Publishing's lack of diversity fails readers: author Rai

AFP ^ | March 6, 2016 | Liz Thomas

[C19fan]

As the film and music industries grapple with the fallout from the race rows that dogged the Oscars and the Brit Awards, English author Bali Rai warns publishing too has a serious diversity issue.

The award-winning writer, who has Indian heritage but was born and grew up in Leicester, echoes critics of Hollywood and the Academy Awards when he suggests gatekeepers are only recognising a narrow band of talent and ideas, which does not properly reflect society.

[C19fan]

So I guess Kazuo Ishiguro and V. S. Naipaul don't count. /src on/Hey ho hey ho dead white males got to go./src off/

[Pearls Before Swine]

“Let them write books.”

—with apologies to Marie Antoinette

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Don’t like the gate keepers in Publishing? Self-publish. You’ll make more money, get to do whatever you like, have more contact with your fans, and be in complete control of your career.

Of course, you will never beat Noah Ward for a Hugo, but who will after this last year?

[StAntKnee]

If there’s a lack of diversity, it ain’t what this guy says, all right. Try getting a conservative book published at any but a handful of conservative-labeled houses. There’s certainly no lack of drivel coming from over-represented classes of authors.

That said, if you want to publish in this world, you might just have to work harder, so instead of whining about diversity, write harder and better than the rest. Hmmmm, where have I heard that before?

[wbill]

Jeez, if only someone would invent something where a person can publish anything that they've written, all by themselves. And anyone can download any published work of literature from anywhere in the world, any time they'd like.

/s

diversity drama queens. what fools.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I’ve bought all of Dinesh D’Souza’s books and the Obama regime put him in jail for it.

[sphinx]

If Rai were intellectually serious, he would recognize this as a business opportunity. No one is stopping him, or anyone else, from publishing books aimed at purportedly under-represented groups.

[Albion Wilde]

I’ve bought all of Dinesh D’Souza’s books and the Obama regime put him in jail for it.

I was just thinking that myself. His latest, Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party is just terrific!

[Verginius Rufus]

Publishers are guilty of publishing books they think people will want to buy. That's racist. They need to have quotas--13% of the books have to have black authors.

The way around that, if they can't find enough black authors, is to have white ghostwriters with a black person's name as author. It worked with Dreams from My Father.