For the spring semester of my senior year, I'm undertaking a project with the title above. As you might have seen on the blog recently, I've been having conversations with authors who are actively interacting with the publishing industry in order to include their voices in my study. As this paper changes, I'll make updates to the post, but I thought I would share my preliminary research with all of you to show the direction that the project is taking. A mix of historical technological contextualization and contemporary societal problems, I think you will enjoy it!
In the days of the Roman Empire, bookseller and publisher were one. Vendors entered into legal contracts with authors and decided which works to display to the public in mobile bookshops, whose modern equivalent is scarcely visible in the present day. Starting in the 13th century, papermaking slowly underwent a series of major technological changes in the Western World that were influenced by the Chinese technique of woodblock printing, culminating in Gutenberg’s 15th century print revolution. With the creation of his moveable type press, the printing process reached its potential of spreading ideas and connecting audiences across the world. While China’s ancient woodblock system antedated the European press of the 15th century, the latter’s rapid expansion throughout the continent and into the New World during the Age of Exploration solidified its domination over the dissemination of information. Printing centers quickly allowed for knowledge to be circulated as scholars, merchants, and those interested in pursuing a business education came together to distribute texts that ranged from religious and cultural works to mathematical and scientific treatises. In this way, certain regions of the world which were not exposed to print technologies became excluded from the emerging industry that would shape the contemporary publishing world. The unequal nature of authorial representation in the modern American book market stems from the concentrated ownership of printing presses when they first arrived in the country, and has been exacerbated by a lack of outreach towards underrepresented groups. The escalation and adoption of 15th century European print technologies to the United States with the settlement of religious groups culminated in a modern industry that benefits white writers and has yet to fully embrace the literary contributions of women and authors of color.
The origin of the American publishing industry is deeply tied to the country’s initial dependence on Britain, which continued even after it detached itself from its European roots. Two years after the 1636 founding of Harvard College, the first printing press was brought to the United States and began circulating broadsides and religious pamphlets, since many of the country’s inhabitants were fleeing religious persecution. As a result, publishing remained in the hands of the wealthy, upper-class gentry in Massachusetts up until as late as the 19th century. As new technologies developed, “the American publishing industry was controlled by a cultural elite with ties to the former mother country so close and profitable that the British hold on American intellectual life was extremely difficult to break.” 19th century writers recognized their dependency on England and the fact that they had inherited many ideas from their European ancestors. Many urged others to examine ideas and American culture through a new light. In his introduction to “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson, a prominent writer of the American Renaissance, asked: “Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?” This separation from England helped to build a new American identity, but the result was a culture in which certain authors were canonized and remained an important part of the country’s literary history while others were excluded. Professor Adrian Johns from the University of Chicago explains that in the early 18th century, as this separate identity was being formed following the American Revolution, the “publishing industry [was] largely an Irish, anti-English immigrant cultural movement” and that there was an “ideological component” to the establishment of American printing presses. The increased production of books became “part of America’s self-image: it is a literate republic where everybody is an informed free-minded citizen because of the way that the industry is set up,” Prof. Johns adds. This was in opposition to the English model of producing few books for a higher price. By establishing separate American publishing houses, taking advantage of new, portable steam printing technologies in the early 19th century, detaching themselves culturally, the colonists gradually detached themselves from British printers to recreate the true feeling of independence in book publishing.
However, these advances did not include the elevation of African American literature, which had been present since the mid-18th century. While many Black writers recounted their experiences during enslavement and shared stories that were widely read by the general population, major publishing houses refused to publish them. Instead, they prefered captivity narratives, which described a white settler’s life after being captured by American Indian tribes. Pioneering authors of this genre, such as “Mary Rowlandson and John Williams, were reprinted at least nine times between 1770 and 1776.” On the other hand, Black authors such as Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to formally publish a book of poetry, were extensively read but very few of them were canonized despite their wide readership at the time. This is the conflict at the heart of ongoing discussions regarding the publishing industry. While publishing outlets— mainstream or specialized— allow a writer to reach an audience, critics shape a literary curriculum for future readers based on homogeneity. Throughout American history, this has overwhelmingly profited white and male writers. In 1941, F. O. Matthiessen wrote a book titled American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman, which would define the exclusive nature of American literature throughout the 20th century. The “racist concepts structured in the idea of renaissance would be mobilized along with nationalist rhetoric in Matthiessen's work to define nineteenth-century Anglo literature as ‘American’ accomplishment and heritage” in a way that isolated African American writers. Only a select few, such as Frederick Douglass, were chosen as the representatives of Black literature in academia in spite of their popularity.
However, near the start of the Civil War, dime novels presented a new opportunity for middle class writers. These small, loosely-bound, approximately 100-page stories embodied the mass production that finally became possible in the mid-19th century as a result of new mechanized print technologies and the emergence of multiple publishing houses. While the attempt to democratize publishing was successful in enabling more writers to share their work, people of color remained excluded. Such decisions didn’t make sense, considering that African American writers were widely read. Within five months of its publication, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass sold out with audiences eager to read the story of how an individual had escaped the chains of slavery. Despite such potential for profit and readership, the leadership in the main publishing companies remained in the hands of white printers who were unwilling to disrupt the racial inequity within the industry, making it so that the American Anti-Slavery Society had to publish the book. From 1760 to the 1865, around 100 fugitive or former slaves published autobiographies of their experiences which, despite their popularity, were not considered by mainstream publishing houses.
