State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report Year 5

For the fifth year in a row, the owners of The Ripped Bodice bookstore have released the results of their "State of  Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing."

Here is the narrative about their findings via Publishers' Weekly and here is the link to the report from this year and the previous 4 years for comparison.

There are many who still argue that publishers do not publish more books by authors of color because the white books are more popular and sell more.

These reports are part of the action to correct this false narrative. The publishing industry publishes more white books in all genres AND they throw more publishing dollars behind those titles than they do for books by marginalized creators, so of course they sell more. Duh. It is a self fulfilling prophecy.

One of the most important things the booksellers include in their Report each year is their store's bestseller list. I have included the screen shot here, but if you click through you can access it with accessibility for screen readers. 

This list is WAY more diverse than what the report lays out and these are the best selling titles in the country's number one ranked Romance book store.

This tells me that when booksellers and library workers promote diverse books, they get read and are enjoyed by lots of people. It's not that "white people" won't read these stories, it is that they don't know about them.

There is a lot to dissect here, way more than this one statement, but it is a start. Go to the site, read this year's report. Look at past year's and read their narrative about their findings. It will all be worth your time.

Please don't get all, "but it is Romance only" on me though. Yes this is Romance specific but it is a microcosm of the larger, systemic problems presented in a manageable package.

We all have to stop making excuses on why we cannot begin our actively anti-racist RA work, we have to stop saying the problem is too large, we have to stop discussing how well-meaning we are. Instead we need to start taking action. The Ripped Bodice not only has taken action, they are broadcasting the results to the world. Start your journey to action with them, today.