Ruining book sales because MC isnt white???

Stacia Kane said:

Ha, I used it a few years ago for my BRAVE TALE OF MADDIE CARVER free short; I had no idea at the time that everyone would be using it later.

Click to expand...

Wait. Huh? Aren't you, you know, a psychic? (g,d,r)

Totally agree. Alex Cross is doing quite well, and in other areas of media, African Americans are WELL represented. I have little experience with teen vamp fic, so I don't know if Ms. Cliflin's "style" is the norm. But I'd say it was the overall effort, not the race of the MC, that doomed it.

Williebee said:

The writer insecurity/ego imp will energetically jump up and point a finger at anything or everything to steer the focus away from the writing. It's a wee vicious beastie.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

DennisB said:

Totally agree. Alex Cross is doing quite well, and in other areas of media, African Americans are WELL represented. I have little experience with teen vamp fic, so I don't know if Ms. Cliflin's "style" is the norm. But I'd say it was the overall effort, not the race of the MC, that doomed it.

Click to expand...

That's not exactly true. But I don't think the race of her character has anything to do with her sales. The cover and the blurb leave more to desire, IMO.

If race was never an issue, non-white people wouldn't be under-represented in fiction and prone to being cast in stereotypical roles when they do appear. They wouldn't get whitewashed on covers.

This book may well have other issues, but that shouldn't be used to say that race is never an issue and there's always something else wrong with the books. Arguing single cases doesn't make the overall statistics go away. (Which the author's post does say, as she's linked to some other resources.)

Well, I have to agree, the cover is poorly designed; looks like stock photos stuck together. (And while the female model is very attractive, the guy looks kind of creepy. Actually, he looks creepier than the figure in the hood looming over the graveyard.)

It's the blurb that would really turn me away as a potential buyer, though. Clumsy, inconsistent in tense, and amateurish.

I don't know why this book hasn't sold as well as her others, but it seems very doubtful it's for the reason she claims.

Polenth said:

This book may well have other issues, but that shouldn't be used to say that race is never an issue and there's always something else wrong with the books.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone here would say that. And whitewashing definitely happens, in both publishing and other media. (Here's Ursula LeGuin's article about what happened when the SciFi Channel adapted her Earthsea books.)

Speaking of changing colors, there's a country-western song with these lyrics about divorce court:

The judge don't even seem to care
I'm still in love with you;
He changed your name from Brown to Jones,
And mine from Brown to Blue.

... didn't notice anything out of sorts with the cover or blurb.
Am not very perceptive so that's probably just me.
Featuring an interracial couple its rather endearing.
Not the sort of book I'd buy, myself, but I'd probably give it a pat
when I passed by it. Of course I am entirely missing something,
as I will discover when I go on now to read the follow up comments.

Manuel Royal said:

I don't think anyone here would say that.

Click to expand...

There are already comments in the thread saying African Americans are well represented in fiction, pointing to books with non-white characters that have sold (which comes with the implication of being proof it isn't an issue) and talking about pulling 'race cards' as an excuse.

These comments aren't about this book in particularly being unprofessional. They're comments aimed at saying the wider issue isn't an issue.

Polenth said:

There are already comments in the thread saying African Americans are well represented in fiction, pointing to books with non-white characters that have sold (which comes with the implication of being proof it isn't an issue) and talking about pulling 'race cards' as an excuse.

These comments aren't about this book in particularly being unprofessional. They're comments aimed at saying the wider issue isn't an issue.

Click to expand...

That's not what I read.

A lot of people (including me) are skeptical that racism had anything to do with this particular book's lack of success. I have not seen anyone say "race is never an issue and there's always something else wrong with the book."

While I agree that this particular book has several other issues that could contribute to its poor sales, it's disingenuous to claim that the whitewashing of literature in general is not an issue, or that because Patterson's books with a black MC are successful, diversity in fiction has arrived and gone mainstream. This simply isn't so. A couple years ago my then agent told me that "publishing is extremely xenophobic"; I didn't believe her, tried to prove her wrong, and failed miserably, the reason always given that "sorry, writing good but readers won't buy this", "this" being unusual non-Western settings and non-white characters. We discus this regularly in the PoC forum; here's one recent thread.

ANd it's so good to discuss it without being told you're pulling the race card, which is why that forum exists.

Polenth said:

If race was never an issue, non-white people wouldn't be under-represented in fiction and prone to being cast in stereotypical roles when they do appear. They wouldn't get whitewashed on covers.

Click to expand...

Absolutely true. As is the following:

Kevin Nelson said:

As far as I can tell, it's common for books with non-white main characters to wind up with covers that feature abstract designs, or people viewed only in silhouette, or models who just look a lot more white than should make sense. That suggests publishers believe putting a non-white person on the cover will hurt sales. I hope they're wrong about that. But I'm afraid it's more likely that they know their business.

Click to expand...

Another thing to consider is that while there are popular books with non-white MCs, not all of them include POC models (or illustrations of POC people) on the covers.

