Time for an honest conversation
Last week has been a strange week in book news. Two developments are casting a light on how this industry (and it is an industry) operates. But the nature of the SF world is a closely knit hybrid of publishers, authors, reviewers and fans/readers and to be fair all of these terms are interchangeable – you can easily find people doing all four. It's relatively small but not one I feel that is at the moment perfectly formed.
The first one is an issue long-standing (and I was sad to see not debated for long) It's not going to be easy to fix but needs urgent addressing: the lack of diversity in books, and I think SF in particular is struck by this problem hard. This week saw the publication of Rethinking Diversity in Publishing by Dr Anamik Saha and Dr Sandra van Lenre an academic study of diversity (and before that sounds daunting this document is just 44 very plain and simple pages of magazine content and yet it is a simple but great and informative read – you can download this https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/projects/rethinking-diversity/ ) I recommend you do so.
In some ways publishing matches the UK average for BAME recruitment 13% (national average is 14% but as the study highlights virtually all publishing happens in the London area where actually 40% of the population is BAME. Most of the people finding, editing and marketing books are white. Publishig is not a well paid industry and often starter salaries are circa £18-20k. For someone just out of university and living in London particularly if you factor in that BAME families are often working class and unlikely to be able to have additional support then even if you’re the biggest fantasy fan in the world you may decide starting a book career won’t pay any bills. I’ll come back to this shortly but that means we have an industry that is often white and middle class.
Some scary and sobering facts for you. Our often ridiculed siblings in literary fiction actually attract the most people of colour writing at the moment (42%), 26% in YA and when we get to genre with Crime 4% and SF not mentioned. But as in 2018 we saw that only 1% of all SF books (about 5k of them) were by British BAME then we aren’t doing very well. Looking at publishing it’s a predominantly white (and I suspect middle class) industry still in terms of authors who get a deal.
The study is fantastic looking not just at recruitment but everything in the process of bookselling from shops to covers but what I found particularly interesting was the view of the wider audience out there. It comes up many times that publishing sees the wider audience for books as very white and middle class and many feel we are not going to be comfortable reading books by people of colour. Now bear in mind the make-up of the workforce who choose the books…
In particular as the survey goes on to say the audience may feel strange about seeing a black author do a cosy crime novel rather than a gritty urban tale of knife crime. This creates only a limited number of areas they feel the books by such authors can fit. If people not familiar with non-white points of view or culture get books exploirign those themes perhaps they too will feel uncomfortable and in a business with low markgins will make them think that this is a risk they aren’t willing to take. I will praise Gollancz for starting a recent scheme to address this but many more have a long way to go.
NB - as the author James Bennet has reminded me we should also remember that sexual identity is another factor in this. A lot of the industry is still cis and again similar barriers are in the way.
While I’d love to say this view of readers is flawed I still regularly see in some online forums white fantasy fans who feel the idea of being recommended great books by black authors is ‘racist’; ‘segregation’ and unnecessary (in fact I saw those shameful comments again in only the last week). ‘They’re just here for the great stories’….by the same old white authors. I’ve been to conventions over the last ten years and I notice too the vast majority of the audience is white and middle class. An industry that often chooses books that are widely white no wonder creates a readership that is too. Which considering the changing demographics of the UK is widely narrowing.
The causes of this attitude are both societal and also by the flaws of publishing. Some obvious ones – diversity in publishing staff needs improving. Even the placement of the books you see on shelves In shops can be biased. I saw something this week about how a large books store looked at its shelf space circa - circa1200 books - and the vast vast majority were by male white authors. The store has just ten by non-white authors. Placement is an issue. But a huge factor in this is the view that the reading public for fiction is white, middle class and middle aged. They won’t want to read books by non-white authors. If you’re a reader have a think about who you may be missing out when you just go to the big deals table.
I think the blogger community is here really important as we need to have a look at our reading and think about are we doing enough to promote diversity in authors and are we ensuring we read and promote more. It's something I think I can do more of and will influence choices going forward. I think all bloggers need to look hard at their choices because a great deal of us are white and middle class…you may be spotting a theme. Its not enough to celebrate one month we need to be much more active in our regular choices of reading material. Lots of us are in a great position to highlight books and authors that mainstream shops and sites may be missing. I urge my blogging community to do its own bit for the future. It should never be on the small minority of people of colour in SF fandom to have to do the heavy lifting and explaining of fandom’s biases. We all can do better.
