
And DA has no idea that they have pissed off MANY black and IR writers. I mean people are ANGRY. I think this is going to really hurt DA in the end. That discussion has gone viral and DA and it’s practices has been exposed. Everyone can see it now and what was said to justify their lack of diversity was atrocious!
I just unfollowed DA on Twitter by the way.
The part that amazes me in all this is that Jane constantly posts about the stupidity and perfidy of the publishing industry. It’s a freaking obsession with her. Yet somehow when it comes to this issue, the crappiness of black authors, suddenly all those publishers know what they’re talking about. Is it even possible that an industry that spent decades saying black people don’t read would now turn around and say black writers can’t write? Of course it is, at least it is everywhere EXCEPT Romancelandia where they refuse to acknowledge their own racism. As I’ve said before, I don’ t care one way or another. Frankly I’d prefer that they stay far away. However, I refuse to stand aside while they “rescue” the genre the way Elvis “rescued” rock and rolll.
I don’t know how many books I sent to mainstream review sites before I finally bought a clue. I don’t know how many books I submitted to publishers before I finally “got” it. I find it even more amazing that the one epub that welcomes multicultural books, Loose Id, was slandered in that thread. Somehow their books are “stereotypical and insulting.” Of course they came to those conclusions not byreading the actual books, but from the blurbs. I certainly haven’t read every LI book, and certainly I have read some blurbs there that made me go WTF? But that’s true at every house. I certainly haven’t seen any blurbs that were insulting. And definitely none that were as insulting as the crap that went down in that thread.
Yeah and white romance books aren’t stereotypical and insulting? I can’t tell you how many I’ve read that are. So DA and Jane can get off that crap.
I still would love to see a list of these black books she’s “read”. I still call bullshit and don’t believe she’s picked up one. If they were so bad, tell us what books these were. Why wasn’t that ever said? DA has no problem trashing books on there when they are horrible so why didn’t she drop some names? BECAUSE SHE HASN’T READ ANY! And if she has it’s only a few and you’d think she would be intelligent and sensible enough to not base an opinion of black authors in general on a few books. She doesn’t do it with white books. Shoot check out the review section and you’ll see all the “crappy” books they’ve reviewed through the years.
Like I pointed out look at all the horrible books they’ve reviewed and they go back and will review OTHER books by that same author. Now if there one book was so bad that you reviewed before, why would you keep accepting books from that author? Because as long as the color is right, that’s all that counts!
I have more respect for people who are honest. If you don’t wanna read and review black books then have the balls to say so. Don’t make up lies and straw man arguments to support your misguided opinion.
An entire group of authors and books was insulted by the statements made. Well DA will no longer have to worry about reading “crappy” black books because I am sure that every black author who has come across that thread or has read it through someone else wouldn’t submit their book to DA if someone paid them.
Screw ‘em. DA has been erased from my mind forever.
About that thread, you can always tell something is fishy going on or someone realized they were wrong when they start deleting comments and using the old “technical difficulties” excuse. How convenient. What type of technical difficulties causes only certain comments (those that happened to be the most offensive and insulting that came from the mod) to disappear? Hmm?
She knew then that she’d caused a firestorm with what she’d said. That’s why she took the thread down to cool things off and removed the comments.
Can you imagine the type of emails she’s been getting? Probably been called every name in the book. She cannot be surprised at how hurt and angry that thread made people.
Yep. I haven’t re-read it so I have no idea what she deleted. I assume she got rid of her, “I don’t care if a Martian writes the book” comment.and her accusation that my saying she didn’t care about multicultural authors was harmful. I still don’t get why they are supposedly so desperate for mylticultural books but want them to be written by white authors. The whole point of multiculturalism is to gain insight from other groups. If all the authors are white, that’s not multiculturalism. That’s cultural tourism, and there’s nothing new about that!
They would prefer the whites to write them because that erases the fear some have of blacks and other minorities. It all goes back to that fear that comes from people not taking the time to understand those different from them.
It’s acceptable to write about the negro, just don’t be the negro. When the negro writes about the negro, well it’s just too hard for some people to take. It’s too real.
