Diversity in the Book Industry – Let’s Talk Bookish

Hey everyone! Welcome back to the blog. Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme hosted by me and Dani @ Literary Lion where we discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts.

Yesterday’s topic was: Promoting diversity in the book industry (suggested by Nicole @ Thoughts Stained With Ink)

Thank you so much to Nicole for suggesting this fabulous topic!! I find that this is a very important discussion that a lot of people have had in the past and are still having in the community today and it’s just so fitting especially with last week’s topic which was talking about diversity in books specifically.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

How can we, as bloggers, promote diversity of all sorts in the book world?

As a general disclaimer, the way everyone promotes diversity is different. Some people promote it very openly with everyone they get a chance to convince while others are more reserved about it, and prefer to just quietly influence people within their own circles.

So, there’s really no right or wrong way to promote diversity.

Now, with that being said, there are some things that we as bloggers can do to promote diversity, no matter where we fall on that spectrum of open advocacy to quiet support.

As book bloggers specifically, all we have to do is talk about our favorite books that are diverse. Just the act of recommending a diverse book when it’s fitting, or making lists of multiple diverse books, or reading and reviewing diverse books is a way to support diversity of all sorts in the bookish community.

Writing discussions or raising awareness about it through the posts you write is also a great way to promote diversity because it’s a more direct way of telling people why it’s important to do so.

Supporting authors by buying their works, following them on Twitter, GoodReads, and wherever they have a presence and just actively engaging with them is also a way to promote diversity. Especially for authors from minority/diverse backgrounds, it’s important to support them since the industry doesn’t always treat them fairly.

But really, as book bloggers, the best thing we can do is to use our blogs and other platforms to talk about the issue and share diverse books/authors for our readers to read and find. We have our platforms and we have our words; we just have to use them. How you use them though is totally up to you.

I tend to just focus on educating myself, and at times sharing some diverse books that I loved, or sharing relevant discussions by other bloggers when appropriate. That’s just what works for me currently; you have to explore and find what works specifically for you.

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What are some things you think publishers should do to promote diversity?

Maybe actually hype and publish more diverse books?

Honestly, I’m not that connected to the publishing side when it comes to books so I’m not entirely sure what publishers are doing and what they aren’t but should be.

But based on what I’ve read and heard from here and there, publishers could do a lot better with how they treat their authors who are from diverse backgrounds. I’m just going to link Aditi’s post here because she really gave this topic a lot more justice than I can.

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Is there something a publisher or another blogger is doing right now that you think is a step in the right direction?

As I said, I don’t know about publishers, but there are so many bloggers out there who focus on promoting diversity in every way they can. These are just some of the phenomenal bloggers out there who are doing an amazing job:

For book recommendations:

• Aditi @ One in a Million
• Caitlin @ Caitlin Althea
• Shealea @ Shut Up, Shealea (bonus, she wrote a discussion too!)
• May @ Forever and Everly
• Noura @ The Perks of Being Noura
• Ruqs @ Many Things (Not Just) Bookish
• Sophie @ A Book. A Thought
• Ash @ Starlight Strands

For discussions on the topic:

• Sammie @ The Bookwyrm’s Den
• Cielo @ Bellerose Reads
• Divine @ R E A (D) I V I N E
• Aditi’s that I mentioned above^
• Chana @ Paper Procrastinators

This Week’s Participants:

Dani @ Literary Lion | Nicole @ Thoughts Stained With Ink | Raji @ Worlds Unlike Our Own

Fives @ Down the Rabbit Hole | Felicia @ Felicia Sue Lynn Reviews | Mikaela @ Mikaela Reads

Millay @ Millay’s Musings | Mallory @ Starlight Reading | Kristin @ Lukten Av Trykksverte

My apologies for this being late; I got caught up with some work and reading yesterday. How do you promote diversity in books? What do you think publishers could do better? Which bloggers do you want to shout out for promoting diversity? Share your thoughts in the comments below!