Last week Pen America released Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity, and Book Publishing, a report on racial and ethnic diversity in the industry—”acute and urgent, if not the sole, areas of under-representation”—compiled from publicly-available data, information from publishers, and interviews with more than 60 authors and publishing professionals. The report explains the complexities in the movement for greater diversity and addresses what makes publishing both the same as and different from other industries. It touches on the gold rush of publishers looking for books by Black authors in the wake of 2020’s protests, why comps aren’t sufficient to determine […]
Diversity
Congressman Joaquin Castro Meets With PRH About Latino Representation
On July 25, Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro convened a meeting with executives at Penguin Random House about Latino underrepresentation in publishing. The conversation, which also included Latino authors and agents, was roughly an hour long, and topics ranged from “lackluster recruitment of Latino authors,” to lower marketing budgets for their books, to the publisher learning to be “more intentional about building partnerships with Latino organizations to attract and elevate talent at all levels.” Castro told PL that the meeting has been in the works for almost a year. A report he commissioned in 2021 showed that “publishing is the worst […]
PRH Makes Some Strides in Diversity, Sustainability
On Tuesday, Penguin Random House released their social impact report, their “global commitment to serving our communities beyond the books we publish,” which shares programming highlights and data between January 1, 2021 – July 1, 2022. The initiative has three pillars: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Environment & Sustainability, and Free Expression & Joy of Reading. As part of their DEI goals, PRH U.S. updated its workforce demographics to reflect the staff as of October 2021. Among non-warehouse staff, 73 percent identify as women, 26 percent as men, and 0.5 percent as nonbinary. White staffers make up 74 percent of the […]
“What’s Next?”: Avid Reader Press Diversity Committee Panel
Wednesday evening, the Avid Reader Press Diversity Committee hosted a panel for junior employees and people hoping to break into the industry. The committee was founded in 2020 in the wake of the George Floyd protests, “to better understand and reckon with the lack of diversity and equity in publishing.” Avid Reader assistant editor Amy Guay moderated the panel, which was made up of professionals who have been in the business a while, and could speak to what has helped them grow and made them stay. Alia Almeida (telesales representative at HarperCollins), Shida Carr (deputy director of publicity at Atria), […]
Disability in Publishing Launches With Virtual Event
Disability in Publishing, an organization founded by and for disabled publishing professionals that began on Twitter late last year, will officially launch with an event this month. The organization’s mission is “to create community, provide resources, and increase accessibility across the industry in order to increase disability visibility and retain the talent of disabled publishing professionals. We will support each other through advocacy, education, networking, and community,” their website says. In a virtual town hall on July 22, Disability in Publishing will discuss its goals and mission, introduce its founding members, and field questions.
NYT Magazine on the Past, Present, and Future of Diversity in Publishing
The New York Times magazine posted a comprehensive piece on the past, present, and future of diversity in publishing—hiring staff, acquiring books, and cultivating audiences who aren’t white. For “Inside the Push to Diversify the Book Business,” Times magazine writer Marcela Valdes interviewed more than 50 current and former publishing professionals, as well as authors, “about the previous unsuccessful attempts to cultivate Black audiences and about an industry culture that still struggles to overcome the clubby, white elitism it was born in.” She also pulls from her own experience in publishing and as a critic and editor. When she joined […]