CCBC-Net Archives
Re: ccbc-net digest: February 13, 2014
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Sugoodman_at_aol.com
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 09:22:47 -0500 (EST)
I have to say, this has been the most interesting, thought provoking discussion. Thank you so much.
Susan G.
Susan Goodman 5 Oakview Terrace Boston, MA 02130 617-522-0158 www.susangoodmanbooks.com
In a message dated 2/14/2014 1:21:26 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu writes:
CCBC-NET Digest for Thursday, February 13, 2014.
1. Re: Multicultural publishing 2. Re: Multicultural publishing 3. Re: Multicultural publishing 4. A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 5. Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 6. Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 7. Brave and Happy Videos 8. Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns 9. Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 10. Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns 11. Re: Multicultural publishing 12. Diversity 13. Multicultural publishing 14. Multicultural publihisng 15. Re: Multicultural publishing 16. Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns 17. Re: Multicultural publishing 18. Fwd: Multicultural literature, minus some? 19. Re: Brave and Happy Videos
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Rosanne Parry <rosanneparry_at_comcast.net> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 22:57:25 -0800 X-Message-Number: 1
You know Norma I hear big publishers blamed for any number of problems in the book world not just this debate. I think it happens for a couple of reasons. I think people who have a vested interest in independent publishing have a financial incentive to dissuade writers from holding out for a traditional publishing contract, and don't mind stretching the facts particularly in social medias. I think from time to time a big publisher gets distracted by events and drops the ball on something they would ordinarily do. I think because the competition to be published is intense and feedback on rejected work is often scarce it's easy to see a big publisher as the faceless machine rather than a the group of passionate readers they are. And I think nobody can really predict which books will take off and which won't. I read outstanding writing every year in books that just don't capture the public eye in spite of strong reviews and beautiful packaging. I know what a good story is but I don't know what makes a book capture people's hearts in a way that generates the word-of-mouth we all know is the engine behind the blockbuster. When your book is in the fight for attention and going no where, it feels right to blame somebody even when you know its not your publishers fault. But maybe more than anything, the problem is that most of the good work a publisher does is invisible. I wrote a blog post about this a couple of months ago. You can take a look if you like.
http://rosanneparry.com/2013/10/
Publishers are not in the business of publicizing their business practices, they're in the business of publicizing their books. So it's easy to over look what they do well.
Rosanne Parry
Written in Stone, 2013 Second Fiddle, 2011 Heart of a Shepherd, 2009 www.rosanneparry.com
On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:45 AM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> Under no circumstances am I speaking for publishers when I say…
>
> this particular discussion has generated….
>
> an abundance of direct and indirect attacks on publishers
>
> an abundance of statements about publishers and publishers that could
not be more wrong headed..wrong headed in terms of facts..for starters…
.executives are not in the booths at different conventions…
>
> accusations that have existed for decades and could be filed under…same
ol same ol same ol
>
> .Norma Jean
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 09:31:54 -0600 X-Message-Number: 2
Sometimes discussions get messy. Sometimes we are often cheeky and ironic. I have a lot of friends on this list who are in publishing and offline discussions are equally raucous and emotional on both sides and yet we all remain affectionate and respectful of the hard work each does. And in the end the conversation always moves to "then how do we fix this so both can thrive?"
This is not an easy business to be in. But if we're going to effect change, each side must feel free to present their perspective in the hopes we can find some middle ground.
Sometimes an attack is not an attack - but merely an observation or the sharing of a real-life event in what I hope is a safe environment. I hope on this list we can all remain respectful and agree to disagree. ….Christine
>
>
>
> On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:45 AM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
>
>> Under no circumstances am I speaking for publishers when I say…
>>
>> this particular discussion has generated….
>>
>> an abundance of direct and indirect attacks on publishers
>>
>> an abundance of statements about publishers and publishers that could
not be more wrong headed..wrong headed in terms of facts..for starters…
.executives are not in the booths at different conventions…
>>
>> accusations that have existed for decades and could be filed under…same
ol same ol same ol
>>
>> .Norma Jean
>
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Marge Pellegrino <margepell_at_comcast.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 10:33:29 -0700 X-Message-Number: 3
I've been scanning these messages and if ideology's impact on book sales has already come up, please forgive me.
I offer an example of my book published out of London and reviewed well that didn't sell because, I believe, of ideology. Journey of Dreams was given a stared review in Kirkus, on the list of best books by Kirkus, Independent Children's Booksellers, A Southwest Book of the Year, CCBC Choice, Smithsonian Notable Book, USBBY honor list, Americas Award Commended list. The book made it onto Chicago Public Library, Florida Hispanic Heritage Month, and Vamos a Leer recommended lists. Barnes and Noble thought it would be a cross-over that adults would want to read. That said -- it may never go to paperback even though Frances Lincoln Publishers did a heck of a job getting the book out there.
The book is historical fiction following a young girl and her family during the scorched earth campaign in Guatemala and a pivotal moment in the Sanctuary Movement that forced the US to change its policy and allow Guatemalans to apply for asylum. The reason I believe the book hasn't done well might be hinted at in this post from an educator on the website Picnic Basket:
"As someone living in a state with major issues regarding illegal immigration, it's easy to feel pity for Tomasa and her family but this pity is undermined by the fact that they are smuggled inside the United States. I would feel more comfortable recommending this book to my students if the family had been admitted under political asylum, for which they would be well qualified."
This educator's comments speaks to people's ideology swaying their
"comfort" about books that challenge misinformation they hold. I can't imagine the disappointing sales experience for Frances Lincoln would not influence what they might consider publishing in the future…
Respectfully, Marge Pellegrino http://bbc.in/17G9Ve4
On Feb 12, 2014, at 12:45 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> Under no circumstances am I speaking for publishers when I say…
>
> this particular discussion has generated….
>
> an abundance of direct and indirect attacks on publishers
>
> an abundance of statements about publishers and publishers that could
not be more wrong headed..wrong headed in terms of facts..for starters…
.executives are not in the booths at different conventions…
>
> accusations that have existed for decades and could be filed under…same
ol same ol same ol
>
> statements by some writers that their books have not sold because their
subject matter was centered on minorities when a check of the reviews showed the book(s) received mixed reviews or negative reviews…
>
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Subject: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:11:07 -0600 X-Message-Number: 4
Bear with me on this one, i'm a Big Bang Theory type of nerd. … And this is only from "my" perspective.
I was in the car yesterday when a song came on the radio. I'm a bit behind on pop culture with both girls in college so I wasn't familiar with the artist. But while I waited for a store to open I found the song on Youtube and played it over and over again. Something about it being uplifting - but also about a subtle ethnic coding. i was having that discussion with an editor friend the other day - about signals and nods in shows like Scandal and Sleepy Hollow that are often caught by an ethnic audience and missed by those outside the culture. Just enough to say "you're invited."
My oldest daughter returned from a day of college classes and I said I'd been stuck on a song all day. I described it and she said "Sarah Bareilles Brave?"
Nope. That wasn't it. She showed it to me on Youtube and it had all the elements of the other song but the "accent" was different from the one I had heard.
So see if you can understand what I mean. The first link is Brave. It's uplifting. Makes my African American daughter feel hopeful. But understand my daughter been trained to code-switch and mostly speaks in a mainstream vernacular. She speaks more than one language and studies classical music and art. Brave is commercial, but I found nothing ethnic in the undertones even with the black woman dancing. When watching it I "code switched" to mainstream language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4
It is a very precise language with a beat that is careful and measured. The video is multicultural representing all races and body types. Even the singer's dancing is as measured and precise as her singing. It is a lot of fun and the dancers are joyful. But there are no surprises.
Then we watched this one and can't get it out of our heads. Even a day later. Then I showed both to my husband who'd had a tough day at the hospital. He grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood but spent a great deal of his free time with his "clan."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM
The Williams video employs the same concept as the Bareilles video. A beat that is repetitive and measured. Multicultural dancers of various ages, ethnicities and body types. But this time watch the singer who also appears often in different outfits (in the college hallway, in front of a choir). The video is full of surprises which vary with the dancer's pacing even with a consistent beat. There are completely different nuances, changes in beat, and even changes in pace among the dancers. There are also a lot more people featured and it is more inclusive. But more than that - it is filled with cultural nuances in the '"accent" of the song that my daughter immediately recognized as her culture. I recognized it in the car before I searched for it on Youtube. Hearing this song I switched to my cultural roots which is more comfortable for me and more energizing.
Why is this important? An editor once said that if she gave a book to fifteen different editors she'd get fifteen different books back. I often council authors of color to wait for the right person - the one that gets the
"nuances" that others don't get. If someone who loved the Sarah Bareilles pattern of speech and cadence had been asked to edit Pharrell's video, it would have been a different video. In fact, the production company for the latter has made available all of its outtakes - 24 hours of them - of people who are just dancing and singing to this song - many without rhythm and precision and yet you can't help but dance with them.
Part of getting this diversity thing right - is getting all of us - ALL OF US - to be able to see the nuances that will become a "call" to children of color without scaring off a mainstream market that would label the work as "for them" or "niche." There's what we see on the surface in public, but
there are the nuances we need to know about when those people are home and the door is closed. When an author presents those codes it is not always something that can be explained but must just be trusted.
I remember showing a manuscript to an editor (who is - to this day a great friend) The phrase was "you aren't all that!" She said "is something missing?" I said "No. That's the expression - albeit old now." And every time she re-read the passage she'd say "Isn't this missing the last word?" and I'd go, "nope. That's the phrase in its entirety" and we'd laugh about it.
So I liked the first video. But I'll be listening to the second multiple times on my way to work with kids in St. Louis tomorrow. Because THAT song is the one those kids will recognize as inclusive. It's a subtle difference, but when those codes and clues aren't there it is glaringly absent to those kids in a way that it might not be to the rest of us
The key to any good art is not seeing what you see, but learning to see what you didn't see before.
