Tag: myriam gurba

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#PublishingPaidMe Reveals Pay Discrepancies Between Black and White Writers

Going into the third week of protests over the police killing of George Floyd, book Twitter went down another road in revealing the racial bias in publishing.

A Blade So Black and A Dream So Dark author L.L. McKinney started the #PublishingPaidMe Twitter hashtag on Saturday to invite White authors to share the advances they received on their books to give Black authors insight on what they received for theirs.

Writer’s Digest shares this definition of an advance versus a royalty:

An advance is a signing bonus that’s negotiated and paid to the author before the book is published. It’s paid against future royalty earnings, which means that for every dollar you receive in an advance, you must earn a dollar from book sales before you start receiving any additional royalty payments.

Though L.L. tweeted she made the hashtag to discover numbers from only White authors, Black authors and other authors of color decided to share their numbers.

One author is Dhonielle Clayton. Her debut fantasy young adult novel The Belles that published in 2018 is seen as inspiration in the multicultural fantasy YA genre. She shared she only received a $45,000 advance for her book though it was in one of the hottest genres at the time amid the publishing industry’s alleged push toward diversity and inclusion with adding more authors of color on their rosters and books featuring characters of color.

In a quote tweet from White YA novelist Laura Sebastian, Zoraida Córdova, who also writes fantasy YA, said she received $7,500 for Labyrinth Lost, which features Latinx characters inspired by her Ecuadorian roots. She added it’s her best-selling book yet. Laura, the author behind the Ash Princess series, tweeted she had received six-figure deals for each book in each of her three trilogies, the next two with debut novels set for 2021.

Laura later tweeted she received backlash for putting up such high numbers and was accused of distributing “sexual favors.” Battling the sexism online, she added she wanted to be an ally and share her reality.

Myriam Gurba, the queer Chicana memoirist behind Mean and the main campaigner to spread awareness on Jeanine Cummins’ White narrative version of the Mexican immigration story in the best-seller American Dirt, said she just earned $3,000 for Mean.

Nigerian-American novelist Nnedi Okorafor who specializes in literature highlighting Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism said she wouldn’t share her numbers but offered the alternative of not taking advances and just receiving royalties. From her tweet, she implies that royalties put more money in her hands in the long run, especially for her award-winning novella trilogy Binti.

The #PublishingPaidMe hashtag is an eye-opening account of how authors who are not White and cisgender may be lowballed for their work, the work readers pay for and check out from libraries, actions that produce a lot of money for publishers.

This conversation may trigger a long-term movement in the publishing industry, where publishers have the opportunity to divide budgets more equally instead of basing sale projections on the myth that diverse stories don’t sell well. Even with the success of books such as Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give and Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age, that myth still lingers, especially when these Black authors and very few others made news with their advances.

Jesmyn Ward, who won the National Book Award twice, tweeted Monday that her publisher did not want to give her $100,000 for her next book after Salvage the Bones received the award.

Mary Karr, Robinne Lee, and Lilliam Rivera were a few of the authors to respond to Jesmyn’s claims. In a series of tweets, Jesmyn clarifies how her other works fared like Men We Reaped and Sing, Unburied, Sing, which was her first book to earn a $100,000 advance.

L.L. added in multiple tweets that there will be continuation in the discussion where Black authors will be asked to share information.

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April 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Singer-turned-writer Amerie chose Kevin Wilson’s New York Times best-seller and former Read With Jenna book club pick for her April book.

“An outrageous yet grounded read that had me laughing out loud and tearing up in the same paragraph, Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here explores parenthood and found family, while also addressing the very frightening phenomena of spontaneous combustion, of which, like the author, I grew up scared to death,” Amerie wrote in her Instagram post announcing the book selection.

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

 

Actress Emma Roberts’ book club chose Lily King’s new novel. The book was also a March selection for the Today Show’s Read With Jenna book club.

 

In an Instagram post on her personal account, Emma said, “So excited to read along with you guys and discuss!”

 

GMA BOOK CLUB

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

Good Morning America‘s book club named Margarita Montimore’s debut novel. In the U.K., the same book is titled The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart. Both have abstract covers of Oona’s face with the GMA book club reposting some of their favorites from readers.

“I’m so grateful ‘GMA’ has chosen my novel ‘Oona Out of Order’ as its latest book club pick,” Margarita told GMA in its story on the book club pick. “I know the whole world feels like it’s out of order right now, and social distancing is tough, but join ‘GMA’s’ Book Club and we’ll all feel less isolated as we get lost in this uplifting story.”

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Mean by Myriam Gurba

War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony by Nelson A. Denis

Indie rapper Noname’s book club usually selects two books each month, with Noname picking one and someone else naming the “homie pick.” Noname chose Mean by Myriam Gurba and Yahdon Israel, founder of Brooklyn-based @literaryswagbookclub, chose War Against All Puerto Ricans.

The book club says it stands in solidarity with the prisoners who participate in the book club over demanding more protection such as masks during the coronavirus COVID-19 forced quarantine. After announcing it had to cancel all in-person meetings due the pandemic, the book club recently started its own newspaper, Out of Print, for Patreon members.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

After the controversy around her last book club pick American Dirt, Oprah Winfrey chose the biography of a family where six out of 12 of the children were born with schizophrenia and became a major source of research for scientists working to understand the genetics behind the devastating mental illness.

