Books And... would like to thank Ms. McFadden for allowing us to reprint this article.  It was originally printed in The Washington Post on June 26, 2010, click here to view that article. 

The issue discussed here is unfortunately affecting African-American writers and this is another effort to expose this injustice to the masses.  If we all stand together there is a possibility for change.  Feel free to chime in and let us know what you think about this issue and suggest some solutions to the problem.

Kathryn Stockett's novel "The Help," published by a Penguin Books imprint, sold 1 million books within a year of publication. Her novel has gained accolades and awards, including the prestigious South African Boeke Prize. "The Help" is being adapted for the screen; at the helm of production is the Academy Award-winning director and producer Steven Spielberg.

Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling novel "The Secret Life of Bees," also published by Penguin Books, is another story set in the South with African American characters. Kidd's novel garnered similar fame, fortune and recognition.

Kathryn Stockett and Sue Monk Kidd are living the dream of thousands of authors, myself included. But they are not the first white women to pen stories of the black American South and be lauded for their efforts. In 1928, Julia Peterkin wrote a novel, "Scarlet Sister Mary," for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Stockett's and Kidd's novels tackle racism and celebrate the power of friendship and acceptance. Both novels were given beautiful covers that did not reveal the race of the characters. Both books were marketed to black and white audiences.

My debut novel, "Sugar," was also published by a Penguin imprint. Set in the 1950s South, the story line deals with racism and celebrates the power of friendship and acceptance. The original cover depicted a beautiful black woman standing behind a screen door. "Sugar" was marketed solely to African American readers. This type of marginalization has come to be known among African American writers as "seg-book-gation." This practice is not only demeaning but also financially crippling. When I looked into why works by African American writers were packaged and marketed so differently than those by their white counterparts, I did not have to search far for my answer.

Literature about the oppressed written by the oppressor has a long tradition. The trend can be traced all the way to colonialism -- a movement that was not only physical but textual, the evidence of which can be found in the diaries, letters and journals of colonists, settlers and plantation slave owners.

Representation of African Americans by white people in texts records a history of "inferiority." Based on these perceptions, African Americans have endured slavery, genocide, medical apartheid and segregation.

This "inferiority" is a tool fundamental to ethnic distancing in society. Today, this tool is used with great precision in the mainstream publishing industry. While, yes, the distancing may not be total -- meaning a few select African American authors have "crossed over" into the mainstream -- the work of many African Americans authors, myself included, has been lumped into one heap known as "African American literature." This suggests that our literature is singular and anomalous, not universal. It is as if we American authors who happen to be of African descent are not a people but a genre much like mystery, romance or thriller.

Walk through your local chain bookstore and you will not see sections tagged British Literature, White American Literature, Korean Literature, Pakistani Literature and so on. None of these ethnicities are singled out or objectified the way African American writers are.

And while, yes, a vast majority of all writers, regardless of skin color, are struggling to stay afloat, and there are more African American writers being published today than at any other time in history, one must still take note of exactly what is being published.

Mainstream publishing houses contort themselves to acquire books that glorify wanton sex, drugs and crime. This fiction, known as street-lit or hip-hop fiction, most often reinforces the stereotypical trademarks African Americans have fought hard to overcome. And while we are all the descendants of those great literary pioneers who first gave a voice to the African American experience, and one certainly could not exist without the other, somewhere down the line the balance was thrown off and the scales tipped in favor of a genre that glorifies street life and denigrates a cultural institution that took hundreds of years to construct.

This year is arguably the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance. It is also the 50th anniversary of the death of Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most iconic figures of the Renaissance. In 1950 Hurston addressed this very problem in her essay "What White Publishers Won't Print," which was published in the Negro Digest.

"For various reasons, the average, struggling, non-morbid Negro is the best-kept secret in America. His revelation to the public is the thing needed to do away with that feeling of difference which inspires fear, and which ever expresses itself in dislike."

Her words still ring true.

Bernice L. McFadden is the author of six critically acclaimed novels, including the classic Sugar and Nowhere Is a Place, which was a Washington Post best fiction title for 2006. She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honors from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA). McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is working on her next novel.

