From: Jason Low <jlow_at_leeandlow.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 10:55:23 -0500

Hi folks, While the discussion has travelled fast and furious in the last couple days I did want to chime in, in support of Charles Bayless’s idea about digging in and discovering what budgets are actually earmarked for diversity. Real sales numbers is all about demand and demand for diverse books is our biggest hurdle. I enjoyed Lyn Miller Lauchman’s common sense input to take budgets straight to the independents since there is an existing pool of very good books already out there. Why waste time convincing the big houses of our plight when there are presses who have been producing diverse books for decades? Grow the independents and the big houses will follow. Right now, there is no need.

While Charles’s approach is statistical and methodical the bottom line is the numbers do not lie. Our space is a very amped up when it comes to the earnest raw emotion and passion, and most if not all of us are word/visual people who naturally do gravitate toward math. But we need to study the numbers, draw conclusions from them, and set concrete goals.

All the ideas proposed so far are good ones. With any large cultural shift or movement there has to be chatter coming in from all sides, which makes it impossible for our collective message to be ignored.
  Thanks,

---
Jason Low
Publisher
LEE & LOW BOOKS
95 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
t. 212-779-4400 x. 27
e. jlow_at_leeandlow.com
w. leeandlow.com
b. blog.leeandlow.com
On Feb 6, 2014, at 2:06 PM, Barbara Binns <bab9660_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> Charles, it's not yelling at the call center. First, no one is yelling, and second, it removes the publisher's chief argument, that no one has been asking for those books. Acquiring editors and publishers are at those booths, and you frequently find marketing and sales people (at least that's who my publisher used to send, and who I have spoken with at many of the booths.) These are the people claiming there is no interest in books featuring real diversity. I am an author of color, and I continually hear from agents and publishers that there is no interest in books featuring kids of color or different ethnicities and sexual orientation.  Not every solution to a problem has to be big budget.
>  
> Be aware that there are discussions going on to exclude diversity in the name of sales. I was literally told if I would only make my stories more "universal" ie remove references to characters being Black or Hispanic, they could use one of my books. I say father and son issues are universal, regardless of the race of the characters and I will not whitewash my story for the sake of a publisher.
>  
---
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Received on Fri 07 Feb 2014 09:55:49 AM CST