Deborah Biancotti is the co-author of Zeroes, a book which is making book bloggers go ga-ga right now! She’s an award-winning author in her own right, and has written urban fantasy, ‘contemporary weird’, horror, YA, SF and steampunk.
Here, she makes the point about diversity that sometimes I think publishers forget: that readers want more, they want books that reflect the messy gloriousness of real life. Isn’t our fiction supposed to reflect real life? Or is it just the real life that sells well?
I found two articles earlier this way that were infuriating for how publishers, editors and agents treat (at the link above) authors of colour and transgender titles: agents prefer books with characters readers can “relate to”, which translated seems to mean white characters only. And apparently, we’ve reached the point where we have so many transgender titles talking about the experience of being transgender, publishing thinks it’s enough. Anyone else rolling their eyes hard at that last one?
Readers aren’t afraid of diversity; we’re ready and waiting for more diverse books to be published and promoted.