But when someone other than the negro writes about the negro, people are comfortable and can relate. And obviously that work is taken more seriously. Most times when a white author writes a book about blacks it’s hailed as the best book in the world. If a black person wrote the same book it would not even be noticed.
That’s the problem and always has been.
A lady was saying that blacks only write street lit. Now I had to set her straight. It got under my skin so I told her that that’s not the case. Many blacks are writing things other than street lit but that those street lit authors are the ones who get all the attention and glory from mainstream publishers because that’s the IMAGE they want us to portray. Oh, a big house will sign up a ghetto lit book in a minute but won’t give the time of day to a book written by a black author that they feel is something blacks have no business writing because of course we have to keep the negative stereotype going.
All mainstream pubs want from black authors are pimps, crackheads, whores, strippers and gold-diggers. They want nothing else to represent us. Sad, sad, sad.
I told the woman that for her to get a true sense of what blacks write, she needs to seek out black publishers and self-published black authors. She’ll see that a small amount of blacks are writing street lit, they just get the attention. I pointed out that we write in different genres.
I also pointed out that mainstream pubs don’t give blacks contracts if they write something they feel is not normal for a black to write. They want stereotypical books that they feel “fit” black readers because publishers still don’t know a damn thing about black people!
I find it amusing that blacks are always judged on what a tiny percentage of blacks have done but never individually. White authors don’t have this problem. White PEOPLE don’t have this problem because they have the luxury of being judged by who they are and not misjudged by the color of their skin.
Us, not so much. So of course all blacks must write street lit just because a percentage do. Right.
*rolling eyes*
I don’t really read romance but came across this post because of a thread posted on Goodreads.
Stacy-Deanne and Roslyn, you both hit the nail on the head when it come to publishing in general. I can’t stand street lit (which I call hood lit), and it pisses me off that that publishing industry has flooded the market with these books, while ignoring other genres.
When I started my book club in Miami, the first thing that the ladies did was thank me for not choosing hood lit books and picking books that reflect normal black people. Unfortunately, white America has no idea who normal black people are because they get their reference about blackness from television. Which goes out of its way to portray blacks in a negative light (i.e VH1).
I have the hardest time finding books written by black authors that fit our guidelines (no hood lit, not too long, no Toni Morrison). Most of my members don’t have access to an eReader and either purchase the book for physical books stores or order them through the library. Last month I tried to experiment with Brandon Massey’s Covenant which is self-published, three of my regulars did not show up. One couldn’t afford to buy the book and the MDPLS doesn’t purchase self-pub. They other member ran to B&N at the last minute and had to order it. It did not arrive in time for the meeting.
I really wish people would understand that blacks are not a homologous group of people. We are all not the same. I love to read, and the only no-no for me is “hood lit” if the cover even looks like “hood lit” I will pass it up.
I am really hoping that self-publishing takes off in the black community and black authors will explore their options. Massey’s book was great, it was the first time that any of the ladies had read thriller and they loved it. There is no reason why his book should be in the “mainstream”. I would bet my last dollar that there are more black authors like him out there in every genre.
Brandon Massey is tremendous. I didn’t know he wrote anything bit horror. I’ll have to check his book out. I’m not surprised people believe that urban lit is all we write. I spend a lot of my time correcting people who think urban lit is romance! Has your group tried Octavia Butler? She was great. I read her Parable stories at least once a year.
I makes me sad to see how few black authors there are in genres like science fiction and horror/thriller. I always run across the same few names. It partial blacks fault in my opinion because we don’t tend to venture outside or comfort zone. One of my goals with my book club is to read outside of the general fiction genre. I just wish there were more options and urban lit is not an option.
The fact that anyone would mistaken romance and urban lit clearly shows that they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. I have never read poorly written traditionally published romance, while all the traditionally published urban lit I have read has been crap.
It amazing to see how the urban lit genre has changed since author like Omar Tyree and Sister Soulja first published in the 90′s.
We haven’t as a group, yet. But I have read Octavia Butler by myself and I loved her writing. I am looking for a sci-fi author and I think we will read Wild Seed since the Parable Series has the least amount of books. I would hate to get them hooked on a series with 15 books.
