Random BHM Ramblings

Welcome Back, Booklovers! Today I'm using this space to express all my random thoughts about Black books and the book community during the month of February. Yes, this post will be a hot mess but it's better than tweeting it all at once.

There are not enough happy stories featuring Black friends on the shelves. And that's across age categories. Why does publishing hate Black friendships? I need more books like Wash Day Diaries but in prose form. And I'm talking about non romance books because these romance books that claim they're about Black friends too don't really incorporate the friends much. And people shouldn't only be able to go to romance when they want a happy story. When someone asked for a rec the other day I could only think about books published before 2010.

People claim to love dystopian novels so much while also mentioning how as Black readers those novels didn't love them back yet they don't read and promote the Black ones. They'll complain about the Black ones focusing on race. The white ones copies the racial struggles on non white people and applied them to sectors of white people. But people are able to digest racism better in SFF with white characters.

There are some books I love that deal with racism including a book I read this month. But some books are just so exhausting! And the way publishing things that racism is the number one thing on Black folks mind. We have more Black books in the mainstream than ever before yet the books full of self hate get the most hype and we have less books centered around the community. More nuance please! 

Indie children's publishing is working overtime to get some great stories for the kid out there. I've read some beautiful picture books recently from smaller pubs with great illustrations and fun plots. They're really doing something unique.

It's not Black Love Romance it's BLACK ROMANCE. I need people to stop trying to change the terminology just because people who can't read about Black women in a romance without white men being centered are feigning ignorance. It's always been Black romance and we don't need to change anything for them. Also acknowledge that romance between two or more white people is white romance.

Lots of editors and agents making business is business threads right now and stating they only buy what sells without fully diving into what that means. Yes business is business but business also involves a great deal of risk to grow. Those books that are held as the standard now offered something new to the market when they were released. So while pushing the same narrative over and over again provides steady predictable sales it can only be sustained but for so long. Another thing those conversations aren't going into is how much of a role marketing plays into what sells and how internal biases determine what stories get selected.

Look at all the African-inspired Black fantasies on shelves right now. Remember when publisher's and editors said those stories wouldn't sell until Disney took a risk with Black Panther and it ended up being a hit? Then everyone wanted to jump on the trend while still maintaining the idea that they could only have one each per year. And then Macmillan marketed the hell out of Children of Blood and Bone in a way we have never seen a Black YA marketed before and I have yet to see matched. And it sold.

Overall it's been interesting to see how the book community has approached Black History Month this year compared to last year. While I'm glad some of the performative people have simmered down because they can't ride waves for attention, I've noticed so many people not even bothering to engage at all this year.