We can’t get those books through editorial. I remember working for years on a series that two agents couldn’t place. Didn’t matter that I’d been mentored by Patti Gauch, and James Cross Giblin and Jane Yolen and Jerry Spinelli to name a few and had personal referrals. Authors of color routinely comment that they hear “do black people really talk that way?” “Where are the single families?” “Are these middle class families realistic?” In my own case, an editor who, having read about the geeks in a book rejected it with a note “I’m not smart enough to edit this.” Another house “loved it” until they discovered the author (me) was African American. Then the book became unsaleable. The blame? That Barnes and Noble would shelve it in the AA section of the store where it would go to die. So apparently only white authors can write about us in a way that is not common and get those books through acquisitions. And even when treading the same tired civil rights ground, the authors acclaimed for their “authenticity” are those who are not of that race (look at the National Book Awards to see the trend). Or revisit the issue of “whitewashing” covers to conceal the racial identity of both the character.

There are many AA authors who quietly confess that even when acquired the book that is published bears no resemblance to the original “voice” in the book when acquired. One author’s novel that I critiqued in its early stages – one that was originally absent of single parents and crime, was released with all of those elements shoved in by the publisher and agent, Still, the editor and agent wonder why the sales aren’t high. And how does an author comment after publication that the “authentic” voice is actually that of a white editor who changed the landscape to make the book more “saleable.”

Do you see the problem?

So yes – there are many many commercially established but lesser known authors of color producing those manuscripts – but we are finding no takers. Perhaps its time content creators developed a conduit to market directly to schools, libraries and readers Because God bless my soul not every book about African Americans needs to be about civil rights, slavery, oppression, pregnancy, abuse and disease. Maybe, just maybe, someone will recognize that authors like me write for the kids in my “urban neighborhood”. The ones who despite the literature are being accepted into top colleges in the nation having avoided all of the above. The ones who win national debates, speak more than one language, love science and study abroad. The kids who are hiding in plain site and love to read but crave something closer to their own skin.

Perhaps it’s time to point out the gatekeepers who suggest there is no market for them. As a writer, and as a mother, and as a Regional Educational Councilor for MIT, let me make it clear – if we DO NOT buy the stereotypical AA books it’s because we don’t want them.

There is a simple solution – if librarians and booksellers and schools would stop buying every blessed slavery and civil rights book produced, and demand something more substantial that speaks to the students trying to move beyond that limited scope of their history we’d see a change and you’d make my job as a college recruiter easier. If you would demand that publishers allow authors of color to write with the same post-high school vocabulary as Philip Pullman rather than being told by agents and editors to “dumb our language down” (in so many words) we’d see more readers able to get through and ACT or SAT. And we’d see more poorer students not in those situations finding ideas for how to escape their existence.

One year – at a conference in Houston, an audience member asked about the state of AA literature. Richard Peck was brave enough to stand up and say that publishing ruined the genre because they kept painting African Americans as “victims.” I was the only African American author in the audience and still love him for that to this day. I stood up and applauded.

So again – those manuscripts are being written, but publishers honest enough to speak to me quietly tell me their colleagues won’t acquire them on the guise that “blacks don’t buy books.” I give as a rebuttal, all the multiple copies of Harry Potter on our shelves. Or the fact that Stephanie Meyer only wrote five books but my daughters have 11 autographed copies on their shelves. And autographed copies of Lemony Snicket’s series…etc. They read what they enjoy, not what makes them feel sad, guilty and depressed.

They want books featuring children that look like them. That doesn’t mean they have to be slaves, or living in poverty or filling the publisher’s erroneous vision of our lives.

To publishers:

The first rule of marketing in publishing should be to stop doing what you’ve already done and failed at and come talk to the target audience.

To librarians and teachers: The first rule of getting what you need is to look at what you reward? Any “mainstream” Caldecott and Prints and Newbery books from POC out there? Any not from the same limited stable of “go to” authors? Any “fresh faces and voices?” Or are they all shoved into the Coretta Scott King category – a category the ALA Notable’s committee in Jan 2010 called “a minor award” as I sat mystified in the audience?

And when you go to ALA do you just walk by a book featuring an author of color while rushing to get in the hour long line for the latest bestseller? The one that got marketing dollars when the others did not?

I know commercially published authors producing the manuscripts you are asking about. Many featured on Book Bookshelf and other lists for their other publications. They would love to be able to stop writing spec, or civil rights or books the publishers hope will catch the eye of the CSK committee. They have contemporary and sci-fi and everything in between still waiting for a home. They want to get out of the AA/Latino/Asian box publishers and agents have trapped them in.

Want real research – you know my number……Christine Taylor-Butler, founding member Association of Childrens Authors and Illustrators of Color (ACAIC)