For more Bernice McFadden visit her at http://www.bernicemcfadden.com.

Each month at Books And... we will feature guest posts on various nuanced topics on the writing life. Each week's Wednesday post will showcase a different author. This week's author is Virginia DeBerry & Donna Grant and our current topic is loyalty. It was born of a discussion on the observation of some black authors shifting gears in their writing genre or style to keep pace with other highly accessible and fast produced works. We asked our author to explore the writer-reader loyalty dynamic.

Once upon a time, when we were imaginary writers, fantasizing about our lives as wordsmiths, there were no limits on the stories we could tell. Not just in the numbers of books we could create--at that point we presumed our powers of imagination were limitless, and some days we still do. But we had no doubt that the whole world and any experience in it was open for our literary exploration.

Even after we started writing for real and being published, we labored under the assumption that as long as we created characters that readers related to and put them in situations that were in some way compelling that we would be left alone to be the architects of our novelistic universes. It did work that way for a while. And then the age of publishing by numbers and categories arrived and whether your work was skillfully executed, original, or clumsy and amateurish became irrelevant.  What mattered most was how many of them were sold--same as with toasters, or tires or socks. And once a particular type of book was seen to sell, writers began receiving rather direct hints about what type of books they should be writing—if they wanted to continue to be published. Creative freedom was out--conformity became the norm, as though publishers had been granted ESP and could predict what readers would want to buy.

Really what they control feels more like self-fulfilling prophecy. As independent bookstores in general, and African-American bookstores in particular teeter on the brink of extinction, there are fewer and fewer outlets where books are sold, and fewer and fewer people making decisions about what they will buy to stock the store shelves. It gives those folks the power to shape what we read. It has become easier (read profitable) for them to stock "brand names," than to gamble on the untested or the author who writes for a smaller but loyal niche.

At this point, we're not sure our most successful book, Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made, would even be published now. It doesn't fit the current "profile" for African American best sellers. Does that mean it would not be worth publishing? Define worth--is it just about the dollars, which incidentally, it made. Tryin' was the largest selling work of fiction by an African American author published in hardcover in 1997, but we think worth means more than that. We think it was about the way readers identified with our characters and their journey to adulthood and figuring out what's important in life. Our editor thought it was a story well told, but they had no more idea that it would touch so many people than we did. The only way to find that out was to put it out there. So, how many books that would entertain people won’t ever be published? How many readers would laugh, or be entertained by stories that won’t be told? How many people realized something about themselves or the world they live in, by reading these books that won’t reach the shelves? We don't know. At the moment, we don't even know what our own publishing future holds.

The current reality is that in the industry black writers, except for those considered, “literary,” have been put into one invented genre, “African American Lit.” It seems the fastest growing areas in that category are urban fiction and erotica. Where are the readers who, “used to buy books?” It isn’t just a matter of the author having reader loyalty. Readers also need to have author loyalty. Writers need support and they need it as soon after the publication dates of their work. Just like the opening weekend for movies, pre-sales and the first month the book hits the shelves are critical to long term success.  We recently did an event with a book club we’ve been visiting for years—the meeting was actually about our previous book, What Doesn’t Kill You—which came out in paperback in February. The members of the club are on our email list and had received several pre-publication updates about our latest novel, Uptown. But only one of the thirty-five or so women who were present had actually purchased Uptown, despite all of the information we had sent about the importance of early sales. That’s just one “loyal” reader. If this is an example of the kind of support writers are getting from longtime readers and fans—“I’ll  get the new book later” –what are we to do? It becomes impossible for authors to write the kind of books they became known for, to write what they want and to sustain their original audience, when the publishers make decisions based on those early sales numbers and readers are delaying their purchase of the book. Already more and more of our books are being published as paperback originals—no more hardcovers—because so many readers wait for the paperback before they shop.

We understand the economic challenges folks are experiencing, but when readers think their $12 or $15 won’t matter, they don’t understand that the author is usually only making a small percentage of that and that it takes a lot of those percentages to keep the books you want to read on the shelves.