The other big news has also been disturbing and painful to read but I think sadly necessary and raises huge issues in particular over how convention spaces are being managed and how the community deals with abuse. Conventions are obviously keen for fans to attend so guests are hired to entertain – big names and often big personalities. People who you may want to hear speak or talk about their famous work. But conventions are for many also workspaces – obviously many people have something of their won to promote and also, it’s a place where people can mix with agents, editors and publishers. Deals get often done – hence why many feel they have to attend. So it gets disturbing when we have had multiple accounts of sexual harassment and assault happening in these workspaces primarily by large names in publishing and fandom and yet repeatedly nothing has been done about this.
After conventions we tend to hear rumours of something happening – we have become a whisper network where groups have to warn people about certain people you don’t want to be around with. Their harassment on panels or at the bar is unpunished. The big names like Sam Sykes and Myke Colehave until now largely been left unpunished. A twitter user of no small renown @Dystocalpyse a Clarke Award Judge, Director of the Kitchsies and well known fan has recently said that an a panel 4 years ago an author sexually harassed her – the con did a good job when she complained but the publisher….offered free books - read more via this link https://twitter.com/Dystocalypse/status/1276598342567550983
Why is this? In some ways this is not a new problem. I’ve only really been going to cons for ten years but a few things I’ve found out as I’ve learnt more about the SF world
- The SF community seems to have a long-term issue of not confronting big name abusers – see Asimov’s reputation for groping at cons which everyone knew about
- Con harassment policies have only recently been getting created and often old time fans raise them as inappropriate claiming that only ‘good people’ attend and so this is unnecessary. When they do have a policy it seems far likely it is not being enforced.
- Enforcement when it comes to big names seems to lack consequences. People with multiple reports and complaints about them will get invited to other cons.
- There seems to be a reluctance to punish those who transgress despite the bad name they may be creating for their agents or publishers.
- Publishers often seem to weigh up talent as more important than what their talent is doing to the victims of abuse. I’ve only seen Angry Robot confront head on the future of Myke Cole.
All allegations need to be investigated. Twitter is not a court of law but when multiple accounts over many years come to light – it is an obvious sign of long-standing bad conduct and I have to wonder why no one has acted on the complaints with any actual force before.
This complete lack of accountability is why many people have no faith in either con runners or publishers to act. This is why the whisper networks are in place or the secret DMs begin after a con. But if a person doesn’t know people in those channels then they won’t know about the dangerous nice guy talking to them at the barcon. Workspaces should be safe. Cons should be safe…people should be safe from abuse. The idea of labelling good people at cons you can trust is not enough – I’m flattered to be added but my online persona as a cuddly womble is a persona. A lot of you won’t even know my name. Good abusers will always try to look like one of the goodies. Those in charge need to make things safer not leave it to audiences.
This is another difficult area to fix but it's not insurmountable and in other industries codes of conduct and understanding the concept of bad actions having consequences has moved on a lot. If I went somewhere representing my employer and I got accused of this I would be investigated by my employer and very likely sacked. SF really needs to get its house in order. And if we see this happen in front of us? Are we standing in uncomfortable silence or doing our bit to support victims or just protecting our friends or the writers of our favourite books? I would note there will always be good books around and I can happily read those and clear the shelves of the ones who I feel cross the lines when I hear about it. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror.
A few years ago, a small group of right wing fascists and blatant racists came together to try and take over the Hugos. A lot more People in SF came together to stop this, and it helped define what the genre SHOULD be about. It is quite easy to recognise the Nazis (the blatant racism and spewing hate is a subtle giveaway) and then kick them out; it is however not enough its barely the start of what needs to happen to hit those ideals. If we think SF has progressive principles, then we should be working very very hard to live up to them. If the genre is narrow minded in its view of who should be writing or publishing SF books and biased over which ones we read or allowing people to abuse others in supposedly safe places then both the genre and ourselves fail. If conventions are not welcoming; encourage sexual abuse, bullying and harassment and those hurt find out their abuser’s actions don’t have consequences, then what exactly was that fight a few years ago about?
Was it just making us all feel better about ourselves or setting ourselves higher standards to live up to? Because whoever we are be it fans, bloggers, con-runners or those in publishing we can all do more in these two areas. This time an honest conversation with ourselves rather than the Puppies is required – it will not be easy or comfortable these issues are longstanding but it is now well overdue and I think they’re something everyone in the community should be doing something about – or this isn’t really a community.