First, I read your books and enjoy them.
Second, the ‘lack of quality’ argument is often trotted out as a way to deflect the real issues. Publishers still think black people can’t read or write. Or they only want a few, select ‘academic’ writers that they can sell in that venue because they aren’t going to market to black audiences.
Three, lots of books by white writers are of low quality. Just look at some of the books that are featured on many of the sites- horrible cover art, misspelled words, incomprehensible blurbs. Plus it’s the same trite plot lines countless times. Most of these review sites are just friends reviewing each others work and pretending like its quality.
Keep writing your books. I love them.
Sorry- I’m Anon above.
I also want to say I enjoy Brandon Massey also. His anthologies are great too.
My guess is that black writers in those genres have faced the same rejections we have in romance. Fortunately romance is so popular that writers can continue even with a tiny market share. I suspect that the black readership of SF is too small to support a cadre of black SF writers, but I could be wrong.
I hope that the ease of self publishing today will result in more black writers in various genres. Of course the roadblocks are still there. There are so many self published books it can be difficult to break out of the pack. All a writer can do is kerp writing and keep hoping.
The ‘lack of quality’ argument is often trotted out as a way to deflect the real issues. Publishers still think black people can’t read or write. Or they only want a few, select ‘academic’ writers that they can sell in that venue because they aren’t going to market to black audiences.
^^^This. But this is happening in every form of entertainment. It’s happening in music, film, television. Now it has spilled into the book industry. It’s no surprise. There are very few authors that the big publishing house consider safe, and unless you are Toni Morrison, you aren’t a safe author.
I think black authors might have to come to the realization that they might never making a living on their work. But they can make money off of it and I think that once they do, the choices that readers of black books have will improve.
It’s funny that the industry thinks they can’t make money off of black people when we are the ultimate consumers. Our buying power is amazing, ask Nike.
Hi Roslyn,
I think black authors also need to hustle. Say what you want about street lit, but they know how to self promote. Its obvious blogs, publishers, etc. cant be trusted to promote. The genre thrived despite this not because of it.
That being said I think it has something to do with Black Americans and whites. I’ve seen many a blog reviewing books by other black ethnicity with many comments by the same people that swear they don’t connect.
Also asking certain publishers for books by black authors can be a pain. They’ll give me books by white authors but with black authors there are so many stipulations.
There also needs to be a central place for black books where authors can post about their upcoming books just for info or for review.
I could go on and on
My email is included I would be interested to see a real solution. may be I’ll start a list for black authors to send review request.
I don’t think black authors are foolish enough to rely on mainstream bloggers. They’ve made their lack of interest clear. Huste is important and some arebetter than others.
Whatdo you ean by “stipulations?”
For certain authors (the big ones every book NY times bestseller type) you need certain levels of blog audience, social media presence, etc. I’ve noticed with black authors they want this info even for people that aren’t at that level. Or they are out of review copies, etc. Its crazy and its annoying. But even when I just started I was being offered books by others about black characters so what’s the deal. Forgive the spelling and punctuation, I’m on my phone.
I would say 90% of the black books I have for review were self bought or given by the author.
So they put up yet another roadblock to our books get exposure. Not surprising. smdh thanks for the advice and the info. I read your blog, it’s very nice. Too bad you don’t review romance.
Some black authors want reviews but want me to buy the book. If bloggers bought every book we reviewed most of us would go bankrupt. I think some authors need to realize giving away 1 book can result in many sales. You could even do what some blog tours do which is several bloggers pass around a single copy of a book. 1 book + several bloggers would still be a worthy investment.
Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that was a problem. I’ve seen some authors complainthat they gave the book and didn’t get a review. I’verun intothat one myself, but I suppose it comes with the biz.
Thanks for checking the blog. As you can see I haven’t been posting had some health issues. I will be doing reviews of more black authors. I am willing to review romance and actually do read romance. I’ve just been trying to keep up with the books offered.
As far as black books being crap, they have no problem posting about crappy books even if they are making fun of them. No such thing as bad publicity.