What's the answer? We don't know that either, except that just like the music business, the fundamentals of publishing are changing. Self-publishing in book form became more efficient years ago. Now the ability to self-publish in the e-book format, even directly with major booksellers has become as easy as opening a Facebook account--once you've written the book of course, which is no small feat. There are hundreds of book blogs and book lover's sites where authors and readers are in direct contact and readers offer reviews, post interviews, even host blogtalk radio shows where they interview their favorite authors. Are we headed toward some kind of divided book reality where main-stream publishers sell the work of the few and the approved, while other writers duke it out in the blogasphere for their little slice of pub pie? Maybe. Is it separate, but equal? It never is.

 

With seven novels to their credit, Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, best friends for 25 years, have turned a friendship into one of the most successful and enduring writing collaborations in contemporary fiction.

Before becoming novelists, Donna was dared by co-workers at the New York Daily News to attend a model agency open call, which led to more than a decade as a plus size model, represented by the 12 + division of Ford Models. During that career, Donna was featured in catalogs and national ads, on the pages of such magazines as Essence, McCalls, Family Circle and Woman's Day, and made appearances on "Today," "Good Morning America," and "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee."

Virginia, a former high school English teacher from Buffalo, NY moved to New York City, after almost 10 years in the classroom, at the urging of a friend in the fashion business and started a successful career as a plus size model. She was frequently featured in catalogs, advertising, magazines and appeared on several television programs including "The Today Show." She retired from modeling after two years and became Vice President of BB/LW, an agency for plus size and petite models, as well as a spokeswoman for Hanes hosiery.

The duo’s modeling careers led to the opportunity to launch Maxima, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for plus size women, where Virginia was editor-in-chief and Donna the managing editor. When publication of Maxima ceased, Virginia and Donna decided to try writing a book together. Their efforts led to Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made(St. Martin’s Press/MacMillan 1997), which was a critical success, an Essence magazine bestseller, and won the Merit Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, as well as the 1998 Book of the Year Award from the Blackboard Bestseller List/African American Booksellers Conference-Book Expo America. More than that, Tryin’ hit an emotional nerve with readers from all over the world  who continue to write to Donna and Virginia more than a dozen years later. Far From the Tree (St. Martin’s Press/MacMillan 2000) became a New York Times bestseller, and Better Than I Know Myself (St. Martin’s Press/MacMillan 2004) received two Open Book Awards, and was included on the Best African American Fiction of 2004 lists of both Borders and WaldenBooks. Gotta Keep on Tryin’ (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster January 2008) was the long awaited sequel to their first novel Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made. In January 2009, DeBerry and Grant’s What Doesn’t Kill You  (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster January 2009)was released to glowing reviews and their lastest novel is Uptown  (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster March 2010).

Donna attended Barnard College and is a graduate of New York University. A Brooklyn native, she currently lives in the borough with her husband.

Virginia attended Fisk University and is a graduate of SUNY at Buffalo. Virginia now lives in New Jersey.

Please visit Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant at

http://www.deberryandgrant.com
http://twitter.com/deberryandgrant
http://myspace.com/twomindsfull
http://twomindsfull.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/deberryandgrant




 

Each month at Books And... we will feature guest posts on various nuanced topics on the writing life. Each week's Wednesday post will showcase a different author. This week's author is Chris Burns and our current topic is loyalty. It was born of a discussion on the observation of some black authors shifting gears in their writing genre or style to keep pace with other highly accessible and fast produced works. We asked our author to explore the writer-reader loyalty dynamic.

I do not really fall into the same category as other writers. I am a teacher, professor first and foremost, so my goal is really in teaching my students, college or high school, to have a passion for reading and writing. I went to school to write, which also distinguishes me from many writers.  It does not make me better, but I have practiced and studied with people like Quincy Troupe, Marilyn Chin, Glover Davis, Harold Jaffe and I have had the pleasure of sitting in on lectures and readings by Michael Eric Dyson and Yusef Komunyakaa. I have studied and I continue to study through my work in the classroom.  I state all of this simply to stress that my goal in writing has been to tell stories in a variety of ways. I am one of the few graduates of San Diego State University’s MFA in Creative Writing to complete both a poetry and fiction thesis. I love and respect the craft of writing. 