“This is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey,” Oprah announced in a video. “It reveals the shame, denial, shock, confusion and misunderstanding of mental illness at a time when no one was really sure what schizophrenia was or how to treat it.”

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

Former first daughter and Today Show co-host Jenna Bush Hager picked Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut novel that publisher Harper Collins describes as “explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s.”

“Elizabeth really developed these characters that I felt like I knew,” Jenna said about the debut novel on Today’s website. “I found myself missing them when the story was over. The women are complicated. They are a lot of things at once.”

As a native Texan, Jenna added that Elizabeth portrays Texas life just right in Valentine.

“I spent a good portion of my childhood eavesdropping on my mother and her girlfriends as they sat out on the back porch after dinner, and I listened to them telling stories,” Elizabeth told Today. “They would sit out there with their cigarettes and mix drinks because it was the ’70s, and I listened to them rehashing their days.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Rising book club queen Reese Witherspoon, who’s currently starring in Little Fires Everywhere based on Celeste Ng’s novel, has chosen well-known memoirist Glennon Doyle’s latest book, Untamed.

 

“It’s an absolute joy to announce Glennon Doyle’s UNTAMED as my April book pick,” Reese wrote at the top of her Hello Sunshine announcement email. “This memoir is so packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today, what it means to be “good,” and what woman will do in order to be loved. I swear I highlighted something in EVERY chapter. This book really spoke to me in so many ways!”

 

Glennon also wrote an essay about her writing process on Hello Sunshine’s website.
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The Fight for Diversity in Publishing Competes With ‘American Dirt’ Success

American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins’ debut sensation, was met with controversy right off the bat when the Latinx literary community said some descriptions in the book appeared racist. Jeanine, who identifies as a white woman with a Latina grandmother, saw her author profile still rise with white readers and Oprah Winfrey claiming it as a marvel.

Whether readers think the novel had racist undertones or not, American Dirt reignited the conversation around diversity in publishing. But what changes should we expect?

A group of Latinx writers, spearheaded by Myriam Gurba, helped drive the campaign against the novel, which led to a meeting with Flatiron Books after the publisher canceled the book tour  over safety concerns for the author and booksellers hosting the events. The Flatiron Books president and publisher, Bob Miller, said he and his colleagues had been excited about the book’s release and its praise from major authors and Barnes & Noble and Oprah’s Book Club making the book a selection. In a statement, after the excitement wore off, he said:

“We were therefore surprised by the anger that has emerged from members of the Latinx and publishing communities. The fact that we were surprised is indicative of a problem, which is that in positioning this novel, we failed to acknowledge our own limits.”

The statement also added the publisher regretting the categorization of the novel under the migrant experience, the mention of Jeanine’s husband being an undocumented immigrant “while not specifying that he was from Ireland,” and a centerpiece at a bookseller dinner last May that “replicated the book jacket so tastelessly.”

The barbed wire illustration on the cover has been seen as offensive, and critics accused Jeanine of glamorizing the negative symbol of immigration with her book cover manicure. The blue watercolor-looking birds have become a part of Oprah’s Book Club profile photo on Instagram and the background of Jeanine’s website.

Flatiron Books plans to organize town hall meetings, where Jeanine will be joined by groups who have raised objections to the book. Dignidad Literaria responded with a letter from 142 writers of various ethnic backgrounds asking Oprah, who wields much literary industry power, to backtrack and drop American Dirt from its selection list. Some authors include Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina; Jasmine Guillory, author of The Wedding Date; and Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek.

On Oprah’s Book Club Instagram posts asking for input on the novel, most of the comments are positive reviews. Jeanine, the author of The Crooked Branch, The Outside Boy, A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and its Aftermath, has expressed her support for migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border on her website and asked readers to also send their support.

When I was traveling in Mexico and the borderlands researching for American Dirt, nothing surprised me more than the preponderance of HOPE among people who endure so much hardship. That is what the United States of America still represents to the people who risk everything to get here. So many good people in the US and Mexico are deeply committed to protecting refugees in their most vulnerable moments; these folks are out there just quietly saving lives every single day. If you are moved to do so, please support them however you can.

The Los Angeles Times featured a recent local event, organized by Myriam and other writers including Roxane Gay, about the American Dirt controversy. Roxane said of the novel’s author, Jeanine:

“This woman is going to be set for life, this book is going to earn royalties in perpetuity, and so it just reinforces what publishing already knows, which is as long as white people are translating the experiences of people of color, it will sell very well.”

Dignidad Literaria is holding another town hall meeting in San Antonio, Texas at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center on Feb. 22.

With American Dirt at No. 1 this week on The New York Times Best Sellers list, the time period of the book’s success may last a few more months and most likely reach the end of the year. Roxane echoes the concern that diversity in publishing, especially related to this book, might not happen the way it needs to.

One of the main issues is a white author being reportedly paid a seven-figure paycheck to tell migrant stories that are not a part of her experience. The argument between readers is who gets to write others’ experiences versus if it’s fair to designate certain stories for certain groups.

All eyes are now on Oprah’s TV special she promised in response to the criticism. According to local Arizona publications, she was shooting Feb. 13 on location in Tucson, where 250 people were asked to meet at the Harkins Theatres Arizona Pavilions and moved to another location. Oprah had promised last month on CBS This Morning that she would shoot the special around the border towns mentioned in the book.