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$2 million book deals about the Trump administration are anything but brave

$2 million book deals about the Trump administration are anything but brave. Vox.

The book publishing industry has many problems, but the one I find most chilling as a former book editor who now reports in the industry is that people who have vital information about our democracy are rewarded for putting such info in books rather than coming forward.

For book lovers such as myself, the silver lining of Trump’s election was the possibility that readers would be looking for escapism and big ideas in art. So it’s particularly demoralizing to watch publishers package the ongoing debasement of our country as entertainment. If Trump’s best political weapon is being at the apex of an infotainment media system that is consumed like cable news, then publishers aren’t obligated to play his game.

Caribbean region needs publishers

Caribbean region needs publishers. Caribbean Life. The state of publishing in the Caribbean has regressed to the conditions of the 1940s, and apart from Barbados, anglophone Caribbean governments give short shrift to the literary arts.

So says Vincentian and leading Caribbean novelist and literary critic, Dr. Nigel Thomas, who while complimenting Barbados at a recent awards function for its vibrancy in promoting the arts, said the island has far to go for greater organisation in permanently recognising its outstanding artistes.

… Thomas who lives in Quebec and is author of 11 books and five novels contends that the absence of recognition for creators in literary arts is part of a bigger problem in the English-speaking Caribbean where those who pen from their imagination have little or no publishing opportunities.

Adventures in Publishing Outside the Gates

publishing-industry-small.jpegAdventures in Publishing Outside the Gates by Wendy C. Ortiz. Gay Mag. It can be a long road to publication when signing with a big five publisher. Editors come and go. Books get put on hold for a variety of reasons. Here was a small press publisher who wanted to publish this book the following year. No big publisher could do that. I had no faith at that point that anyone would give me a second look — they already hadn’t. I wanted to hold out for the editors who never responded to my agent, still hopeful I’d get a chance with a big publisher with what would be my first book, but I was learning they never would.

… I wonder about an industry that wants to pay seven figures for a fictional book about sexual abuse. I wonder about an industry that is constantly taken to task for perpetuating white supremacy in its mostly-white field, from receptionist to first reader to editor to CEO.

…My story is just one example of how the publishing industry works. Gatekeepers have kept me, and so many others, out. Now is the time to call out the publishing industry (as we have, as we do, as we keep having to do) for its racism and small-mindedness about who gets published and who does not; who gets massive advances and who does not.