Your question about loyalty is interesting. I am not a mainstream writer. I have never taken the time to really promote my work. I have been writing for 15 years and while I have completed 7 books (5 self published, 2 sitting in the computer) during this time, I have not attained “success” in a big venue. I have not sold a lot of books and my lack of promotion has hurt me as far as reaching a big audience. An author has to be dedicated to promoting themselves to gain any type of financial benefits from their craft. Loyalty to me is about practicing your craft without regard to what the audience wants. I have written works of fiction about: a serious subject, a comedy, and a book that was heavily influenced by Zora, Ann Petry and Ralph Ellison. I have written a book of poetry and short stories that took me 13 years to write and is similar in style to Toomer’s Cane. My loyalty is to the craft of writing and I am allowed to do this because I have not placed an emphasis on creating financial stability from my writing.

I can state that I understand why writers shift their style to fit the trends, because upon graduating from the MFA program I had an agent. My agent realized that the market was shifting to street literature. Agents care about craft, but they have to make a living so they have to get books that can be published by publishing houses capable of bigger distribution. My agent asked me to write a street fiction. While I grew up in a tough neighborhood and lived the majority of my life in these neighborhoods, that was not where my head was but I wrote anyway. I created a narrative that I thought was compelling but she told me that it was not “street” enough. I knew then that I didn’t need an agent because my goal was to remain true to my craft. I had the ability to provide for my family so I left my agent once the contract was up and decided to publish the books on my own and let them sink or swim on their own.  Authors who want to find some manner of financial success probably feel that they have to write what is selling. I have seen popular artists do this.  As a child of the Hip-Hop generation I consider this somewhat of a sellout move. But that is my opinion.

I can only write when I feel that a story has to come out. I can sit down and write during the summer for a couple of hours a day, but often that writing does not amount to much.  It is simply exercising, which is good for any writer to do.  I just don’t think that I can write a story that didn’t come from inspiration, convincingly. I could write it but I wouldn’t be completely invested in it.

I love writing. I love reading and studying different styles. I love the process of analyzing stories. I think these things make me a writer. How good I am is left up to people who come across my books and try them. Loyalty to an audience is a difficult subject because for some it may be a matter of their literary life. Loyalty to me is staying true to your craft and writing because you don’t have a choice. I have the privilege of staying true to myself because my goal is not self sufficiency or reaching the biggest audience. My goal is to tell great stories.  If they eventually find an audience, cool. If they remain under the surface and are found by a few, cool.

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Re-Rambled is Angelia Vernon Menchan's way of mentoring through the written word...filled with observations and experiences that provided the author with a desire to pass it on and pay it forward. "RAMBLINGS is an inspiring and thought-provoking call to action that anyone would benefit from reading. From the first word to the very last, I was moved by Menchan's voice which is filled with a love of family, passion for mentoring, and the importance of understanding & loving yourself. " - Tee C. Royal, Founder of RAWSISTAZ.com

About the author

Angelia Vernon Menchan considers writing to be the elixir of her soul. Since learning penmanship at age four, most days have found her jotting down thoughts in a notebook. After decades of journal-keeping she decided to try her hand at writing and publishing books, from which was born her small publishing company, M.A.m.m. Productions through which she publishes her own books that she has coined, 'Fictionalized Truths, Ageless Fiction and Ramblings.'

When not writing, Angelia is a wife, mother, mentor and nana who loves reading almost as much as writing. Angelia is also an Avid Blogger and posts blogs most days to her blog, RAMBLINGS at http://acvermen.blogspot.com or for Skirt Magazine at http://skirt.com/angel08. 
www.angeliamenchan.com 


Re-Rambled Tour Stops

Monday, July 19        Books And...Chat
Tuesday, July 20       BrownGirl Speaks
Wednesday, July 21  Notorious Spinks Talks
Thursday, July 22      Books on the Train
Friday, July 23           Glamazini's Natural Hair Journey

 

Another review of this book:

Onika Pascal

Each month at Books And... we will feature guest posts on various nuanced topics on the writing life. Each week's Wednesday post will showcase a different author. This week's author is Omar Tyree and our current topic is loyalty. It was born of a discussion on the observation of some black authors shifting gears in their writing genre or style to keep pace with other highly accessible and fast produced works. We asked our author to explore the writer-reader loyalty dynamic.