In good health, - and I dare you not to dance when you play the second one …..C
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Subject: Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not
controversial) about editing From: stephanie.greene.books_at_gmail.com Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 15:35:27 -0500 X-Message-Number: 5
Excellent point taken. Those two pieces of music made your point better than any words could have.
Thanks.
Stephanie Greene Children's Book Author
Sent from my iPad
> On Feb 13, 2014, at 3:11 PM, Christine Taylor-Butler
<kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Bear with me on this one, i'm a Big Bang Theory type of nerd. … And
this is only from "my" perspective.
>
>
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Subject: Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not
controversial) about editing From: Nancy Tolson <ananse.nancy_at_gmail.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:44:43 -0600 X-Message-Number: 6
Well said!
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Subject: Brave and Happy Videos From: Sue Macy <sue_at_suemacy.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:09:31 -0500 X-Message-Number: 7
FYI, the ³Brave² video was actually directed by actress Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones (and Peggy Lipton, who is white), so it¹s got at least some African-American influences. And as the official video for a song from a movie soundtrack, I expect the ³Happy² video had a much bigger budget than the ³Brave² video, making all those clothing changes and extra cast members possible.
--Sue Macy
On 2/13/14 3:11 PM, "Christine Taylor-Butler" <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> wrote:
> So I liked the first video. But I'll be listening to the second multiple
times
> on my way to work with kids in St. Louis tomorrow. Because THAT song is
the
> one those kids will recognize as inclusive. It's a subtle difference,
but
> when those codes and clues aren't there it is glaringly absent to those
kids
> in a way that it might not be to the rest of us
>
> The key to any good art is not seeing what you see, but learning to see
what
> you didn't see before.
>
> In good health, - and I dare you not to dance when you play the second
oneŠ..C
>
>
>
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Subject: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns From: Charles Bayless <charles.bayless_at_ttmd.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:42:42 -0500 X-Message-Number: 8
Marge,
An interesting case study that I think might have pertinence to other books out of the mainstream. One comment from a single person doesn’t support a conclusion that ideology is an explanation for poor sales. All we know (or I infer from your post) is that your book was published, well supported by your publisher, critically received and then not purchased at a commensurate level by the reading public. We would like to know why the widely scattered, highly diverse reading public did not elect to purchase the book despite all the positive factors going for it. Ideology seems pretty far from the list Ockham might have constructed. I suspect this sheds light on the challenges publishers face that we may not be fully acknowledging.
This analysis might illustrate the complex issue of reading and identity interwoven with how we struggle to interpret what is going on in the marketplace of books. How do we know what we know and how can others know it. I have not read your book; from the reviews, it sounds great. But I think there is a much closer explanation of low sales at hand than ideology. Ideology is rather an ambiguous explanation. What is the ideology? What is a “people’s ideology”; it seems like there are just a lot of people with a lot of different opinions. There are also a lot of different opinions as to what constitutes “misinformation.”
All we can conclude with the information available is that people weren’t interested in buying the book. Ideology hypothetically might be one reason. But I think the ten Amazon reviews provide most of the explanation (8 five stars and 2 four stars). For a general buyer, here are the red flags I would pick from the Amazon reviews and from the commentary in Picnic Basket. One of the things I suspect happens is that we discount the weight people put on negative commentary even in the context of a positive review. In a bountiful environment of books, people are probably mostly looking for reasons not to select. Consequently negative comments, even if overall positive, can be a death knell.
· “every time I read the synopsis I'd start to feel the dread of one more incredibly depressing story that I was going to have to immerse myself in.”
· “I managed to talk myself out of starting it a number of times.” If that is from an enthusiastic reviewer who was already interested in Central and South American history and popular resistance to tyrants, then imagine how the book must have appeared to anyone without that predicate commitment.
· “her content connects to multiple topics: the history of the Maya, the role of weaving in Mayan Culture, the Guatemalan Civil War, Día de los Muertos in Guatemala, the Sanctuary Movement, and Civil Rights activism.” That’s a pretty targeted set of interests.
· “Overall this is a good book and I would recommend it to any adult and any of the more mature young adults.” The book is pitched for fifth-ninth graders.
· “Though there are many concepts that would be hard for the younger teen to read, I would still recommend it for some.”
· “The glossary at the end of the book allows students to understand the language more easily.”
· “She is one of my avid readers, and though I was intrigued, she said the book was boring to her.”
· “Historical Fiction is NOT my genre of choice, and after reading Journey of Dreams, it still isn't.”
· “I enjoy historical fiction but just couldn't get into Journey of Dreams as much as I had anticipated I would.”
· “I suspect it would be of interest in ESL classes.”
· “I enjoy recommending books to middle school students that take them out of their comfort zone and this book fits will challenge their thinking.”
· “it troubles me to see illegal immigration used as a solution.”
· “However, I had a hard time getting into the book; for me, the beginning was very slow and I felt like the author was trying to be too literary.”
· “The glossary was very helpful and would be necessary for children.”
· “This is a wonderful book for schools with high ESL populations”
· “I have always enjoyed historical fiction, but have struggled getting my students to love it as well.”
· “it is so important we go back in our history and truly understand the waves of immigrants. There is so much hate and it is from a complete lack of understanding and knowledge of history.”
Obviously I have cherry picked. Overall there was a lot of positive commentary and a lot of stars. But if people are skeptical of the genuineness of reviews and if they are seeking reasons to not buy, I think the above quotations are probably a lot more explanatory than ideology. I am not suggesting that parents would normally have taken the ten minutes to check out the Amazon reviews or seek out the comments on Picnic Basket. But if those two sources are representative, then I think that there are a lot of signals indicating that there are other more material issues standing in the way of sales than ideological resistance.
I would speculate the parental concerns might look something like:
1. Think the book is too old for the targeted audience. I would guess this is by far the most material concern.
2. Not interested in Guatemalan history.
3. Not interested in harrowing stories.
4. Not interested in stories with complex moral situations, particularly for a fifth grader.
5. Not interested in discussing genocide.
6. Not interested in dealing with violence and cruelty.
7. Not interested in historical fiction.
8. It’s an immigrant story pitched to immigrants.
9. It’s another caustic commentary about the US and how it treats immigrants.
10. It’s another civil rights story, we already read about that in February.
11. Don’t believe in open borders.
So is the explanation for low sales ideological opposition? Possibly. But I am guessing that items 1-6 are probably the most relevant issues for most parents. This is purely speculative. Identifying the real barrier to sales is critical though. If the issue is ideological opposition, then sales can be increased by better target marketing to those perceived as ideologically sympathetic. If, on the other hand, this is really an adult book that is not getting traction with children, then target marketing by ideology won’t increase sales at all if what parents really object to is maturity of content. If all the above eleven are misperceptions on the part of parents, then the marketing plan has to anticipate how to forestall such conclusions by the reading public.
I am not attempting to slam Journey of Dreams, but I think it exemplifies how detailed information and critical thinking might lead to different answers than we might first leap to. I also think that the issues raised here might be common ones to any books out of the positive mainstream norm. What could Frances Lincoln (or any supportive publisher) have done better to forestall such issues? I ask that as a real question. It would be interesting to construct a marketing plan if those are the real book buying public’s concerns. In fact, for those of you who are connected with a university with a business school, perhaps this might be an interesting case study for a marketing class. Just exactly how would you market this?
Charles
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Subject: Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not
controversial) about editing From: Stacy Whitman <stacylwhitman_at_gmail.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:51:09 -0500 X-Message-Number: 9
That's a great way to illustrate the difference, Christine. (Not to mention I think the 2nd song is just better because it's less preachy/feels less condescending.)
As a white woman who grew up on a farm in western Illinois, I often worry about my ear for those tiny details you are talking about. I'm in a constant learning process. This is one of the reasons I use other readers to give me a second opinion--sometimes before acquisition, and sometimes after. Christine herself has been a reader for me, as has Uma<http://umakrishnaswami.blogspot.com/2011/07/interview-wednesday-stacy-wh itman-of-tu.html>, on this very listserv, because I trust them to be honest with me and give me good feedback from a perspective that sees details I might not.
Of course, cultural experts aren't representative of their entire culture, but having one more voice who can say anything from, "This word isn't working here for me," to "You might want to rethink this book, for reasons XYZ," not only teaches me so I can watch out for whatever they point out the next time, but also helps me to make sure the books I do put out are the best they can be. (And anything that slips past is totally my fault, not theirs for not catching it, of course.)
This is also why it's so important for publishing houses to employ a diverse set of editors, but it can box in an editor at a big house who is the only person of color if everyone in the house funnels all the POC titles to her (because of course she'd want to read them because she's also a POC!). Or to have her be the token reader of all POC titles for other editors--which means she's reading not only her own titles, but everyone else's. (It's an argument in favor of having out-of-house consultants, I suppose, on top of greater diversity in staff than just one POC.) So it's just as important for editors like me to tune their "ear" to hear the nuances (and to make connections with experts who can assist them when they have blind spots) as it is for POC editors to be employed at publishing houses in greater number, in my opinion, so that we (white editors) are not constantly calling in our POC friends in the house to make sure whatever we're about to publish isn't racist.
Stacy Whitman Publisher Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, Inc. http://www.leeandlow.com/p/tu.mhtml
Cover reveal! See our latest release's covers at http://blog.leeandlow.com/2014/02/13/cover-design-101-drift/
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Subject: Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns From: Lyn Miller-Lachmann <lynml_at_me.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:13:02 -0500 X-Message-Number: 10
I'm going to dive into this pool because I'm a huge fan of Journey of Dreams. The author took great care to make it appropriate for readers in grades five through nine--there are harrowing aspects but not too harrowing, and one gets the feeling that characters one has grown to love will be safe. I really liked that, even though I didn't offer the same sense of safety in Gringolandia. (Gringolandia, granted, was written for mature teens and is now being marketed as well to college and adult readers.)
