Several publishers and literary agents interviewed across various articles gesture towards low sales as the reason diverse books aren’t published. These low sales mean there just isn’t a market out there: no one is buying the books, money can’t be made off of them, so they aren’t published. Often the conversation even turns to blaming people of color for not reading and thus not adding to sales as Daniel Jose Older explains in his article on Buzzfeed. Zetta Elliott describes this tactic in her list on white privilege in publishing, describing that at least a white writer “can trust that disappointing sales for your book will not be attributed to your race (or to members of your race being unable/unwilling to read).”

 

Publisher Donna Bray states, “It’s a huge challenge for a mainstream publisher to sell the extraordinary diverse books we publish…. [W]hile I do agree that there ought to be more [diverse books], I can’t help but look back with chagrin on the many beautiful, original, well-reviewed books I’ve published in this vein which have languished.” Authors like Elliott who tried to publish their books with characters of color were told time and time again, “You write beautifully, but there’s no market for this.”

 

While many literary agents interviewed by Lee and Low publishing stated that an author or illustrator being of color wouldn't make a book "less publishable," many did repeat that the subject matter would make a difference, especially as one put it "if there is an audience for the material." There are obviously children in the world of color who need to see themselves presented in their books (as Walter Dean Myers, Matt de la Pena, and many others have argued). But it’s also important for all children to read texts of other cultures as well. As long as there are children, there should be a “market” for books featuring diversity. Literary Agent Adriana Dominguez takes this idea as well as the growing reality of a diverse population of children to argue, "[D]iverse publishing is not a ‘niche’ market, it is this country’s present—and future.”

 

Dominguez turns the “market” argument not on the readers/buyers but on the publishers: "I think one of the obstacles is that the world of publishing has not quite caught up with this market’s potential. Part of this is due to a lack of diversity in publishing itself." Older writes about this very problem—that those publishing companies so largely controlled by white agents are often seeing the reflections of cultural diversity in the texts themselves as being what the publishers interviewed by Lee and Low described as material that’s not marketable.

 

Editor Rosemary Brosnan follows Dominguez’s suit and says, "It's likely that publishers don’t quite know how to reach the market.” Many authors (including Sherri Smith and Lamar Giles) have argued that part of reaching this market is the same as reaching any market—putting in the effort to promote and talk work for the sales of diverse books the same way publishers do other books they believe will be successful. If publishers don’t believe a market is there, they’ll never publish books for it. Sherri Smith states, "If publishers trusted their readership more, they might open up to more diversity. Additionally, if some clever statistician would crunch the numbers and show that minorities do in fact buy books, and buy a sizeable amount of them, then we might facilitate change." Stephanie Guerra adds to the importance of this belief in the market changing the market: "Expect and believe that young readers will be interested in stories about characters from a wide variety of backgrounds. I know that’s an odd-sounding prescription, but young readers often respond to expectations. There may be a self-fulfilling prophecy at play here: if teachers and parents and writers and publishers hold an unspoken belief that young readers will only respond to characters from their own backgrounds, they may unwittingly act in way that influence kids to fulfill their expectations."

 

Both Rosemary Bronson and Donna Bray argue that part a major problem with diverse books is, as Bronson called it, "a discoverability issue" for the buyers. But as Giles argues, if publishers put in the efforts to make their books discoverable, this issue will lesson over time and with each book the effort has been put into. Of course, “the market”—referring here to the buyers who want to buy diverse books—will have to put in the effort to locate those books, especially as long as marketing efforts aren’t being made for them. This is where C. Myers argues its part of everyone’s job to put these books in kids hands. This is why Zetta Elliott and her colleagues created The Birthday Party Pledge to help adults find diverse books and encourage them to work together to get them to kids. And this is definitely why the many bloggers, tweeters, tumblrs, and other social networking authors and reviewers are needed to continue making their lists and sharing them twice (for more on these heroes, see my page on social media).