When we talk about a loyal fan base in the African-American literary community, we have to understand that we are mostly referring to a brand new audience of readers. The truth is, contemporary African-American readers have only been in existence now for roughly 20 years, starting with the phenomenal success of Terry McMillan and her classic women’s crossover novel, Waiting to Exhale, published in 1992. Prior to that, we had either slavery books, poetry and short story collections, civil rights memoirs, and of course, the street fiction of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines. There wasn’t much of a loyal fanbase going on there, outside of the prison systems who were sure to stock plenty of Iceberg and Donald. But once Terry hit the scene and hit it hard in the early 1990s, all of a sudden, new literary heroes began to pop up for the African-American community each year, including Walter, Bebe, E. Lynn, Rosalyn, Eric Jerome, Michael, and Omar.

For a solid decade, a new army of African-American readers could now expect to enjoy a new book from their new favorite authors. However, with everything being so new, there were new authors and new readers every single year, which led to fleeting loyalties, similar to what happened in the industry of hip-hop during the early 1990s before Tupac and Biggie took over and stabilized an East Coast / West Coast selection. But there was no giant new success story of a Biggie or a Tupac in the black publishing industry. Community activist Sister Souljah had the best opportunity to become big with her classic tale, The Coldest Winter Ever, published in the late 90s, but it’s pretty hard to build a loyal fanbase of readers if they have to wait for more than five years for your next book release. So by the time Sister Souljah had come out with something new, the anxious new fanbase had already moved on to twenty other authors.

Then there was the publishing house of Triple Crown from Vickie Stringer, who put out so many new authors that no one could even keep up with their names, just the company that publishing them all. There was Terri Woods and True To The Game, another novel that sparked a following of crash and burn street readers. Then came Zane and her Sex Chronicles release, followed by a dozen of other sexy books and erotic stories, seemingly twice a year, to keep her fanbase in tact. On the men’s side of the fence, Carl Weber began to stir up the pot with his relationship drama tales about The Other Woman and such.

But with all that being said, how loyal can we realistically expect a readership, or even an author, to be in less than twenty years of experience? We are all New Jacks to the game, and still experimenting with the fresh art form of contemporary African-America stories. And let’s be frank here, after 500 or so new authors have popped up on the scene, covering every possible present-day story of black America, even a new fanbase can get worn out by it all, especially with no movie deals to keep the stories large, lively, and on the pop culture consciousness of the people.

I had an opportunity to lock down a young, loyal fanbase with my own classic novel Flyy Girl years ago, but I was quickly derailed by my own desire to write books for my peer group of African-American men, who don’t seem to be a large part of any readership fanbase. So instead of me sticking to the young urban girls who brought my career to the promise land of New York Times best-sellers, I was more interested is discovering new ideas as a writer than sticking to one particular audience. Hell, my so-called audience were barely reading grade school text books before I came along with my series of urban classics. So I figured they would continue to grow with me as I elevated my skills and content from a New Jack to an old pro. Only I was wrong, and my young new audience did not budge from what they already liked and wanted to read. So it was more Flyy Girl books or nothing. And if I didn’t give it to them, they would seek and find another new author who would.

And there you have it. When a writer writes, we ultimately want a loyal audience, but if we write only for an audience and never for ourselves, are we really developing as writers? And as a loyal fan, if you are only interested in reading a certain type of book from a certain type of writer, can you really call yourself “loyal” when that author wants to try a different subject or genre, or when you yourself want to move on to something different? We have to think about all of that in this discussion of “loyalty”. But as my good friend and contemporary writer, Walter Mosley once famously stated, “We won’t really know what these new books are worth until some time has passed to see what work continues to stand out as significant.” Then and only then we will truly be able to figure out who has been loyal and who has not with the explosion of African-American literature of the 21st Century.
                                                            *****

Each month at Books And... we will feature guest posts on various nuanced topics on the writing life. Each week's Wednesday post will showcase a different author. This week's author is Carleen Brice and our current topic is loyalty. It was born of a discussion on the observation of some black authors shifting gears in their writing genre or style to keep pace with other highly accessible and fast produced works. We asked our author to explore the writer-reader loyalty dynamic.