I think a lot of the issue with Journey of Dreams had to do with a U.K. publisher that didn't know the U.S. market well enough. I believe that small presses are often the best places to find books that are out of the mainstream culturally, ideologically, or for a host of other reasons. The reviewers who gave starred reviews to Journey of Dreams (and Gringolandia, another small press book), and the awards committees that recognized both these historical novels set in Latin America deserve much praise. We need to realize that small presses are not last-resort publishers for inferior books that authors don't want to self-publish (and I have actually heard small presses called "the minor leagues" at conferences) but courageous and innovative producers of books that fill underserved niches. Charles's point that marketing can be targeted to readers who are ideologically sympathetic is well taken. Yes, it's preaching to the choir, but the choir isn't getting much preaching these days and we're grumpy. It's why a lot of folks have stopped reading books and started reading blogs. Arianna Huffington is smiling all the way to the bank.
There's a lot that small presses can do to make their efforts more successful, from cover design to format (Frances Lincoln always had more success bringing out titles in original paperback, but in the U.S. that makes the books less attractive for reviews and awards) to finding the right places to sell the books. I've copied Charles's suggestion below as my way of seconding it.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013) www.lynmillerlachmann.com www.thepiratetree.com
On Feb 13, 2014, at 4:42 PM, Charles Bayless wrote:
> In fact, for those of you who are connected with a university with a
business school, perhaps this might be an interesting case study for a marketing class.
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:55:22 -0500 X-Message-Number: 11
The following did not go through the first time because I forgot to delete the to/fro and there were too many lines, hope this goes through now….
On Feb 13, 2014, at 5:49 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> I have done a fair amount of research and am happy to say I would safely
bet against ideology being the reason Journey of Dreams has had disappointing sales. Instead, it was caught in a shift in ownership, as well as a shift in distribution..a potential nightmare for every writer…..and for the publisher, too...
>
> The extraordinary Frances Lincoln, whom I knew, died in her 50s in 2011.
Her husband, managed the company until 2011 when it was bought by the Quarto Group, where it became part of Aurum Publishing Down the road, distribution was changed to Quayside Publishing. Moving stock to different warehouses, putting different discount plans, policies, into place for buyers, transferring information from one computer system to another, changing sales forces, etc…all of the nuts and bolts of the backbone of sales and distribution changed dramatically for Frances Lincoln not only when it was sold but when the distribution changed. Having worked for a publisher that only changed warehouses, in my bones, orders for Journey of Dreams and others books could not be fulfilled in a timely fashion, some were no doubt canceled. There is also a period in which books cannot be shipped because there must be an accurate counting of the inventory. No matter how well planned, etc… knowing what I do, if I were a writer and knew this was coming down the pike, I would be uneasy, if not worried/gloomy.
>
> Not good news by any means but I hope it is useful….Norma Jean
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Subject: Diversity From: Kerry Madden <kiffnkerry_at_sbcglobal.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:57:15 -0800 (PST) X-Message-Number: 12
Thank you very much for this great discussion on diversity. I know I'm chiming in a little bit late, but I have shared Elizabeth Bluemle's essay,
"The Elephant in the Room" over the years with my creative writing students at UAB (University of Alabama Birmingham). I also appreciate Christine Taylor-Butler's comment, "Part of getting this diversity thing right - is getting all of us - ALL OF US - to be able to see the nuances that will become a "call" to children of color without scaring off a mainstream market that would label the work as "for them" or 'niche.'" It's been great reading everybody's comments all month long.
I'm not a mainstream author, but this is just a note about connections and one thing leading to another over the course of a century. When I wrote the biography, UP CLOSE HARPER LEE (VIKING 2009) I was lucky enough during the interview process to get to meet the storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham
(1917-2011) who was a friend of Harper Lee's. Something about her magical storytelling voice got to me, and she also lived right in the heart of Selma, Alabama. She was white, and her best friend, Charlie Lucas, a black folk artist, was her nextdoor neighbor. When I interviewed her in 2007, it was to talk about Harper Lee, but Kathryn was so fascinating herself that I wrote about her in a essay that didn't fit into the biography. (I went back several times to talk with her some more and on one of the trips to Selma I met Charlie Lucas and began to interview him.) I learned that Kathryn wrote a story called ERNEST'S GIFT, about a young African American boy, Ernest, who wasn't allowed in the Selma Public Library in 1932 because of segregation. (She wrote plenty of other books and appeared every year at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough.)
Anyway, I couldn't get Charlie and Kathryn out of my head, so I also wrote a storybook, NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE, which is the story of how a white storyteller and a black folk artist grew to be best friends in Selma, Alabama and fought diversity their own way by holding an annual hair comb concert on the lawn of the Selma Dallas County Public library. The book was published by Mockingbird Publishing in 2013, and a portion of the royalties goes to the Selma Public Library, Kathryn's favorite place in Selma. My daughter, Lucy, illustrated it, and together we visited rural Alabama libraries last summer to get kids to write and tell their stories and to make art, the ways Charlie and Kathryn did together as best friends.
Here are further links. Thanks so much for this wonderful listserve.
All best Kerry
Ernest's Gift http://www.amazon.com/Ernests-Gift-Kathryn-Tucker-Windham/dp/1588381498 The Elephant in the Room http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=700 Charlie Lucas, TIN MAN http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-3388 Kathryn Tucker Windham http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137155004/alabama-storyteller-kathryn-tucker-w indham-dies
NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE
http://www.mockingbirdpublishing.com/cause-publishing/ http://www.al.com/bhammag/index.ssf/thread/a_tale_of_two_friends.html http://www.uab.edu/cas/magazine/the-storyteller-and-the-artist http://uabnews.blogspot.com/2013/07/professor-spent-summer-sharing-lessons.h tml http://nothingfancyaboutabooktour.wordpress.com/ (Blog with pictures) http://www.writersforum.org/news_and_reviews/review_archives.html/article/20 13/07/31/nothing-fancy-about-kathryn-charlie
www.kerrymadden.com Editor of poemmemoirstory http://pms-journal.org/ Associate Professor of Creative Writing at UAB Birmingham, AL
"Be like a bird, who, halting in her flight on a limb too slight, feels it give way beneath her, yet sings knowing she has wings." Victor Hugo
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Subject: Multicultural publishing From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:58:38 -0500 X-Message-Number: 13
The following did not go through the first time because I forgot to delete the to/fro and there were too many lines, hope this goes through now….
On Feb 13, 2014, at 5:49 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> I have done a fair amount of research and am happy to say I would safely
bet against ideology being the reason Journey of Dreams has had disappointing sales. Instead, it was caught in a shift in ownership, as well as a shift in distribution..a potential nightmare for every writer…..and for the publisher, too...
>
> The extraordinary Frances Lincoln, whom I knew, died in her 50s in 2011.
Her husband, managed the company until 2011 when it was bought by the Quarto Group, where it became part of Aurum Publishing Down the road, distribution was changed to Quayside Publishing. Moving stock to different warehouses, putting different discount plans, policies, into place for buyers, transferring information from one computer system to another, changing sales forces, etc…all of the nuts and bolts of the backbone of sales and distribution changed dramatically for Frances Lincoln not only when it was sold but when the distribution changed. Having worked for a publisher that only changed warehouses, in my bones, orders for Journey of Dreams and others books could not be fulfilled in a timely fashion, some were no doubt canceled. There is also a period in which books cannot be shipped because there must be an accurate counting of the inventory. No matter how well planned, etc… knowing what I do, if I were a writer and knew this was coming down the pike, I would be uneasy, if not worried/gloomy.
>
> Not good news by any means but I hope it is useful….Norma Jean
>
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Subject: Multicultural publihisng From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:10:39 -0500 X-Message-Number: 14
A mistake…Frances Lincoln died in 2001…Norma Jean
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Lyn Miller-Lachmann <lynml_at_me.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:13:33 -0500 X-Message-Number: 15
Thank you for your research and insight, Norma Jean. I'm sorry to hear about the untimely death of Frances Lincoln, as I always valued her publishing house, back from my days of editing MultiCultural Review. And I can attest to the problems resulting from the ownership/distribution change because that happened to Gringolandia's publisher as well, after the sudden death of Curbstone's founder/editorial director Alexander Taylor. While Gringolandia was out of stock for a crucial four months in summer 2010 and a translation deal appeared to have fallen between the cracks, I am happy to report that Northwestern University Press, acted decisively to get things moving again. Since becoming the novel's publisher, they have reprinted it at least twice and sold Italian translation rights. I am quite happy with the support Gringolandia has received, and when I see the folks from Northwestern at AWP at the end of the month, I'm going to try to sell them on publishing more historical/multicultural titles for crossover readers through the Curbstone Books imprint.
What does concern me, though, is that this kind of extreme bad luck ends up killing both worthwhile books and the careers of the authors who wrote them. There has to be a way of getting around that.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013) www.lynmillerlachmann.com www.thepiratetree.com
On Feb 13, 2014, at 5:55 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
>> I have done a fair amount of research and am happy to say I would
safely bet against ideology being the reason Journey of Dreams has had disappointing sales. Instead, it was caught in a shift in ownership, as well as a shift in distribution..a potential nightmare for every writer…..and for the publisher, too...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns From: maggie_bo_at_comcast.net Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:44:45 +0000 (UTC) X-Message-Number: 16
Charles has some interesting points that I think can be taken into consideration when thinking about marketing any book on a serious, disturbing topic for kids, but I disagree when he writes "That's a pretty targeted set of interests." Really, any given book, if you break it down, focuses on a very small set of "interests." People--adults and kids--may choose to read a historical fiction title (or really, any fiction title) to learn more about a given set of "interests," or because they share those "interests," but I'd say usually not ... usually, they're just interested in a good read. I believe someone who's never thought twice about Guatemala could see Marge's book and be attracted to it. I don't think it's unusual for people to select books on topics they've never heard of before, or know little about ... so I don't think that really explains the problem. Just my take.
