The Eight Percent Problem: Authors of Colour in the British Young Adult Market (2006\u20132016)

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold

doi:10.1007/s12109-018-9600-5

Abstract

The conversations surrounding ‘diversity’ in the Anglo-American book publishing industry have increased in recent years, and often centre around the lack of representation of publishing professionals, authors, and characters of colour. This paper contextualises these discussions within British YA, a market that has grown in popularity since 2006. Through an analysis of the corpus of all Young Adult fiction titles published, in the UK, during the 2006–2016 period, this paper will investigate what percentage of the titles were created by authors of colour; to determine whether this number has risen over the years, and to pinpoint any patterns and anomalies that emerge over the time period.

Highlights

Introduction andBackground‘Diversity’ [or lack thereof] has become a buzzword in the Anglo-American book publishing industries
The following is based on young adult (YA) Fiction print titles written by authors who were alive at the time of first publication and in which that publication occurred in the UK between 2006 and 2016
This study found that the representation of authors of colour has decreased since it peaked in 2007–2008, despite conversations about ‘diversity’ in the publishing industry, and the subsequent rise in ‘diversity’ initiatives [1, 2, 19, 28, 35, 37]

Summary

Introduction

Introduction andBackground‘Diversity’ [or lack thereof] has become a buzzword in the Anglo-American book publishing industries. It is used to describe an industry that is dominated by white, middle-class, able-bodied, cisgendered, heteronormativity (in its workforce, authors, and characters) [1, 15, 19, 21, 34]. Undertaken a decade apart, found that the “old monoculture” that existed in 2004 had not improved much in the subsequent 10 years: were there barriers for aspiring and emerging publishing professionals and for racialised (or ‘BAME’) authors [19, 21, 34].2. Ensuing discussions have centred on cultural producers (e.g. publishing professionals) and ‘representation’ (e.g. the main characters in a book). This paper, will focus on authors of colour (AOC)

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