My site is really small so I rarely get review request. I end up requesting books from NetGalley, or Author Requesting Reviews on GoodReads. There are certain publishers that won’t touch me because I have about 50 followers on GFC and twitter.
The problem with requesting reviews from popular review sites is that some of the reviewers will take any book given to them for free which creates a back log and traditionally published books come first. A blogger with 500 followers will get upwards to 10 or more books a week coming in that need reviews. There is no way that one person can keep up with that and still have a life, job or sleep.
It doesn’t help that there aren’t that many black book bloggers (that I know of) in the first place.
Monique, I didn’t know about your review blog. Maybe you might want to do more outreach to authors. I have no problem giving books to reviewers no matter how small their following. I’ll add you tomy blogroll whenI update as well.
Thanks for adding me to your blog roll. I don’t really do any kind of blog promotion because it takes to much work. It was a struggle to get the 50 followers that I have. I have no idea how someone even reaches 500 followers. I just do what I have been doing and respond to request as the hit my inbox. I wouldn’t even know where to start with doing author outreach.
Are you on Facebook or Twitter? If you’re on Facebook friend me and I’ll do the rest. I have about 600 friends and a couple hundred fans of my fan page. Link your reviews on your page. Post your reviews on Amazon and goodreads authors and readers will come flocking to you. If you have a Facebook page you can link it to your blog and to Twitter. That way you o ly have to post once and it appears in all three places.
I see that you don’t review romance, but some of my friends read other genres, but most are romance writers.
I am on Twitter, not Facebook (yet). I already post on Amazon and Goodreads. I have only gotten on review request so far. Maybe they think I am too harsh, IDK. Maybe I have been too vocal about my dislike of street lit.
Well, feel free to look over my backlist, if something piques your interest let me know. I’ll be happy to send you a copy. I don’t mind harsh reviews. Be sure to friend me when you get on FB. I looked over your blog and it seems you mostly review literature. That might be putting readers off.
Yeah, I know literature is not a popular genre. Most of the blogs I see are paranormal or romance. It’s not common to find a general fiction blogger. Back when I started a couple of years ago there were more of us.
Thanks for the offer. I will look through your titles.
Roslyn, this was a great thread. I have to revisit and leave an extended comment, it is so past my bedtime. But I just want to say one or two things, a while back I got into a racial debate with someone on a blog. While pulling for straws, the individual tried to point out that I was somehow a hypocrite because I was into “white authors”. They apparently assumed this because I listed my reading interests as “vampires”, “ghosts”. “witches”, “whimsical” and general paranormal etc. Frankly, it annoyed me how this person didn’t seem to think that there are lots of black authors writing in these genres. (B. Massey, O. Butler, Tananarive Due, LA Banks, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, J. Parker-Rhodes, etc and the list goes on).
Also on several occasions, I’ve seen where black female IR books on Amazon receive less than three stars from reviewers with frivolous reasons, imo. When I do the research, some of these reviewers appeared to be non-black based on their review history, and the books that fall victim are usually the ones that did not indicate the race of the characters on the cover. Therefore, I believe that these possible non-black reviewers did not realize that the author, and the heroine were black females when they purchased the book. Since they can not/will not relate, the book gets unfairly slammed in annoyance.
Btw, I’m just curious Monique, why do you consider Toni Morrison a safe author in that regard? Just curious…
I think Toni Morrison is considered “safe” by the industry because of her proven track record and her name recognition only. Honesty, the only book that I have seen that was published this year with a black author get any press is Toni Morrison’s Home. I haven’t seen any others.
The publishing industry is about making a return on your investment (just like music). The publishing company puts up the upfront cash and makes it back in through sells. Un-established or mid-list authors are no longer desirable because there is no certainty that is ACME Publishing puts out your book they will make there money back. Now add in the fact that the author is black, the target market just got smaller. Since it is widely known that white readers in general do not read black authors. Why take the risk?
I think Morrison is also “safe” because she’s literary. That’s one area where publishers consider blacks safe and whites who read literature feel comfortable as well. In genre fiction, which is read by more people, publishers have worked diligenly to keep blacks out.