When one is selling children's books, part of the issue is, you're selling them to two different audiences: the people who buy them (parents, librarians, teachers) and then an entirely other audience--the kids themselves. It's very tricky to package and market a book so it appeals to both, but if it doesn't appeal, the book won't flourish. If it succeeds with adults but not kids--it might sell initially, but will flounder and quickly go out of print. If it is a potential winner with kids, it'll never have a chance if the adults never buy and promote it in the first place. Worst of all, sometimes what kids want and what adults want are diametrically opposed. What many adults want to hear are some or all of these things... it's related to the curriculum, it supports the common core, there's no violence, it reinforces good values, and there is nothing in it that will upset the child or confuse them or send them out of their (read: the adult's) comfort zone. What many kids want to hear are some or all of these things: it's exciting, it will keep me even more entertained than my video games, there's at least some
funny parts, it's got a lot of action (and maybe some serious gore), the hero/heroine is someone I can relate to and is therefore not perfect and might even be someone who screws up a lot, and I'll get to learn some stuff I w ould never find out about at school.
I am just guessing this balancing act gets super tricky when dealing with the kinds of books we've been discussing this month.
I'm a school librarian, so I'm mostly in the business of selling books to kids... I don't have much expertise in any other area. (I do "sell" books to teachers and administrators too, but, lucky for me, in my district that's been easy.) Just if anyone is curious, here's some of the ways I promote our diverse historical fiction stories ...
1. Many kids love survival/adventure books, or sports books, or romances, or mysteries. Many historical fiction titles also fit into one of these categories. I'll sell the book, as, say, an adventure story, and then add, oh yeah, the story is set during x time and place. 2. I'll tell them parts of the book are BASED ON A TRUE STORY! Kids love stuff BASED ON A TRUE STORY (in fact, they're often disappointed other things they read are not in any way real). Wow, some of this stuff REALLY HAPPENED and some of these people are REAL! 3. I'll mention the protagonist's personality/issues. John can't stand his new stepfather ... Maria is always fighting with her sister .... even in the middle of a revolution, anywhere, in any culture, this stuff is usually going on, and the kids can relate.
And finally, this is just a comment ... but I'm so tired of adults ... educators and parents ... thinking kids cannot handle "mature" content such as genocide. How do we get past this? It's especially frustrating because so many parents seem so much more concerned about censoring their kids' reading than their movies, TV, video games, and internet, which IMO is much worse than anything in books that are typically questioned. Preaching to the choir here, I know. I just don't understand what seems to me to be a double standard between print and every other media type.
Maggie Bokelman Librarian Eagle View Middle School
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 20:10:17 -0500 X-Message-Number: 17
What can be done depends on whether or not the company deemed the move(s) a problem, and if it was company wide. In that case, a publisher often takes a variety of different steps to play catch up.
The great unknown here is the answer to a question that is none of our business…Journey of Dreams did not sell well. What does that mean in terms of actual sales? Reviews in certain publications…School Library Journal, for instance, have sales value in the institutional market that cannot be pinpointed accurately but can be ball parked. A starred review, for instance, is cause for great celebration…Depending on the editor and his/her relationship with a writer, writers are sometimes educated in terms of expectations… or, by the writer's agent.
There was a time in publishing when a colleague from another house could say, x book did not sell well, or x book sold well…and one would know approximately what that meant in terms of actual sales. It was true when the institutional market dominated sales for hardcover children's books which is no longer true today…today there is a strong retail market, a gift market, etc…Also, not all publishers have the same expectations…in one house, a book that sells 5,000 copies in one year may be regarded as failure…at another house, one would not jump for joy but it would be regarded as ok. Writers, too, have expectations..some are realistic, some are not…
Not the answer you may have hoped for but the best I can do with the information on hand…Norma Jean
On Feb 13, 2014, at 6:13 PM, Lyn Miller-Lachmann wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fwd: Multicultural literature, minus some? From: Elsa Marston <elsa.marston_at_gmail.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:24:39 -0500 X-Message-Number: 18
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Elsa Marston <elsa.marston_at_gmail.com> Date: Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 7:09 PM Subject: Multicultural literature, minus some? To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Like so many others, I've been following this discussion with great interest. it is rich, thoughtful, and provocative indeed, and I've certainly gained from it. But although I'm glad, if only for the sake of convenience, that we seem more or less agreed on the term "multicultural," I wonder whether "all cultures are equally important, but some are more equally important than others."
In these twelve days of informed and passionate commentary, I have yet to see the words "Arab," "Arab-American," "Muslim," or even "Middle Eastern"
(except once, as an example of a silly error.) Of course we all write about what's important to us. But what threw me from the start was CCBC's statistical breakdown of books by cultural grouping, in Merri Lindgren's message of February 5. The four groupings, which have come up in other postings, are African/African-American, Native American, Latino/Latina, and Asian/Pacific and Asian/Pacific-American (which I assume includes everything from Iran to Kamchatka!)
But not a word about the Middle East/North Africa. So here's the first pitch for the Arab world. (Of course there are other, non-Arab countries and societies in the Middle East, but I'm dealing here with what I know best.)
Consider, please, these ironies. What is commonly designated as the Arab world stretches from Mauritania on the northwest corner of Africa to Iraq, from Syria to the Sudan. It's the cradle of ancient civilization, not to mention Western civilization. For decades the United States has been heavily embroiled in the countries of the Arab world. Wouldn't it be a good idea to promote knowledge and understanding of these societies, rather than ignorance?
And what about Arab-Americans? Is there such an ethnic community? It strikes me that one reason why even people who argue for cultural diversity seem to overlook the existence of Arab ethnic groups in this country is because the Arab immigrants have long been "new Americans" par excellence. Starting with Lebanese in the 1880s, they came to this country full of ambition, worked hard, caused no trouble, achieved outstandingly in just about every occupation and profession you can think of, In short, they have blended in so well that I bet most Americans have no idea how their lives are affected by Arabs active in, for instance, entertainment, manufacturing, finance, teaching, medicine, the food industry
(restaurants), scientific research, government, and on and on. Yet they also have kept, or revived, their Arab cultural identity--and in many cases they have paid for it dearly, especially since 9/11.
James Zogby, one of the most astute and measured spokespersons for Arab-Americans, recently wrote in a column about the movie "American Hustle" as follows:
"I will never forget my children coming home the Halloween after ABSCAM tellng me that they didn't want anyone at their suburban Washington school to know that they were of Arab descent. . . . because at that year's annual Halloween costume parade a number of their classmates had dressed up as "Arabs" complete with big noses, guns, knives, oil cans, and bags of money."
If children of any other ethnic group had experienced something like that, would it be tolerated--in supposedly polite society? That incident, of course, happened in Pre-Multicultural polite society; but slurs and open expression of racist prejudice have not disappeared.
At least the situation is getting better where children's literature is concerned. Before the 1990s, there were hardly any books for young people that presented Arab peoples in an accurate, fair, and positive light. Today the list of recommendable books (I focus especially on fiction about life today) is respectable--roughly 50 published since the 90s, compared with less than ten in the previous three decades. I like to credit a few courageous writers and publishers who recognized that the time had come, thereby opening the door to others. Few authors are Arabs or Arab-Americans, but that situation is slowly changing.
[And here I'll repeat my offer to send any interested person my up-dated list of recommended books--picture books and novels--about the contemporary Arab world, much more than the "roughly 50" mentioned above.. Just email me: elsa.marston_at_gmail.com.]
Thank you for taking note of my argument that if we're going to talk about
"multicultural," the discourse must include more than just the Big Four. Americans must know and care more about the Arab world--and its reflection on this continent.
Elsa Marston www.elsamarston.com
THE COMPASSIONATE WARRIOR; ABD EL-KADER OF ALGERIA (Wisdom Tales 2013) SANTA CLAUS IN BAGHDAD AND OTHER STORIES ABOUT TEENS IN THE ARAB WORLD (Indiana University Press 2008)
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Subject: Re: Brave and Happy Videos From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:41:07 -0500 (EST) X-Message-Number: 19
Sue,
That's an awesome bit of news. I have a lot of respect for Rashida Jones (and her parents). Part of the beauty of code switching is that we can also hide the accent when we want to (sometimes intentional, sometimes not). So it is possible to be African American and direct something and not include those nuances. It's a Sarah Bareille's vehicle and to include them wouldn't really reflect the artist's personal style.
But your post also serves as a beautiful example of why people of color should be allowed and encouraged to write beyond the narrow boundaries of their own race. Said one author at a recent discussion among publishing professionals "We're more qualified to do both because we're forced to straddle two worlds and be fluent in both
"cultural languages."
Hence, Bareille's video can be directed by a talented African American, be free of the norms and cues, and still be beautiful and commercially successful. Rashida is "bilingual. :-).
Cheers,....Christine
-----Original Message----- From: Sue Macy Sent: Feb 13, 2014 3:09 PM To: Christine Taylor-Butler , "ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu ccbc-net" Subject: Brave and Happy Videos
Brave and Happy Videos
FYI, the “Brave†video was actually directed by actress Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones (and Peggy Lipton, who is white), so it’s got at least some African-American influences. And as the official video for a song from a movie soundtrack, I expect the “Happy†video had a much bigger budget than the “Brave†video, making all those clothing changes and extra cast members possible.
--Sue Macy
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 09:22:47 -0500 (EST)
I have to say, this has been the most interesting, thought provoking discussion. Thank you so much.
