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An Interesting Conundrum For Black Authors
By JLP | December 6, 2006
One of the front page articles in today’s Wall Street Journal is about a tough decision that many African American authors face. The article ($) opens:
Brandon Massey’s readers tell him they know just where to find his horror novels — in the African-American section of bookstores. He’s torn about whether or not this is a good thing.
“You face a double-edged sword,” says Mr. Massey, 33 years old. “I’m black and I’m published by a black imprint, so I’m automatically slotted in African-American fiction.” That helps black readers to find his books easily and has underpinned his career. At the same time, he says, the placement “limits my sales.”
Should fiction written by black authors be shelved in African-American departments, a move that often helps nurture writers? Or should it be presented alongside other categories, such as general literature, allowing books written by black authors to take their place in publishing’s mainstream?
Here are my thoughts:
As a White person, I have to say that I don’t venture over to the African American section (or Chinese, Hispanic, or Japanese sections for that matter) of the bookstore unless I’m looking for information on that specific culture. Sadly, that means I probably miss out on some great books. Here’s an idea: Why not use the cultural section of bookstores for cultural books and stock the other books in their appropriate sections without regard to race? This would be similar to how the music section is organized. When I go to the jazz section of my local Barnes & Noble, they don’t have Black artists separated from White artists. They are all together because they are Jazz artists.
One other suggestion is to stock the books in both sections. I can see bookstores balking on this suggestion because it means twice the shelf space.
What are your thoughts?
Topics: Books | 11 Comments »
December 6th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Hmm…
From the writer’s perspective, I can see how it limits their exposure. The books should be intermingled with others. Many book stores (Barnes and Nobles and Books A Million I know) have already removed their AA section and placed the fiction books in the fiction section, non-fiction, etc.
However, as an avid reader, when I’m in the mood for fiction, I read predominantly AA fiction. Therefore, I like going straight to the AA section to find what I’m looking for. If I don’t already have a title or author in mind but I just want to read SOMETHING, an AA section is easier, faster, and makes browsing more fun.
I think book stores should do what the library does. Put the books in their respective categories and place a small label on the binding edge that identifies it as AA, Hispanic, horror, sci-fi, etc.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
I think they should all be mixed together. Bookstores can do a lot of extra things to make it easier to identify the culture of the author (or the book). Displays are often used, and identifying the books on the binding as Single Ma has said would also work.
As for having the same book in two sections, it doesn’t really affect the bookstore at all. They can have 2 in each section and that wouldn’t be a big deal, as long as they ahve it correctly in the computer as being in 2 sections.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Mainstream them, otherwise you hurt the author’s sales. Maybe in February you could pull them out and put them on a display, but the rest of the time they should go into the horror section of the store.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I buy my books mostly online, so don’t much care.
December 6th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
@ dime – That was such an asinine response! And not funny at all, even if you meant it in jest.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
I think its the best to put them all in the same category. When I’m looking for a book in a certain topic, I want them all next to each other at the book store.
BTW, Single Ma, the Black author mentioned above is an author of horror novels.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
And February is “Black History Month”, when lots of bookstores do up-front displays featuring famous Black authors.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Odd, I just got home and read that article myself. I know that authors about whom bookstores are confused [ie: did they write a comic/graphic novel? Or horror? Can it be a children's book if he "normally" writes adult books?] sometimes find their books miscategorized or placed in a more specialized section and it’s difficult both for the readership to find the books and for the mainstream public to discover their books. For that reason, I do think it’s preferable to categorize it primarily by genre rather than AA authorship. But, I’ve seen bookstores shelve most of the books by a particular author according to genre and place a token couple wherever the book might also qualify. I’d much rather see that because I search by genre and would hate to miss out on a particularly good author who happened to be AA, Asian, or what have you.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:17 am
Why does it matter what race the author of a book was?
Everyone complains that we should be equal, but still we do stupid stuff like seperate books by the race of the author. Group them together by genre, let the book stand on the merits of it’s writing, and not on a trait of the author that has no affect on the quality of their writing.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Andy,
I think it is a convenience for those who like to support those of the same color.
December 17th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I think it get crazy when stores put books into too many sub-categories for the same reason it gets crazy at a public library when one branch has a strong readership in mystery and another classics so they are contained in special sections but no two branches are alike so browsing is slightly harder for the patrons who frequent multiple branches.
by the way, you asked who would name a girl Jeffery? There’s a female author, Jeffery McClanahan, who writes with her sister, Pamela Cumbie, under the name Dixie Cash