Why Representation Matters

Last week I posted about why inclusion matters to me, and how MSB is doing compared to the rest of the traditional publishing industry. (Check it out here.)

In case you missed it, traditional book publishers have a big problem.

Between 2019 and 2021, only 23.5% of authors, illustrators, and translators with book deals at Penguin Random House (the #1 publisher in the United States) identified as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color.

Those numbers are disproportionate to the U.S. population as a whole, 60% of which identify as white and 40% as BIPOC. And that’s just racial and ethnic diversity. The report didn’t get into gender and sexual identities, ability or disability, or socioeconomic status.

I feel strongly that these numbers need to change, for two reasons.

First — your voice matters.

Research overwhelmingly shows that when we have diversity in basically anything — whether it’s business or books or friendships — we all benefit. A recent article from Marketwatch showed that companies with diverse staff earn 19% higher revenue and are 70% more likely to capture new markets than organizations who do not actively recruit and support talent from diverse identities. From a purely business perspective, publishers are missing out by not offering book deals to a wide…