Susan G.
Susan Goodman 5 Oakview Terrace Boston, MA 02130 617-522-0158 www.susangoodmanbooks.com
In a message dated 2/14/2014 1:21:26 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu writes:
CCBC-NET Digest for Thursday, February 13, 2014.
1. Re: Multicultural publishing 2. Re: Multicultural publishing 3. Re: Multicultural publishing 4. A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 5. Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 6. Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 7. Brave and Happy Videos 8. Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns 9. Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing 10. Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns 11. Re: Multicultural publishing 12. Diversity 13. Multicultural publishing 14. Multicultural publihisng 15. Re: Multicultural publishing 16. Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns 17. Re: Multicultural publishing 18. Fwd: Multicultural literature, minus some? 19. Re: Brave and Happy Videos
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Rosanne Parry <rosanneparry_at_comcast.net> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 22:57:25 -0800 X-Message-Number: 1
You know Norma I hear big publishers blamed for any number of problems in the book world not just this debate. I think it happens for a couple of reasons. I think people who have a vested interest in independent publishing have a financial incentive to dissuade writers from holding out for a traditional publishing contract, and don't mind stretching the facts particularly in social medias. I think from time to time a big publisher gets distracted by events and drops the ball on something they would ordinarily do. I think because the competition to be published is intense and feedback on rejected work is often scarce it's easy to see a big publisher as the faceless machine rather than a the group of passionate readers they are. And I think nobody can really predict which books will take off and which won't. I read outstanding writing every year in books that just don't capture the public eye in spite of strong reviews and beautiful packaging. I know what a good story is but I don't know what makes a book capture people's hearts in a way that generates the word-of-mouth we all know is the engine behind the blockbuster. When your book is in the fight for attention and going no where, it feels right to blame somebody even when you know its not your publishers fault. But maybe more than anything, the problem is that most of the good work a publisher does is invisible. I wrote a blog post about this a couple of months ago. You can take a look if you like.
http://rosanneparry.com/2013/10/
Publishers are not in the business of publicizing their business practices, they're in the business of publicizing their books. So it's easy to over look what they do well.
Rosanne Parry
Written in Stone, 2013 Second Fiddle, 2011 Heart of a Shepherd, 2009 www.rosanneparry.com
On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:45 AM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> Under no circumstances am I speaking for publishers when I say…
>
> this particular discussion has generated….
>
> an abundance of direct and indirect attacks on publishers
>
> an abundance of statements about publishers and publishers that could
not be more wrong headed..wrong headed in terms of facts..for starters…
.executives are not in the booths at different conventions…
>
> accusations that have existed for decades and could be filed under…same
ol same ol same ol
>
> .Norma Jean
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 09:31:54 -0600 X-Message-Number: 2
Sometimes discussions get messy. Sometimes we are often cheeky and ironic. I have a lot of friends on this list who are in publishing and offline discussions are equally raucous and emotional on both sides and yet we all remain affectionate and respectful of the hard work each does. And in the end the conversation always moves to "then how do we fix this so both can thrive?"
This is not an easy business to be in. But if we're going to effect change, each side must feel free to present their perspective in the hopes we can find some middle ground.
Sometimes an attack is not an attack - but merely an observation or the sharing of a real-life event in what I hope is a safe environment. I hope on this list we can all remain respectful and agree to disagree. ….Christine
>
>
>
> On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:45 AM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
>
>> Under no circumstances am I speaking for publishers when I say…
>>
>> this particular discussion has generated….
>>
>> an abundance of direct and indirect attacks on publishers
>>
>> an abundance of statements about publishers and publishers that could
not be more wrong headed..wrong headed in terms of facts..for starters…
.executives are not in the booths at different conventions…
>>
>> accusations that have existed for decades and could be filed under…same
ol same ol same ol
>>
>> .Norma Jean
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Marge Pellegrino <margepell_at_comcast.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 10:33:29 -0700 X-Message-Number: 3
I've been scanning these messages and if ideology's impact on book sales has already come up, please forgive me.
I offer an example of my book published out of London and reviewed well that didn't sell because, I believe, of ideology. Journey of Dreams was given a stared review in Kirkus, on the list of best books by Kirkus, Independent Children's Booksellers, A Southwest Book of the Year, CCBC Choice, Smithsonian Notable Book, USBBY honor list, Americas Award Commended list. The book made it onto Chicago Public Library, Florida Hispanic Heritage Month, and Vamos a Leer recommended lists. Barnes and Noble thought it would be a cross-over that adults would want to read. That said -- it may never go to paperback even though Frances Lincoln Publishers did a heck of a job getting the book out there.
The book is historical fiction following a young girl and her family during the scorched earth campaign in Guatemala and a pivotal moment in the Sanctuary Movement that forced the US to change its policy and allow Guatemalans to apply for asylum. The reason I believe the book hasn't done well might be hinted at in this post from an educator on the website Picnic Basket:
"As someone living in a state with major issues regarding illegal immigration, it's easy to feel pity for Tomasa and her family but this pity is undermined by the fact that they are smuggled inside the United States. I would feel more comfortable recommending this book to my students if the family had been admitted under political asylum, for which they would be well qualified."
This educator's comments speaks to people's ideology swaying their
"comfort" about books that challenge misinformation they hold. I can't imagine the disappointing sales experience for Frances Lincoln would not influence what they might consider publishing in the future…
Respectfully, Marge Pellegrino http://bbc.in/17G9Ve4
On Feb 12, 2014, at 12:45 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> Under no circumstances am I speaking for publishers when I say…
>
> this particular discussion has generated….
>
> an abundance of direct and indirect attacks on publishers
>
> an abundance of statements about publishers and publishers that could
not be more wrong headed..wrong headed in terms of facts..for starters…
.executives are not in the booths at different conventions…
>
> accusations that have existed for decades and could be filed under…same
ol same ol same ol
>
> statements by some writers that their books have not sold because their
subject matter was centered on minorities when a check of the reviews showed the book(s) received mixed reviews or negative reviews…
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not controversial) about editing From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:11:07 -0600 X-Message-Number: 4
Bear with me on this one, i'm a Big Bang Theory type of nerd. … And this is only from "my" perspective.
I was in the car yesterday when a song came on the radio. I'm a bit behind on pop culture with both girls in college so I wasn't familiar with the artist. But while I waited for a store to open I found the song on Youtube and played it over and over again. Something about it being uplifting - but also about a subtle ethnic coding. i was having that discussion with an editor friend the other day - about signals and nods in shows like Scandal and Sleepy Hollow that are often caught by an ethnic audience and missed by those outside the culture. Just enough to say "you're invited."
My oldest daughter returned from a day of college classes and I said I'd been stuck on a song all day. I described it and she said "Sarah Bareilles Brave?"
Nope. That wasn't it. She showed it to me on Youtube and it had all the elements of the other song but the "accent" was different from the one I had heard.
So see if you can understand what I mean. The first link is Brave. It's uplifting. Makes my African American daughter feel hopeful. But understand my daughter been trained to code-switch and mostly speaks in a mainstream vernacular. She speaks more than one language and studies classical music and art. Brave is commercial, but I found nothing ethnic in the undertones even with the black woman dancing. When watching it I "code switched" to mainstream language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4
It is a very precise language with a beat that is careful and measured. The video is multicultural representing all races and body types. Even the singer's dancing is as measured and precise as her singing. It is a lot of fun and the dancers are joyful. But there are no surprises.
Then we watched this one and can't get it out of our heads. Even a day later. Then I showed both to my husband who'd had a tough day at the hospital. He grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood but spent a great deal of his free time with his "clan."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM
The Williams video employs the same concept as the Bareilles video. A beat that is repetitive and measured. Multicultural dancers of various ages, ethnicities and body types. But this time watch the singer who also appears often in different outfits (in the college hallway, in front of a choir). The video is full of surprises which vary with the dancer's pacing even with a consistent beat. There are completely different nuances, changes in beat, and even changes in pace among the dancers. There are also a lot more people featured and it is more inclusive. But more than that - it is filled with cultural nuances in the '"accent" of the song that my daughter immediately recognized as her culture. I recognized it in the car before I searched for it on Youtube. Hearing this song I switched to my cultural roots which is more comfortable for me and more energizing.
Why is this important? An editor once said that if she gave a book to fifteen different editors she'd get fifteen different books back. I often council authors of color to wait for the right person - the one that gets the
"nuances" that others don't get. If someone who loved the Sarah Bareilles pattern of speech and cadence had been asked to edit Pharrell's video, it would have been a different video. In fact, the production company for the latter has made available all of its outtakes - 24 hours of them - of people who are just dancing and singing to this song - many without rhythm and precision and yet you can't help but dance with them.
Part of getting this diversity thing right - is getting all of us - ALL OF US - to be able to see the nuances that will become a "call" to children of color without scaring off a mainstream market that would label the work as "for them" or "niche." There's what we see on the surface in public, but
there are the nuances we need to know about when those people are home and the door is closed. When an author presents those codes it is not always something that can be explained but must just be trusted.
I remember showing a manuscript to an editor (who is - to this day a great friend) The phrase was "you aren't all that!" She said "is something missing?" I said "No. That's the expression - albeit old now." And every time she re-read the passage she'd say "Isn't this missing the last word?" and I'd go, "nope. That's the phrase in its entirety" and we'd laugh about it.
So I liked the first video. But I'll be listening to the second multiple times on my way to work with kids in St. Louis tomorrow. Because THAT song is the one those kids will recognize as inclusive. It's a subtle difference, but when those codes and clues aren't there it is glaringly absent to those kids in a way that it might not be to the rest of us
The key to any good art is not seeing what you see, but learning to see what you didn't see before.
