- Joined
- May 14, 2005
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- A Small Town in Germany
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- www.sharonmaas.co.uk
An interesting discussion on Tess Gerritson's blog...
Author Millenia Black (pen name) wrote a book called THE GREAT PRETENDER. The characters in the book were not African American. The book first appeared as a self-published novel, with a cover depicting two wedding rings in flames, and it sold well enough to attract the attention of a mainstream publisher (Penguin) as well as foreign publishers. Translation rights were sold to Turkey and Poland. Penguin soon learned that the author was African American and decided to market THE GREAT PRETENDER as an African-American novel, with a cover design depicting two non-white women. This was done against the author’s wishes.
Now the author has sued. She feels that being categorized as an African-American author has limited her sales and has banished her books to the “African American literature” section, rather than the general fiction area, of bookstores, .