Woke publishers ‘paid huge sums for books that flopped’ - Times article

This is brilliant!

EXACTLY!! I was just ranting about that the other day, the team comprises six Eton grads but they're "diverse" because 2 of them identify as non-binary.

Which publishing company is this?

AppleCrisp

'in editorial it’s only a slight exaggeration to say everyone is from private school, 28, white, straight and called Harriet or Sarah. Until you get to higher management level then they are all 45+, white, straight, shagging Harriet or Sarah (but married to whoever was Harriet or Sarah 10 years ago and is now at home with the kids) went to private school and called Paul or Nigel.'

😂

Who's argued that there isn't sexism?

The VIDA count used to be good for looking at different aspects of sex in publishing, although it has since gone down the 'all identities' route so lost its focus entirely.

While there are more books published by women (it's not true that men are more likely to be published, at least not in fiction, that could differ if you look at different sectors), the review/award situation is ... interesting.

(I think the fourth paper you quote is 'women published in computer science', as far as I can tell? APSEC is to do with that field? It's a bit niche!)

Wow, Freudian slip there!

Yes, I meant female.

Gender identity must be an absolute godsend to employers who want to score well on measures of diversity and equality without actually doing the expensive and difficult work necessary to recruit and retain a truly diverse workforce.

Yep, exactly.

They’re still white posh middle/upper class people and their use of gender identity to tick the DEI box means publishing can stay that way.

EXACTLY!! I was just ranting about that the other day, the team comprises six Eton grads but they're "diverse" because 2 of them identify as non-binary.

those genres being undermined due to their perception as being feminist

Female, rather than feminist?

This isn't current (and not all of them are academic, of course) but I copy and pasted this from my article on the subject.

https://pudding.cool/2017/06/best-sellers/

https://ar.pinterest.com/pin/331366485054848036/

https://qz.com/1264678/chart-books-are-cheaper-in-genres-dominated-by-women/

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Percentage-of-Male-and-Female-Authors-Gender-Imbalance_fig5_309572734

https://nicolagriffith.com/2015/05/26/books-about-women-tend-not-to-win-awards/

Pretty surprising to see Feminist Chat argue that publishing doesn't have a sexism problem.

Look at actual peer reviewed journal articles, and not woke newspapers like the Guardian. Overwhelmingly, men are more likely to be published, more likely to be nominated for awards, more likely to receive media attention, and the publishing industry itself has a gender pay gap. There's also a lot of systemic sexism within publishing, with women perceived as only fit to write certain genres, and those genres being undermined due to their perception as being feminist.

Talk to any working female author about their experiences of the publishing industry, it's still a very very sexist industry. The 'wokeness' is just for show. Publishing isn't diverse or woke at all.

Depends which parts. Certain parts of the industry are male dominated, some others are female dominated.

I found some stats that correlate roughly with those a pp posted, from ALCS.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/international-book-news/article/79990-u-k-writing-scene-is-overwhelmingly-white-study-finds.html

'A total of 94% of authors in the U.K. are white, with 2% Asian, 2% mixed race, and 1% black. (4% identify as "other.") The most recent census, in 2011, put the white population of the U.K. at 86%'

Where's your stats coming from, please?

Yeah, I don't think fiction is by any means overwhelmingly male dominated.

Overwhelmingly male dominated? Is that true?

The focus here is more on new fiction I think and comes from a different place than this thread, but agrees that class rather than sex is the big divider.

It wasn't the same student making both statements

Then surely that's just the case that different people have different opinions?

90-95% of published authors are white, only a tiny handful ever become the subject of a Twitter campaign or "cancelled" (and being "cancelled" rarely amounts to more than a few tweets, some people have received massive career boosts and received a huge amount of PR from claiming to have been cancelled), so clearly the current situation is perfectly fine for the vast, vast majority of white writers who write anything they like and don't get criticised for it.

I don't know why we're acting like this is a major problem, when evidently there are thousands of white writers happily writing books that are exclusively about white characters without any criticism, and thousands of white writers writing books about minority characters without any criticism?

Writing, and also giving preference to "diverse" candidates in other employment areas.
But that's obviously not the case when the overwhelming majority of people working in publishing are privately educated and white British, 90-95% of published author are white, and overwhelmingly male-dominated to boot.