In good health, - and I dare you not to dance when you play the second one …..C
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Subject: Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not
controversial) about editing From: stephanie.greene.books_at_gmail.com Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 15:35:27 -0500 X-Message-Number: 5
Excellent point taken. Those two pieces of music made your point better than any words could have.
Thanks.
Stephanie Greene Children's Book Author
Sent from my iPad
> On Feb 13, 2014, at 3:11 PM, Christine Taylor-Butler
<kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Bear with me on this one, i'm a Big Bang Theory type of nerd. … And
this is only from "my" perspective.
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not
controversial) about editing From: Nancy Tolson <ananse.nancy_at_gmail.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:44:43 -0600 X-Message-Number: 6
Well said!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Brave and Happy Videos From: Sue Macy <sue_at_suemacy.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:09:31 -0500 X-Message-Number: 7
FYI, the ³Brave² video was actually directed by actress Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones (and Peggy Lipton, who is white), so it¹s got at least some African-American influences. And as the official video for a song from a movie soundtrack, I expect the ³Happy² video had a much bigger budget than the ³Brave² video, making all those clothing changes and extra cast members possible.
--Sue Macy
On 2/13/14 3:11 PM, "Christine Taylor-Butler" <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> wrote:
> So I liked the first video. But I'll be listening to the second multiple
times
> on my way to work with kids in St. Louis tomorrow. Because THAT song is
the
> one those kids will recognize as inclusive. It's a subtle difference,
but
> when those codes and clues aren't there it is glaringly absent to those
kids
> in a way that it might not be to the rest of us
>
> The key to any good art is not seeing what you see, but learning to see
what
> you didn't see before.
>
> In good health, - and I dare you not to dance when you play the second
oneŠ..C
>
>
>
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Subject: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns From: Charles Bayless <charles.bayless_at_ttmd.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:42:42 -0500 X-Message-Number: 8
Marge,
An interesting case study that I think might have pertinence to other books out of the mainstream. One comment from a single person doesn’t support a conclusion that ideology is an explanation for poor sales. All we know (or I infer from your post) is that your book was published, well supported by your publisher, critically received and then not purchased at a commensurate level by the reading public. We would like to know why the widely scattered, highly diverse reading public did not elect to purchase the book despite all the positive factors going for it. Ideology seems pretty far from the list Ockham might have constructed. I suspect this sheds light on the challenges publishers face that we may not be fully acknowledging.
This analysis might illustrate the complex issue of reading and identity interwoven with how we struggle to interpret what is going on in the marketplace of books. How do we know what we know and how can others know it. I have not read your book; from the reviews, it sounds great. But I think there is a much closer explanation of low sales at hand than ideology. Ideology is rather an ambiguous explanation. What is the ideology? What is a “people’s ideology”; it seems like there are just a lot of people with a lot of different opinions. There are also a lot of different opinions as to what constitutes “misinformation.”
All we can conclude with the information available is that people weren’t interested in buying the book. Ideology hypothetically might be one reason. But I think the ten Amazon reviews provide most of the explanation (8 five stars and 2 four stars). For a general buyer, here are the red flags I would pick from the Amazon reviews and from the commentary in Picnic Basket. One of the things I suspect happens is that we discount the weight people put on negative commentary even in the context of a positive review. In a bountiful environment of books, people are probably mostly looking for reasons not to select. Consequently negative comments, even if overall positive, can be a death knell.
· “every time I read the synopsis I'd start to feel the dread of one more incredibly depressing story that I was going to have to immerse myself in.”
· “I managed to talk myself out of starting it a number of times.” If that is from an enthusiastic reviewer who was already interested in Central and South American history and popular resistance to tyrants, then imagine how the book must have appeared to anyone without that predicate commitment.
· “her content connects to multiple topics: the history of the Maya, the role of weaving in Mayan Culture, the Guatemalan Civil War, Día de los Muertos in Guatemala, the Sanctuary Movement, and Civil Rights activism.” That’s a pretty targeted set of interests.
· “Overall this is a good book and I would recommend it to any adult and any of the more mature young adults.” The book is pitched for fifth-ninth graders.
· “Though there are many concepts that would be hard for the younger teen to read, I would still recommend it for some.”
· “The glossary at the end of the book allows students to understand the language more easily.”
· “She is one of my avid readers, and though I was intrigued, she said the book was boring to her.”
· “Historical Fiction is NOT my genre of choice, and after reading Journey of Dreams, it still isn't.”
· “I enjoy historical fiction but just couldn't get into Journey of Dreams as much as I had anticipated I would.”
· “I suspect it would be of interest in ESL classes.”
· “I enjoy recommending books to middle school students that take them out of their comfort zone and this book fits will challenge their thinking.”
· “it troubles me to see illegal immigration used as a solution.”
· “However, I had a hard time getting into the book; for me, the beginning was very slow and I felt like the author was trying to be too literary.”
· “The glossary was very helpful and would be necessary for children.”
· “This is a wonderful book for schools with high ESL populations”
· “I have always enjoyed historical fiction, but have struggled getting my students to love it as well.”
· “it is so important we go back in our history and truly understand the waves of immigrants. There is so much hate and it is from a complete lack of understanding and knowledge of history.”
Obviously I have cherry picked. Overall there was a lot of positive commentary and a lot of stars. But if people are skeptical of the genuineness of reviews and if they are seeking reasons to not buy, I think the above quotations are probably a lot more explanatory than ideology. I am not suggesting that parents would normally have taken the ten minutes to check out the Amazon reviews or seek out the comments on Picnic Basket. But if those two sources are representative, then I think that there are a lot of signals indicating that there are other more material issues standing in the way of sales than ideological resistance.
I would speculate the parental concerns might look something like:
1. Think the book is too old for the targeted audience. I would guess this is by far the most material concern.
2. Not interested in Guatemalan history.
3. Not interested in harrowing stories.
4. Not interested in stories with complex moral situations, particularly for a fifth grader.
5. Not interested in discussing genocide.
6. Not interested in dealing with violence and cruelty.
7. Not interested in historical fiction.
8. It’s an immigrant story pitched to immigrants.
9. It’s another caustic commentary about the US and how it treats immigrants.
10. It’s another civil rights story, we already read about that in February.
11. Don’t believe in open borders.
So is the explanation for low sales ideological opposition? Possibly. But I am guessing that items 1-6 are probably the most relevant issues for most parents. This is purely speculative. Identifying the real barrier to sales is critical though. If the issue is ideological opposition, then sales can be increased by better target marketing to those perceived as ideologically sympathetic. If, on the other hand, this is really an adult book that is not getting traction with children, then target marketing by ideology won’t increase sales at all if what parents really object to is maturity of content. If all the above eleven are misperceptions on the part of parents, then the marketing plan has to anticipate how to forestall such conclusions by the reading public.
I am not attempting to slam Journey of Dreams, but I think it exemplifies how detailed information and critical thinking might lead to different answers than we might first leap to. I also think that the issues raised here might be common ones to any books out of the positive mainstream norm. What could Frances Lincoln (or any supportive publisher) have done better to forestall such issues? I ask that as a real question. It would be interesting to construct a marketing plan if those are the real book buying public’s concerns. In fact, for those of you who are connected with a university with a business school, perhaps this might be an interesting case study for a marketing class. Just exactly how would you market this?
Charles
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Subject: Re: A 5-10 minute Diversity Experiment (that is a bit fun and not
controversial) about editing From: Stacy Whitman <stacylwhitman_at_gmail.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:51:09 -0500 X-Message-Number: 9
That's a great way to illustrate the difference, Christine. (Not to mention I think the 2nd song is just better because it's less preachy/feels less condescending.)
As a white woman who grew up on a farm in western Illinois, I often worry about my ear for those tiny details you are talking about. I'm in a constant learning process. This is one of the reasons I use other readers to give me a second opinion--sometimes before acquisition, and sometimes after. Christine herself has been a reader for me, as has Uma<http://umakrishnaswami.blogspot.com/2011/07/interview-wednesday-stacy-wh itman-of-tu.html>, on this very listserv, because I trust them to be honest with me and give me good feedback from a perspective that sees details I might not.
Of course, cultural experts aren't representative of their entire culture, but having one more voice who can say anything from, "This word isn't working here for me," to "You might want to rethink this book, for reasons XYZ," not only teaches me so I can watch out for whatever they point out the next time, but also helps me to make sure the books I do put out are the best they can be. (And anything that slips past is totally my fault, not theirs for not catching it, of course.)
This is also why it's so important for publishing houses to employ a diverse set of editors, but it can box in an editor at a big house who is the only person of color if everyone in the house funnels all the POC titles to her (because of course she'd want to read them because she's also a POC!). Or to have her be the token reader of all POC titles for other editors--which means she's reading not only her own titles, but everyone else's. (It's an argument in favor of having out-of-house consultants, I suppose, on top of greater diversity in staff than just one POC.) So it's just as important for editors like me to tune their "ear" to hear the nuances (and to make connections with experts who can assist them when they have blind spots) as it is for POC editors to be employed at publishing houses in greater number, in my opinion, so that we (white editors) are not constantly calling in our POC friends in the house to make sure whatever we're about to publish isn't racist.
Stacy Whitman Publisher Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, Inc. http://www.leeandlow.com/p/tu.mhtml
Cover reveal! See our latest release's covers at http://blog.leeandlow.com/2014/02/13/cover-design-101-drift/
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Subject: Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns From: Lyn Miller-Lachmann <lynml_at_me.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:13:02 -0500 X-Message-Number: 10
I'm going to dive into this pool because I'm a huge fan of Journey of Dreams. The author took great care to make it appropriate for readers in grades five through nine--there are harrowing aspects but not too harrowing, and one gets the feeling that characters one has grown to love will be safe. I really liked that, even though I didn't offer the same sense of safety in Gringolandia. (Gringolandia, granted, was written for mature teens and is now being marketed as well to college and adult readers.)
