Disabled Submissions

52greg · Sep 15, 2015

I see there are some agents who actively encourage submissions from the disabled, and from members of various other special interest groups. Is there a list of such agents?

Also, is there a point to such a practice? Do editors and publishers factor such attributes of authors into their decisions in a positive way? What if the book in question has nothing at all to do with the author's particular designation?

mayqueen · Sep 15, 2015

I believe that either #WeNeedDiverseBooks or #WeNeedDiverseAgents or Diversity in Kid Lit might be tracking which agents. Either way, the hashtag itself would be valuable for researching agents.

I believe that the point is to increase diversity and make the issue of diversity more visible in publishing. From everything I've heard, diversity isn't actually a positive selling point, since diverse books tend to be viewed as niche or "issue" books. I'm not sure how much the author herself being a member of a marginalized group would factor into it if the book contains none of those perspectives, although I do think there's more of a push from some of these groups to try to support marginalized authors through publicity and mentorship.

52greg · Sep 15, 2015

Thanks.

Disabled Submissions

52greg

mayqueen

practical experience, FTW

52greg