Happy Blogoversary Ari! Also, Some Activism
Sunday, July 11, 2010
We know that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU rushed out to purchase your very own copy of His Own Where the SECOND WE REVIEWED IT, such is our Mighty Influence upon your tender Author-minds! But in case one or two of you forgot to buy it, Ari is giving away a copy. Go and wish her a happy blogoversary while you're at it! AND HOW DO WE WISH ARI A HAPPY BLOGOVERSARY? By WRITING A LETTER TO THE CEOS OF BORDERS AND BARNES AND NOBLE ASKING POLITELY FOR MORE BOOKS BY AND ABOUT PEOPLE OF COLOR. That's how. Here is a nice sample letter if you need help. Jaime Carey is the CFO of B&N and Michael Edwards is the President and CEO of Borders. We found their emails with some diligent Googling. Just saying. YOU LIVE FOR THE FIGHT WHEN THAT'S ALL THAT YOU'VE GOT.
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And we're halfway there.
Maybe it's just because I live in a racially mixed area of my city, but I've never had this sort of problem with my B&N or Borders. Do some of the bookstores relegate a stack to "African-American Fiction"? That seems a little 1950's of them. We have a big table set up that says "African American Interests" set up, and all the books are written by AA authors and have AA people on the cover, but then there's still others that are intermingled under the larger series of stacks, simply called "Fiction" and done alphabetically.
This tends to make me think that sending letters to CEOs isn't as helpful as sending letters or voicing complaints in person to your respective big-chain booksellers as stores seem to have some sort of control over how merchandise is displayed.
Dear Ken, the issue is that B&N and Borders' buyers aren't buying books by people of color at the top level, so a lot of really fantastic, critically acclaimed titles aren't making it into the stores at all (most recently, Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix). Michael Edwards is the person responsible for merchandise in every single Borders in the country, very literally.
Also, floor staff at chain stores have next to no say over what gets displayed on those tables. Publishers pay for that space. WHICH IS ANOTHER REASON TO SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE, should you be lucky enough to have one.
Good stuff. I'll get a couple of letters written.
Thank you for the blogoversary wishes le r and even bigger thanks for spreading the word about the letter writing campaign!
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