I think a lot of the issue with Journey of Dreams had to do with a U.K. publisher that didn't know the U.S. market well enough. I believe that small presses are often the best places to find books that are out of the mainstream culturally, ideologically, or for a host of other reasons. The reviewers who gave starred reviews to Journey of Dreams (and Gringolandia, another small press book), and the awards committees that recognized both these historical novels set in Latin America deserve much praise. We need to realize that small presses are not last-resort publishers for inferior books that authors don't want to self-publish (and I have actually heard small presses called "the minor leagues" at conferences) but courageous and innovative producers of books that fill underserved niches. Charles's point that marketing can be targeted to readers who are ideologically sympathetic is well taken. Yes, it's preaching to the choir, but the choir isn't getting much preaching these days and we're grumpy. It's why a lot of folks have stopped reading books and started reading blogs. Arianna Huffington is smiling all the way to the bank.
There's a lot that small presses can do to make their efforts more successful, from cover design to format (Frances Lincoln always had more success bringing out titles in original paperback, but in the U.S. that makes the books less attractive for reviews and awards) to finding the right places to sell the books. I've copied Charles's suggestion below as my way of seconding it.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013) www.lynmillerlachmann.com www.thepiratetree.com
On Feb 13, 2014, at 4:42 PM, Charles Bayless wrote:
> In fact, for those of you who are connected with a university with a
business school, perhaps this might be an interesting case study for a marketing class.
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:55:22 -0500 X-Message-Number: 11
The following did not go through the first time because I forgot to delete the to/fro and there were too many lines, hope this goes through now….
On Feb 13, 2014, at 5:49 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> I have done a fair amount of research and am happy to say I would safely
bet against ideology being the reason Journey of Dreams has had disappointing sales. Instead, it was caught in a shift in ownership, as well as a shift in distribution..a potential nightmare for every writer…..and for the publisher, too...
>
> The extraordinary Frances Lincoln, whom I knew, died in her 50s in 2011.
Her husband, managed the company until 2011 when it was bought by the Quarto Group, where it became part of Aurum Publishing Down the road, distribution was changed to Quayside Publishing. Moving stock to different warehouses, putting different discount plans, policies, into place for buyers, transferring information from one computer system to another, changing sales forces, etc…all of the nuts and bolts of the backbone of sales and distribution changed dramatically for Frances Lincoln not only when it was sold but when the distribution changed. Having worked for a publisher that only changed warehouses, in my bones, orders for Journey of Dreams and others books could not be fulfilled in a timely fashion, some were no doubt canceled. There is also a period in which books cannot be shipped because there must be an accurate counting of the inventory. No matter how well planned, etc… knowing what I do, if I were a writer and knew this was coming down the pike, I would be uneasy, if not worried/gloomy.
>
> Not good news by any means but I hope it is useful….Norma Jean
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Subject: Diversity From: Kerry Madden <kiffnkerry_at_sbcglobal.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:57:15 -0800 (PST) X-Message-Number: 12
Thank you very much for this great discussion on diversity. I know I'm chiming in a little bit late, but I have shared Elizabeth Bluemle's essay,
"The Elephant in the Room" over the years with my creative writing students at UAB (University of Alabama Birmingham). I also appreciate Christine Taylor-Butler's comment, "Part of getting this diversity thing right - is getting all of us - ALL OF US - to be able to see the nuances that will become a "call" to children of color without scaring off a mainstream market that would label the work as "for them" or 'niche.'" It's been great reading everybody's comments all month long.
I'm not a mainstream author, but this is just a note about connections and one thing leading to another over the course of a century. When I wrote the biography, UP CLOSE HARPER LEE (VIKING 2009) I was lucky enough during the interview process to get to meet the storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham
(1917-2011) who was a friend of Harper Lee's. Something about her magical storytelling voice got to me, and she also lived right in the heart of Selma, Alabama. She was white, and her best friend, Charlie Lucas, a black folk artist, was her nextdoor neighbor. When I interviewed her in 2007, it was to talk about Harper Lee, but Kathryn was so fascinating herself that I wrote about her in a essay that didn't fit into the biography. (I went back several times to talk with her some more and on one of the trips to Selma I met Charlie Lucas and began to interview him.) I learned that Kathryn wrote a story called ERNEST'S GIFT, about a young African American boy, Ernest, who wasn't allowed in the Selma Public Library in 1932 because of segregation. (She wrote plenty of other books and appeared every year at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough.)
Anyway, I couldn't get Charlie and Kathryn out of my head, so I also wrote a storybook, NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE, which is the story of how a white storyteller and a black folk artist grew to be best friends in Selma, Alabama and fought diversity their own way by holding an annual hair comb concert on the lawn of the Selma Dallas County Public library. The book was published by Mockingbird Publishing in 2013, and a portion of the royalties goes to the Selma Public Library, Kathryn's favorite place in Selma. My daughter, Lucy, illustrated it, and together we visited rural Alabama libraries last summer to get kids to write and tell their stories and to make art, the ways Charlie and Kathryn did together as best friends.
Here are further links. Thanks so much for this wonderful listserve.
All best Kerry
Ernest's Gift http://www.amazon.com/Ernests-Gift-Kathryn-Tucker-Windham/dp/1588381498 The Elephant in the Room http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=700 Charlie Lucas, TIN MAN http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-3388 Kathryn Tucker Windham http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137155004/alabama-storyteller-kathryn-tucker-w indham-dies
NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE
http://www.mockingbirdpublishing.com/cause-publishing/ http://www.al.com/bhammag/index.ssf/thread/a_tale_of_two_friends.html http://www.uab.edu/cas/magazine/the-storyteller-and-the-artist http://uabnews.blogspot.com/2013/07/professor-spent-summer-sharing-lessons.h tml http://nothingfancyaboutabooktour.wordpress.com/ (Blog with pictures) http://www.writersforum.org/news_and_reviews/review_archives.html/article/20 13/07/31/nothing-fancy-about-kathryn-charlie
www.kerrymadden.com Editor of poemmemoirstory http://pms-journal.org/ Associate Professor of Creative Writing at UAB Birmingham, AL
"Be like a bird, who, halting in her flight on a limb too slight, feels it give way beneath her, yet sings knowing she has wings." Victor Hugo
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Subject: Multicultural publishing From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:58:38 -0500 X-Message-Number: 13
The following did not go through the first time because I forgot to delete the to/fro and there were too many lines, hope this goes through now….
On Feb 13, 2014, at 5:49 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
> I have done a fair amount of research and am happy to say I would safely
bet against ideology being the reason Journey of Dreams has had disappointing sales. Instead, it was caught in a shift in ownership, as well as a shift in distribution..a potential nightmare for every writer…..and for the publisher, too...
>
> The extraordinary Frances Lincoln, whom I knew, died in her 50s in 2011.
Her husband, managed the company until 2011 when it was bought by the Quarto Group, where it became part of Aurum Publishing Down the road, distribution was changed to Quayside Publishing. Moving stock to different warehouses, putting different discount plans, policies, into place for buyers, transferring information from one computer system to another, changing sales forces, etc…all of the nuts and bolts of the backbone of sales and distribution changed dramatically for Frances Lincoln not only when it was sold but when the distribution changed. Having worked for a publisher that only changed warehouses, in my bones, orders for Journey of Dreams and others books could not be fulfilled in a timely fashion, some were no doubt canceled. There is also a period in which books cannot be shipped because there must be an accurate counting of the inventory. No matter how well planned, etc… knowing what I do, if I were a writer and knew this was coming down the pike, I would be uneasy, if not worried/gloomy.
>
> Not good news by any means but I hope it is useful….Norma Jean
>
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Subject: Multicultural publihisng From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:10:39 -0500 X-Message-Number: 14
A mistake…Frances Lincoln died in 2001…Norma Jean
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Lyn Miller-Lachmann <lynml_at_me.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:13:33 -0500 X-Message-Number: 15
Thank you for your research and insight, Norma Jean. I'm sorry to hear about the untimely death of Frances Lincoln, as I always valued her publishing house, back from my days of editing MultiCultural Review. And I can attest to the problems resulting from the ownership/distribution change because that happened to Gringolandia's publisher as well, after the sudden death of Curbstone's founder/editorial director Alexander Taylor. While Gringolandia was out of stock for a crucial four months in summer 2010 and a translation deal appeared to have fallen between the cracks, I am happy to report that Northwestern University Press, acted decisively to get things moving again. Since becoming the novel's publisher, they have reprinted it at least twice and sold Italian translation rights. I am quite happy with the support Gringolandia has received, and when I see the folks from Northwestern at AWP at the end of the month, I'm going to try to sell them on publishing more historical/multicultural titles for crossover readers through the Curbstone Books imprint.
What does concern me, though, is that this kind of extreme bad luck ends up killing both worthwhile books and the careers of the authors who wrote them. There has to be a way of getting around that.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013) www.lynmillerlachmann.com www.thepiratetree.com
On Feb 13, 2014, at 5:55 PM, Norma Jean Sawicki wrote:
>> I have done a fair amount of research and am happy to say I would
safely bet against ideology being the reason Journey of Dreams has had disappointing sales. Instead, it was caught in a shift in ownership, as well as a shift in distribution..a potential nightmare for every writer…..and for the publisher, too...
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Subject: Re: Marketing, Ideology and Parental Concerns From: maggie_bo_at_comcast.net Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:44:45 +0000 (UTC) X-Message-Number: 16
Charles has some interesting points that I think can be taken into consideration when thinking about marketing any book on a serious, disturbing topic for kids, but I disagree when he writes "That's a pretty targeted set of interests." Really, any given book, if you break it down, focuses on a very small set of "interests." People--adults and kids--may choose to read a historical fiction title (or really, any fiction title) to learn more about a given set of "interests," or because they share those "interests," but I'd say usually not ... usually, they're just interested in a good read. I believe someone who's never thought twice about Guatemala could see Marge's book and be attracted to it. I don't think it's unusual for people to select books on topics they've never heard of before, or know little about ... so I don't think that really explains the problem. Just my take.
