The Romance Genre's Diversity Problem

LJD said:

The 2018 version is here. Same story...

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Yep we've been talking about it in the POC writing groups on Facebook. What's sad is now, no one's expecting it to change because we feel like it never will.

And did they really ask how you determine if someone is a person of color?

I looked at the report again and none of these results are encouraging but Random House, Carina (and Harlequin), and St. Martin's Press should be ashamed of themselves! What can we expect from HQN though when they go and ax their only black imprint? That shows how much they care about diversity and Carina has always been nonexistent when it came to POC books and authors. I can't even remember a POC at Carina ever! Pitiful. As I said, none of these results are great at all. I also wonder if these with higher percentages are telling the truth. I know Kensington has a black imprint and they seem to take a lot of black authors. Entangled has some POCs, some I know personally but can't help wondering if folks are fudging the numbers.

It's just a sad situation all around.

The first Alyssa Cole book I read in 2015 was published by Carina Press. They originally published her Off the Grid series. And while they may not have as many AOC as other houses, they certainly have published other marginalized groups.

CEtchison said:

The first Alyssa Cole book I read in 2015 was published by Carina Press. They originally published her Off the Grid series. And while they may not have as many AOC as other houses, they certainly have published other marginalized groups.

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That's fine and all but looking at their latest stats their lack of diversity (not just Carina's but all those low on the chart) concerning AOC authors is pathetic. I didn't make the chart, just saying what is on it. As well as other marginalized groups, if you mean LGBT or disabled authors, that's good too but publishing some marginalized groups doesn't change the fact that they have a big lack of diversity when it comes to AOC authors. Anyway, this chart focuses on diversity concerning race, not anything else so that's what I was pointing out.

It's not about has one of these pubs EVER published a book by a black or POC author, it's how often and how they represent these books when they do. I am sure every publishing company has published AOC authors but it doesn't mean representation couldn't be better at specific houses. I think we all agree this is a huge problem and it always has been. Publishing an AOC author here or a gay author there doesn't mean there isn't still a problem.

We can't control this issue unfortunately. It's up to the bigwigs and obviously this lack of diversity doesn't matter to them or they would've changed it decades ago. Let's be real, money talks and for them they don't see the money in promoting diverse authors. Sure is funny that white authors can get published with books full of POC characters yet let those same books be written by a POC author and see what happens. That's the issue here. They don't feel like POC authors are marketable. They've made their mind up and won't change it unless the money suddenly becomes worth it for them to. It's all about money but they are wrong because POC authors are marketable if you take the time to market our books to audiences who want to read them.

Anyway, all we can do is keep writing and getting our work out to the different audiences who will support us. That's what I do.