For example, until shamefully recently, I was under the impression that Patterson's character Alex Cross was a white woman, and the covers of the Alex Cross novels I've seen haven't done anything to dispute that. I obviously have not read the books. Even if I'd read the blurbs, I probably would have picked up on the fact that Cross is a guy sooner. But just based on the covers I casually saw, I was able to keep up my erroneous impression for a while.

I think there may very well be readers who would be fine with reading a book about a POC character, but might subconsciously avoid books that have them on the cover. It seems like a lot of books with POC models on the cover are marketed as urban fiction, or as books that deal heavily with race, and I think that can lead readers to form unconscious impressions about what a book will be about.

So I think it can happen. But this book isn't the best example to look at considering the technical issues and the fact that there's a creepy-looking white guy on the cover, as well. It's always possible that race could be a factor, but there are so many other variables.

Okay, so from what I can see, there are two issues here: 1) racism in the publishing industry, and 2) that the author blames said racism for her bad sales of one book. I think if she wanted to address issue #1, she should have used a different book as an example -- heck, she could have used the Save the Pearls book and talked about how racism in YA isn't always that obvious. To use Chasing Mercy as an example sounds a little bit like complaining.

(Only a little off topic: does POC mean all racial minorities, or just the dark-skinned ones? I've seen it used different ways, and it's really confusing.)

As far as I know POC is supposed to mean 'everyone who isn't white (the race not the color.)' It's not a term that I actually like (It basically feels like a politically correct way of saying 'colored folk' to me) and I'd go so far as to say that most people outside of the internet would have no clue what it means and look at you funny. But... Yeah.

For me, it's kinda like the Wendig blog post - if someone wants to talk about "the issue" (whatever it may be), talk about the issue. Don't use the issue to explain/excuse/whine about the reception your book got and then try to deny that's what you're doing.

lolchemist said:

And his face is slightly too big in comparison to hers. Like in real life if she was 5'4, he would have to be about 6'4-6'7 to make up for the difference in face size... (Or the person who made the cover just didn't shrink his photo enough.)

Click to expand...

While I agree that the cover wasn't great, the face sizes didn't look odd to me. Of course, that might be because I'm 5'2", and my husband is 6'5".

Polenth said:

If race was never an issue, non-white people wouldn't be under-represented in fiction and prone to being cast in stereotypical roles when they do appear. They wouldn't get whitewashed on covers.

This book may well have other issues, but that shouldn't be used to say that race is never an issue and there's always something else wrong with the books. Arguing single cases doesn't make the overall statistics go away. (Which the author's post does say, as she's linked to some other resources.)

Click to expand...

I think the main reason non-whites are under-represented is because such a huge percentage of genre writers are white. It's more or less natural, or at least easier, to write protagonists of your own race.

But we certainly have a pretty fair number of black writers out there, and many of them are doing very, very well, and are considerably more famous than most writers can hope to get.

The number one reason anyone reads your book is that they've read and enjoyed something else you've written.

If they've read but haven't enjoyed something else you've written, work it out for yourself.

lolchemist said:

As far as I know POC is supposed to mean 'everyone who isn't white (the race not the color.)' It's not a term that I actually like (It basically feels like a politically correct way of saying 'colored folk' to me) and I'd go so far as to say that most people outside of the internet would have no clue what it means and look at you funny. But... Yeah.

Click to expand...

The etymology is different. I'm sorry I don't have citations at my fingertips but I do recall some Tumblr exchanges that got very heated on this point (I'm not even saying the heat wasn't appropriate, as it stemmed from an original post very dismissive of the term...by, IIRC, a white blogger).

I do know "man/woman of color" has been used for over two centuries, though originally to apply to someone of mixed race.

(Also, in the original cover the woman is probably the only thing that could convince me to check out the book closer. Here's hoping to see a better cover using that model sometime)

MumblingSage said:

The etymology is different.

Click to expand...

I said "feels like" for that reason.

Hmmmm. I have little to say that hasn't already been said, but I personally don't think people are as put off by non-white MCs as some writers would have us believe. And, correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that PoC read too? So..... yeah.

shaldna said:

Hmmmm. I have little to say that hasn't already been said, but I personally don't think people are as put off by non-white MCs as some writers would have us believe. And, correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that PoC read too? So..... yeah.

Click to expand...

Tell that to publishers.
Of course we read, and of course we want books that reflect our lives. It's publishers' perception that is the problem, not writers'. Have a look around and see how much diversity is in books now being published, and especially, where they are shelved and how they are marketed (iincluding cover images).

DancingMaenid said:

For example, until shamefully recently, I was under the impression that Patterson's character Alex Cross was a white woman, and the covers of the Alex Cross novels I've seen haven't done anything to dispute that.

Click to expand...

I got more than halfway through my first 'Alex Cross' novel before realizing he was black. It didn't make me throw the book away or keep me from reading any other Patterson books, but it did require a massive mental image overhaul that was not easily accomplished.

The axiom that the author mentioned in post #1 wants us to believe is that the presence of a non-white character on a book cover ruins sales.

Even one example disproves the axiom.

Whether non-white persons are fairly represented on book covers is another discussion.

Sorry. Those covers are so ludicrously bad I couldn't even begin to read either the blog or blurbs.