As you may know already, I am currently undertaking a Publishing MA (and it’s amazing), and I have decided to focus my dissertation on diversity and inclusivity in publishing! I will focus on BAME and LGBTQ books, authors, and diversity within publishing companies. Go big or go home, right?
I would really appreciate if you could take a couple of minutes to answer my super short survey, and help me with my dissertation. Whether you’re a reader, writer, book reviewer, or work within a publishing company, your help will be precious.
Here’s the link: Diversity in Publishing Survey
As part of my degree I have realised that publishing suffers from a major diversity problem. It is obvious that the vast majority of books published are by white authors and about white characters. The majority of the staff behind the scenes, which includes publishers’ employees, and reviewers, are white. For decades there has been overwhelming agreement in the industry that there should be more diversity at all levels and in all areas of the book world, but even with greater awareness, the problem never seems to go away. Is this problem too big to solve?
The answer is, we have no idea how big the problem is. While there is now data available about diversity among books published, there is still no data available about diversity among publishing staff and reviewers. As in any business, when you have a problem you must understand it before you can solve it.
A Word About Privacy: Your answers to this survey will remain completely anonymous, and data will only be made public in aggregate form, as part of my dissertation.
Booksy 