I know an English writer who spent decades living in Japan and wrote a beautiful novel set in Japan and their usual publisher then said we love it but will not publish it unless you agree to let us find you a Japanese ‘co-writer’ whose name we can stick on the cover so you don’t get accused of cultural appropriation

She said no

The last I heard the book was still unpublished

The whole publishing industry has forgotten what it is for. And it isn’t to tell customers what to think.

And yet JK Rowling’s books are selling just fine…

Funny that.

There is a straightforward solution. White writers can be permitted to write but must only do so with a co-author who is "diverse.

That’s what happened with Julian Fellowes’s drama set in America. He had a co-author who was a person of colour.

This does not surprise me at all, I've heard this kind of thing in a number of contexts. Writing, and also giving preference to "diverse" candidates in other employment areas.

I don't know if you've ever read Ibram X Kendi's book, but he is the darling of American anti-racism. His book is quite clear - the only remedy to past racism is current racism - just flipped. These kind of attitudes are very much in line with that way of thinking.

a very interesting debate 👍

i would argue that experimental lit fic is still being published - look at the recent booker list. Won by a white man so that group isn’t being excluded

'while white writers must avoid writing about non-white characters or risk being accused of cultural appropriation.'
But will also be criticised for having a too-white cast of characters (see Harry Potter).

There is a straightforward solution. White writers can be permitted to write but must only do so with a co-author who is "diverse".

An atmosphere of censure, uncertainty and authoritarian pressure does not foster good art. Actually it might produce some underground stuff, working against it, but I suggest this is why litfic now is largely impoverished - it's working within stipulated parameters, being Good and ticking boxes instead of experimenting and testing and exploring. That makes for dull, weak and pointless work.

Anyone in publishing who doesn't understand this, doesn't understand the society they live in and how the freedom they have is protected. They shouldn't have been hired if they don't understand this. So it comes back to hiring decisions and top down power wishing to control the populace in rather sinister way.

I’m sure plenty of people in publishing are concerned about this but no one would dare speak out. Any accusation that they are in some way opposed to diversity would render them unemployable.

Publishing is a crooked industry full of middle class white women telling writers they need to be more diverse. Editors don't actually do any editing anymore, they expect manuscripts polished to a shine ready to go on their desks.

Don't even get me started on "agents": all you need is an English lit degree, a few connections and/or the ability to work for low pay or free for a year or two, and you too can be at the frontline of deciding what gets read.

The publishing industry likes to make a big song and dance about diversity among its writers while staying incredibly non diverse internally. It tries to correct this by a bunch of heavily engineered recruitment campaigns while actually all their diversity issues would evaporate if they just actually shaped themselves into an industry that paid proper money. They like to position themselves as being artsy and Liberal but in reality you will find more creative thinkers from a much wider range of backgrounds in finance and tech.

PS: Don't even get me started on writing competitions for people from "underrepresented backgrounds". Sorry, since when has the gay community EVER been underrepresented in the arts?

Also....its writing. How can anyone be judging you on your gender, ethnicity, class or sexuality based on words on a page? A truly non discriminatory approach would be to ask writers (and job applicants) to remove their name from their writing/application materials.

For anyone in publishing to say that any group should not write is appalling. It's totally against the ethos of freedom of speech and the principles of democracy.

All people have something to say. Just because the past might have overlooked certain voices doesn't mean you improve the future by omitting other voices. If you do that you run the risk of missing really important issues essential to democracy and feeding alienation and feelings of disfranchisement. That's completely counter productive to your overall aims because it undermines the value and authority of the voices you are trying to promote.

The net result is a massive backlash.

In political terms this is actively dangerous.

Women who have been deplatformed really understand this in practical terms better than most.

Anyone in publishing who doesn't understand this, doesn't understand the society they live in and how the freedom they have is protected. They shouldn't have been hired if they don't understand this. So it comes back to hiring decisions and top down power wishing to control the populace in rather sinister way.

The thing with the blue haired woke employees is that they need to be weeded out at the roots from these companies. They are only interested in promoting their agenda. They don’t give a shit if the company that pays them burns to the ground. They don’t care if the books don’t make money- in their small minds the desire to turn a profit is evil capitalist oppression. If they lose their job because they helped destroy the company, they don’t care. They just float between academia and DEI jobs sucking the life out of everything like dementors.