For people who say they are forward looking, upbeat, and positive, they sure seem to be miserable and major league whiners
(AFP) As the film and music industries grapple with the fallout from the race rows that dogged the Oscars and the Brit Awards, English author Bali Rai warns publishing too has a serious diversity issue.
The award-winning writer, who has Indian heritage but was born and grew up in Leicester, echoes critics of Hollywood and the Academy Awards when he suggests gatekeepers are only recognising a narrow band of talent and ideas, which does not properly reflect society.
He explains: “Publishing in the UK is a white, middle and upper class monolith. Britain is 14 percent non-white, yet how many authors reflect that? If it’s more than 0.5 percent, I’d be shocked,” Rai tells AFP, in an interview ahead of his appearance at the Hong Kong Young Readers Festival.
So, he doesn’t really know how many reflect publishing, he’s just guessing. And whining.
“It is a sad fact that non-white people, the LGBT community and many more do not see themselves in UK fiction from childhood. So many — including me to begin with — grow up thinking that books are about middle and upper class white people,” he adds. (snip)
He says: “It’s about more than racism in society — although that exists — it’s about publishers being unwilling to think outside of their narrow ivory-tower worlds and break with tradition.
Well, there’s an answer to that. We’ll get to that in a minute
“Imagine if Harry Potter had been called Harish Patel or Hamza Pathan, for example? Would those books have been published, never mind become the mega-successes that they became? Right now, in the UK, the answer is no.”
But, they weren’t. The answer is not “force publishing houses to publish more from minorities, Blacks, LGBT, etc”. The answer is “write a good book that people will read.” Rai does recommend more reading programs in schools, which I heartily endorse. But, some people are not going to read, and certainly not read as voraciously as I do. My parents instilled the love of reading in me at a young age, as did my elementary school. Reading wasn’t just fundamental, it was fun. What was better at a young age than the book fair? Going to the library was a treat. As I tell people, if you see me looking at my smartphone, there’s a 50/50 chance I’m reading a book. Kindle Unlimited is the best $10 a month I spend.
And, in this day of e-books, people can easily self publish. There are categories at Amazon for African American literature, urban, LGBT, women’s, and, yes, men’s. You can pretty much find what you want (what I want is less romance intermixed with my Scifi and horror genres, but, that’s a different complaint). And, people can self publish. Many authors I read started out self publishing, and many still do. Some go through small publishing houses. Many will never have a book in a brick and mortar book store.
If there’s a dearth of minority writers, well, that’s not on the publishing houses: that’s on the minority writers. Want to get picked up by a big publishing house? Write a book that will make money.
Of course, SJWs won’t see it that way: they would want to force publishing houses to publish books. And, if Rai has a problem, perhaps he can start his own publishing house.