Loyalty is something that must be earned. How does a writer earn the loyalty of readers? I think every book is a promise to the reader. A promise that the writer has given it his or her all, has written the best possible story they could write. As a reader, I know that it sometimes feels like the promise isn’t kept. Sometimes, I read a book thinking there’s no way the writer gave this her all. But everyone’s reaction to a book is subjective. As a writer, I believe there’s no way to know for sure whether or not a writer worked his behind off and I still disliked his book.

I’ve heard readers complain that some of their favorite writers are pushing out books too quickly and now the quality of their work isn’t what it used to be. This may be true in some cases. The publishing industry really likes authors who can keep product moving on the assembly line. Some writers may feel pressured to churn out more than they would normally take on so they can meet their publishers’ expectations and keep getting advances. But please don’t let it affect your opinion about all of us.

Often, black people feel a special loyalty to black artists. We know that if we want to keep reading books by black authors, then we better buy those books. But that’s a terrible burden to bear. Because not every “black book” is going to appeal to us all.

I have been the recipient of lovely folks who have bought my book because they are black and I am black and they hated the idea of me sitting at my little table not selling any books. While I am deeply grateful for that kind of loyalty, I don’t bet on it. And I don’t think the publishing industry should either.

Some would say the book industry has overtaxed that loyalty by flooding the marketing with substandard books. Perhaps. Call it a weird side effect to success: When there are so many books to choose from, it becomes harder to choose. It becomes harder to know which books are good and which are just trying to take advantage of the marketplace.

But we do that all the time with all kinds of products. Have you ever stood in the supermarket staring at aisle after aisle of vitamin supplements or low-fat whatevers? When a category gets “hot,” companies rush to have something (sometimes anything) in that category they can sell. Buyer beware. But please don’t turn away from the whole category. Do your research. Read book blogs. Talk to your book club members.

Even though I like to think of books as art, the rules of business do apply. If people don’t buy them, if the audience goes away, so does the category. Unfortunately, companies will lump almost all of us black authors into a single category. It doesn’t matter if one writes romances and one writes mysteries and another writes comedy. If you’re black, you go in the category. And if those romances or mysteries or comedies start to suffer a decline in sales, that impacts all of us.

My promise to my readers is that I will always give it my all. What I need back from my readers is that if you like what I do, buy my books and talk them up to others. On behalf of other writers, I also ask that you not blindly support black authors just because we are black. But please do something that might be even a little harder: look for what you like and support that. If you love a good thriller, check around a little and see what authors of color are writing in that genre. If you don’t like the first author, try another and maybe even another.

I won’t give up on readers. I hope readers won’t give up on me.
                                                          *****

Carleen Brice’s debut novel, Orange Mint and Honey, was an Essence “Recommended Read” and a Target “Bookmarked Breakout Book.”  For this book, she won the 2009 First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the 2008 Break Out Author Award at the African American Literary Awards Show. 

In February 2010, Orange Mint and Honey premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network as "Sins of the Mother," starring Jill Scott. It was the second-highest rated original movie in LMN’s history.

Her second novel, Children of the Waters was a book about race, love and family. Booklist Online called it “a compelling read, difficult to put down.” Essence said, “Brice has a new hit.” AOL Black Voices said, “Brice sparkles with a tale of love and family.”

Carleen is also the author of two nonfiction books, Lead Me Home: An African American’s Guide Through the Grief Journey, and Walk Tall: Affirmations for People of Color, which sold 100,000 copies. She edited and contributed to Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife. She has written for The Washington Post, The Denver Post, The Chicago Tribune, Poets and Writers, and Mademoiselle.

 She maintains the well-known blog “White Readers Meet Black Authors”  www.welcomewhitefolks.blogspot.com In addition, you can find her on Twitter, Facebook, SheWrites, Goodreads and other sites.