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In the current climate, diversity—particularly as it relates to First Nations people and people of colour—isn’t adequately supported in many industries. This is a particularly fraught issue for us. Our voices continue to be underrepresented, and although this lack’s been increasingly highlighted and challenged in the last couple of years, there’s still a lot of work to be done: for example, as reported by Sadie Trombetta (Bustle, May 2018):
“[In the US] The amount of [children’s books about people of colour] jumped from 28% in 2016 to 31% in 2017… Yet despite the fact that the number of diverse books has continued to increase, the number of people of colour creating them has not. In 2017, just 7% of new children’s books published were written by Black, Latinx, and Native authors combined, up only 1% from 2016. That means that the majority of books, including diverse books, are being written by white authors.”
In the UK, Spread the Word’s Writing the Future report in 2015 showed that only approximately 8% of people working in publishing came from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Entries submitted to the 2017 Jhalak Prize highlighted that the subjects of the 58 submissions from mainstream publishers, especially the cookbooks and the non-fiction, were “ethnically/nationally assigned; demonstrating that even in 2017, writers of colour are primarily being granted space for writing ‘their’ experience while white writers have the authority to write on ‘universal’ themes.”
These reports are based on US and UK markets—the same trends are observable in the Australian literary landscape, but we lag behind our international counterparts, because we haven’t done the same research for local titles. There are barely any Australian statistics on the number of First Nations peoples and people of colour being published each year.
It’s not all bad news! Given that cultural diversity in Australian publishing has become a topic of increasing interest in the last few years, the strides the industry has made in this area in this time are significant. There’ve been many positive changes, such as the emergence of the Blak&Bright Writers Festival, Boundless Diverse Writers Festival, Voices from the Intersection and the Stella Diversity Count. Writers like Tony Birch, Alexis Wright, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Michelle de Kretser, Ellen Van Neerven, Julie Koh, Claire G Coleman, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Omar Musa, Shokoofeh Azar, and Mirandi Riwoe, among others, have been dominating the shortlists of state and national literary prizes.
But how far have we really gotten? And how much farther do we need to go as an industry?
Preliminary data collected by the Stella Prize’s Diversity Survey in 2016 found that female authors of colour comprised a small percentage of writers who were being reviewed in Australia. We want to build on this research; we want to know just how many First Nations peoples and people of colour are being published every year in Australia.
Using a combination of Nielsen BookScan data and a survey, this project will examine rates of publication within Australia in 2018. BookScan data will also be used to note the subjects these authors wrote on, and whether there is a bias for First Nations peoples and people of colour to publish into certain genres and categories, e.g. memoirs and cookbooks versus literary fiction, genre fiction and other topics.
This research will enable us to chart how far diverse writers have come in the industry and find where the gaps remain. On an educational front, this project will provide much-needed data, which will act as a baseline for further research into the state of diversity in the Australian publishing industry.
Results and analysis will be circulated and presented. This will include the publication of a report detailing the results of the research, and publicising the results through multiple professional and personal platforms.
The Australian publishing industry is increasingly making itself known on a global stage: whether it’s through the success of our authors, through world-wide networks such as Melbourne’s UNESCO City of Literature designation, or through industry-driven initiatives. This research will allow our industry to stand on equal footing to our publishing colleagues in the US and UK, and also showcase the diversity that does exist here. It will affect the entire Australian publishing industry, inclusive of writers, booksellers sales people and publicity and marketing professionals, although it will be particularly beneficial to publishers and editors. According to ABS statistics, this number was at 5,300 in 2003-4. Additionally, and according to the ABS, ‘Approximately 25,000 people were directly employed in the book industry in 2010 through authoring, printing, publishing and retailing’. Statistics are important, not just in gauging how well initiatives of inclusion are progressing and if there are any gaps that need considering, but also in helping to support talent that may not be developed to the fullest potential.
The results of this study will inform publishing practices, and aims to encourage the Australian publishing industry to provide First Nations writers and writers of colour with more opportunities for publication and avenues to develop their practice. This project will provide demographic data on the Australian publishing industry, and will act as a resource for any others looking to build on this for their own industry-specific research. The hope is to help those in the publishing industry become more informed on where it is necessary to encourage the publication and promotion of diverse authors, and in time, to better represent the breadth and depth of Australian literature in its true plurality.
Cover image used with permission © Elizabeth Zunon
About the author
Hella Ibrahim is the founder and editorial director of Djed Press.