If there was anyone who had been aggressively seg-book-gated, it was Millenia Black. Black, born in the post-Civil Rights era, grew up in racially and culturally diverse South Florida. Says Black, “I had no experience with being racially discriminated against until I went into publishing.”
Here are the Cliffs Notes. Black had self-published The Great Pretender, a novel exploring universal themes like infidelity, betrayal, internal conflict over one’s misdeeds, and the like. The novel sported white characters and a race-neutral cover. After brisk sales, Penguin, one of the Big Six publishers, acquired The Great Pretender. When Penguin placed black characters on the new Great Pretender cover – despite the fact that the characters were not African American – and attempted to market the book to the niche African American audience, Black balked and when her wishes were ignored, sued. The parties settled in 2008, and Black cannot discuss the case. Which is fine with her. She has said all that she will say about the matter. “You get very angry and there’s some bitterness, but you have to get over that and be productive.”
Black maintains, though, that the practices and reasons for her suit still exist. “I think the publishing industry is very much a pro-White industry.” It is, she says, is a microcosm of society at large. Black maintains that publishers do not conscious view the practice of race-based marketing as systematic oppression of writers of color; rather, they are motivated by the belief that such targeting better ensures sales. Conversely, authors like Kathryn Stockett and Sue Monk Kidd can have runaway success with stories predominantly featuring African American characters because they are White. Publishers do not use the race of White authors as a genre in itself, and, as such, are not looking to target their work to any race-based niche market.
Because of their marketing practices, though, publishers have inadvertently proved the sacred cow that Whites would not read fiction about African Americans as nothing more than mythology. Much to Black’s delight. “I love it when that happens,” she says. “What does it prove? That white people will buy books about Black people.”
Moreover, Black asserts, Stockett and Monk’s success illustrates that publishers are actively discriminating against non-white authors who write the same books as their White counterparts. Black insists that this revelation means that publishers have no more valid reasons for not exerting the same marketing push behind authors of color as they would for White authors. “Their argument is beaten down,” she declares.
Time will tell if publishers will come to the same obvious conclusion as Black. In the aftermath of her lawsuit, Black has no mainstream publisher. She insists, though, that she has had more success as a self-published author, in that she can and has better positioned her work to sell. She has the “type of career I want to have, being in this skin.” She also “took a lot of heat from Black people [who said] ‘You shouldn’t be writing white.’” Then there was that matter of erotica author Zane calling Black out. Was it worth it?
“Absolutely worth it. Because the alternative was to take my agent’s advice, as well as the advice of others, and take a pseudonym, and don’t tell anyone you’re black,” she says. “Someone had to take a stand and show what happens when you don’t have a white skin in America.”
Black, who had “always dreamed of being like Jackie Collins or Danielle Steel,” remains positive. As she said in a 2008 blog post:
…Despite the current atmosphere, I still have a great deal of faith in the American publishing industry. I am an American. And I believe we can repair the hurtful, Jim Crowesque climate that plagues American publishing. We must… I maintain confidence that my stories will find their way into the American mainstream, where they belong. Like any other, they deserve to have a fair chance in the marketplace, don't they?
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