When one is selling children's books, part of the issue is, you're selling them to two different audiences: the people who buy them (parents, librarians, teachers) and then an entirely other audience--the kids themselves. It's very tricky to package and market a book so it appeals to both, but if it doesn't appeal, the book won't flourish. If it succeeds with adults but not kids--it might sell initially, but will flounder and quickly go out of print. If it is a potential winner with kids, it'll never have a chance if the adults never buy and promote it in the first place. Worst of all, sometimes what kids want and what adults want are diametrically opposed. What many adults want to hear are some or all of these things... it's related to the curriculum, it supports the common core, there's no violence, it reinforces good values, and there is nothing in it that will upset the child or confuse them or send them out of their (read: the adult's) comfort zone. What many kids want to hear are some or all of these things: it's exciting, it will keep me even more entertained than my video games, there's at least some
funny parts, it's got a lot of action (and maybe some serious gore), the hero/heroine is someone I can relate to and is therefore not perfect and might even be someone who screws up a lot, and I'll get to learn some stuff I w ould never find out about at school.
I am just guessing this balancing act gets super tricky when dealing with the kinds of books we've been discussing this month.
I'm a school librarian, so I'm mostly in the business of selling books to kids... I don't have much expertise in any other area. (I do "sell" books to teachers and administrators too, but, lucky for me, in my district that's been easy.) Just if anyone is curious, here's some of the ways I promote our diverse historical fiction stories ...
1. Many kids love survival/adventure books, or sports books, or romances, or mysteries. Many historical fiction titles also fit into one of these categories. I'll sell the book, as, say, an adventure story, and then add, oh yeah, the story is set during x time and place. 2. I'll tell them parts of the book are BASED ON A TRUE STORY! Kids love stuff BASED ON A TRUE STORY (in fact, they're often disappointed other things they read are not in any way real). Wow, some of this stuff REALLY HAPPENED and some of these people are REAL! 3. I'll mention the protagonist's personality/issues. John can't stand his new stepfather ... Maria is always fighting with her sister .... even in the middle of a revolution, anywhere, in any culture, this stuff is usually going on, and the kids can relate.
And finally, this is just a comment ... but I'm so tired of adults ... educators and parents ... thinking kids cannot handle "mature" content such as genocide. How do we get past this? It's especially frustrating because so many parents seem so much more concerned about censoring their kids' reading than their movies, TV, video games, and internet, which IMO is much worse than anything in books that are typically questioned. Preaching to the choir here, I know. I just don't understand what seems to me to be a double standard between print and every other media type.
Maggie Bokelman Librarian Eagle View Middle School
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Subject: Re: Multicultural publishing From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki_at_nyc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 20:10:17 -0500 X-Message-Number: 17
What can be done depends on whether or not the company deemed the move(s) a problem, and if it was company wide. In that case, a publisher often takes a variety of different steps to play catch up.
The great unknown here is the answer to a question that is none of our business…Journey of Dreams did not sell well. What does that mean in terms of actual sales? Reviews in certain publications…School Library Journal, for instance, have sales value in the institutional market that cannot be pinpointed accurately but can be ball parked. A starred review, for instance, is cause for great celebration…Depending on the editor and his/her relationship with a writer, writers are sometimes educated in terms of expectations… or, by the writer's agent.
There was a time in publishing when a colleague from another house could say, x book did not sell well, or x book sold well…and one would know approximately what that meant in terms of actual sales. It was true when the institutional market dominated sales for hardcover children's books which is no longer true today…today there is a strong retail market, a gift market, etc…Also, not all publishers have the same expectations…in one house, a book that sells 5,000 copies in one year may be regarded as failure…at another house, one would not jump for joy but it would be regarded as ok. Writers, too, have expectations..some are realistic, some are not…
Not the answer you may have hoped for but the best I can do with the information on hand…Norma Jean
On Feb 13, 2014, at 6:13 PM, Lyn Miller-Lachmann wrote:
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Subject: Fwd: Multicultural literature, minus some? From: Elsa Marston <elsa.marston_at_gmail.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:24:39 -0500 X-Message-Number: 18
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Elsa Marston <elsa.marston_at_gmail.com> Date: Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 7:09 PM Subject: Multicultural literature, minus some? To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Like so many others, I've been following this discussion with great interest. it is rich, thoughtful, and provocative indeed, and I've certainly gained from it. But although I'm glad, if only for the sake of convenience, that we seem more or less agreed on the term "multicultural," I wonder whether "all cultures are equally important, but some are more equally important than others."
In these twelve days of informed and passionate commentary, I have yet to see the words "Arab," "Arab-American," "Muslim," or even "Middle Eastern"
(except once, as an example of a silly error.) Of course we all write about what's important to us. But what threw me from the start was CCBC's statistical breakdown of books by cultural grouping, in Merri Lindgren's message of February 5. The four groupings, which have come up in other postings, are African/African-American, Native American, Latino/Latina, and Asian/Pacific and Asian/Pacific-American (which I assume includes everything from Iran to Kamchatka!)
But not a word about the Middle East/North Africa. So here's the first pitch for the Arab world. (Of course there are other, non-Arab countries and societies in the Middle East, but I'm dealing here with what I know best.)
Consider, please, these ironies. What is commonly designated as the Arab world stretches from Mauritania on the northwest corner of Africa to Iraq, from Syria to the Sudan. It's the cradle of ancient civilization, not to mention Western civilization. For decades the United States has been heavily embroiled in the countries of the Arab world. Wouldn't it be a good idea to promote knowledge and understanding of these societies, rather than ignorance?
And what about Arab-Americans? Is there such an ethnic community? It strikes me that one reason why even people who argue for cultural diversity seem to overlook the existence of Arab ethnic groups in this country is because the Arab immigrants have long been "new Americans" par excellence. Starting with Lebanese in the 1880s, they came to this country full of ambition, worked hard, caused no trouble, achieved outstandingly in just about every occupation and profession you can think of, In short, they have blended in so well that I bet most Americans have no idea how their lives are affected by Arabs active in, for instance, entertainment, manufacturing, finance, teaching, medicine, the food industry
(restaurants), scientific research, government, and on and on. Yet they also have kept, or revived, their Arab cultural identity--and in many cases they have paid for it dearly, especially since 9/11.
James Zogby, one of the most astute and measured spokespersons for Arab-Americans, recently wrote in a column about the movie "American Hustle" as follows:
"I will never forget my children coming home the Halloween after ABSCAM tellng me that they didn't want anyone at their suburban Washington school to know that they were of Arab descent. . . . because at that year's annual Halloween costume parade a number of their classmates had dressed up as "Arabs" complete with big noses, guns, knives, oil cans, and bags of money."
If children of any other ethnic group had experienced something like that, would it be tolerated--in supposedly polite society? That incident, of course, happened in Pre-Multicultural polite society; but slurs and open expression of racist prejudice have not disappeared.
At least the situation is getting better where children's literature is concerned. Before the 1990s, there were hardly any books for young people that presented Arab peoples in an accurate, fair, and positive light. Today the list of recommendable books (I focus especially on fiction about life today) is respectable--roughly 50 published since the 90s, compared with less than ten in the previous three decades. I like to credit a few courageous writers and publishers who recognized that the time had come, thereby opening the door to others. Few authors are Arabs or Arab-Americans, but that situation is slowly changing.
[And here I'll repeat my offer to send any interested person my up-dated list of recommended books--picture books and novels--about the contemporary Arab world, much more than the "roughly 50" mentioned above.. Just email me: elsa.marston_at_gmail.com.]
Thank you for taking note of my argument that if we're going to talk about
"multicultural," the discourse must include more than just the Big Four. Americans must know and care more about the Arab world--and its reflection on this continent.
Elsa Marston www.elsamarston.com
THE COMPASSIONATE WARRIOR; ABD EL-KADER OF ALGERIA (Wisdom Tales 2013) SANTA CLAUS IN BAGHDAD AND OTHER STORIES ABOUT TEENS IN THE ARAB WORLD (Indiana University Press 2008)
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Subject: Re: Brave and Happy Videos From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:41:07 -0500 (EST) X-Message-Number: 19
Sue,
That's an awesome bit of news. I have a lot of respect for Rashida Jones (and her parents). Part of the beauty of code switching is that we can also hide the accent when we want to (sometimes intentional, sometimes not). So it is possible to be African American and direct something and not include those nuances. It's a Sarah Bareille's vehicle and to include them wouldn't really reflect the artist's personal style.
But your post also serves as a beautiful example of why people of color should be allowed and encouraged to write beyond the narrow boundaries of their own race. Said one author at a recent discussion among publishing professionals "We're more qualified to do both because we're forced to straddle two worlds and be fluent in both
"cultural languages."
Hence, Bareille's video can be directed by a talented African American, be free of the norms and cues, and still be beautiful and commercially successful. Rashida is "bilingual. :-).
Cheers,....Christine
-----Original Message----- From: Sue Macy Sent: Feb 13, 2014 3:09 PM To: Christine Taylor-Butler , "ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu ccbc-net" Subject: Brave and Happy Videos
Brave and Happy Videos
FYI, the “Brave†video was actually directed by actress Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones (and Peggy Lipton, who is white), so it’s got at least some African-American influences. And as the official video for a song from a movie soundtrack, I expect the “Happy†video had a much bigger budget than the “Brave†video, making all those clothing changes and extra cast members possible.
--Sue Macy
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