Examples of such authors are numerous. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who helped slaves make their escape through the Underground Railroad, was one of the best-selling authors of the 19th century with her 1892 work Iola Leroy, Or Shadows Uplifted, which was highly acclaimed by publications such as the Philadelphia Times. Also popular during her lifetime, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins reached audiences across the country in an extremely polarized epoch of American history with her novel, Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South. The reason why contemporary students almost never study these two authors, or other female/Black writers of the time, is because academics of the 20th century, such as Matthiessen, canonized writers like Hawthorne, Emerson, and Melville. The latter group of writers did not sell as widely as some of the women who wrote at the time, demonstrating the problematic approach that critics like Matthiessen took when building a canonical list of American writers. This pattern continued until the explosion of Black literature, art, and music known as the Harlem Renaissance, a monumental time period for Black writers who finally got their work published and were recognized by audiences across the nation.
The 1920s was a time of expansion for the publishing industry, where writers of color finally found some journals to publish their work. Many of them “found outlets in the radical small press of the 1920s,” including The Messenger and Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. These magazines were founded and catered towards African Americans, representing a major shift in who owned the means of production. In these magazines, writers of color could comment on established culture, criticize the country’s leaders, and develop Black intellectual culture. Despite these small outlets, even the most prominent Black authors, including Langston Hughes, found themselves dependent on white patrons if they wished to access mainstream publishing houses, bringing them back to the days of dependency when Black writers sought white abolitionist outlets to distribute their slave narratives. Throughout the 20th century, this dependency remained constant. Ishmael Reed, who wrote a 1972 novel titled Mumbo Jumbo which tackled white supremacy, jazz, and Voodoo in one overarching work, faced an immense amount of difficulty getting his book published. The fact that “most of the books that follow[ed] Reed's ideology [were] printed at obscure publishing houses” limited their ability to influence racial and intellectual discussions more broadly throughout the United States. Admittedly, Reed’s ideas were very radical and his prose experimental. Even more mainstream figures, though, such as James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, had difficulty negotiating with the publishing world despite being widely read and appreciated by American audiences. As a Black and gay writer, Baldwin was told by his New York editors that “publishing a black writer was fascinating, but publishing a black homosexual writer was impossible,” showing the difficulty of balancing a racial and sexual identity at the time. For Ralph Ellison, his “Random House editors did indeed suggest revisions to Invisible Man that helped to strip away its residual connections with revolutionary politics'' in order to tone down the powerful themes that were present in his work. Whether it was Reed’s radical prose or Ellison’s Invisible Man, the open exchange of ideas that Black writers proposed would only come much later with the gradual recognition of civil rights that has continued into the 21st century.
As conversations about race were sparked in the summer of 2020, white and Black authors shared the disparities between their advances and salaries from publishing houses. The #PublishingPaidMe movement brought a decades-long conversation to the spotlight while challenging the industry to increase diversity in authorship. The historical racism of large publishing companies is astounding. When Toni Morrison—an African-American writer who promoted the work of other marginalized writers— was “an editor at Random House from 1967 to 1983… 3.3 percent of the 806 books published” during her tenure “were written by Black authors.” While this number seems small already, they became even more upsetting after Morrison departed from her position in 1983. In fact, “[o]f the 512 books published by Random House between 1984 and 1990… just two were written by Black authors,” one of which includes Morrison’s Beloved.
Fortunately, efforts are being made by publishing houses to diversify their lists and increase their transparency about racial progress. Dr. Craig Santos Perez, a professor in the English Department at the University of Hawai’i, has published many books on the topic of indigenous identity and Native American studies. He recounts, “As a Pacific Islander it was difficult to publish my work because many editors did not know about the cultures or histories of the Pacific, so they could not relate to the work. This has changed in the past several years as editors have become more interested in diversity.” Also knowledgeable about recent changes is Lewis Buzbee, author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop and professor at the University of San Francisco. He has worked in the publishing industry as a bookseller and a publisher and explains that in his experience, he has “seen publishers trying to diversify their lists, and as a bookseller I always took on the task of introducing readers to a broader range of titles.” While the process has been slow, he agrees with Dr. Perez that it has sped “up greatly in the last 10 years or so” as a result of the synchrony which is possible between local booksellers and large-scale publishers.
One key component to addressing this lack of diversity has to do with reshaping the leadership within major publishing houses. In Zora Neale Hurston’s 1950 essay titled “What White Publishers Won’t Print,” she identified the fact that there is an “indifference” towards “the internal life of educated minorities” because “it is assumed that all non-Anglo Saxons are uncomplicated stereotypes.” In order to introduce the experiences of various ethnic groups to the publishing industry, the leadership and management itself needs to change. Fortunately, publishing houses are responding to this concern by “making senior-level hires and structural changes.” An example of this is Simon & Schuster’s announcement of the “hiring of a new vice president and executive editor: Aminda Marqués González, the executive editor of The Miami Herald” in October of 2020. Another way that publishing houses have strengthened the voices of authors who have historically struggled with the homogeneity of the industry is through a commitment to justice in their lists. Mr. Derek Krissoff, the Director of West Virginia University Press, explains that “[s]ocial justice has been one of the main concerns of our list for several years” and that “the biggest change since summer '20 is the greater willingness of larger review outlets to engage books written by a more representative range of authors.” Professor Nina Schuyler, who teaches at the University of San Francisco, sees “a concerted effort to diversify the voices in publishing. Now there are many panels about this topic.” Indeed, many publishing houses are finally hosting conversations about diversification within the industry while introducing BIPOC members to their staff.
However, arguably more important than discussing the topic is acting on these commitments and paying writers of color the same as their white contemporaries for a work of equal literary merit. Deesha Philyaw, whose book, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, is familiar with the process as an emerging author. “There’s the invitation to get published” and then there is the question of “are you going to offer us deals comparable to what white writers are getting offered?... Are Black writers getting publishing deals? Are they getting ones that are commensurate with their stature in the industry?” she says. This is why a movement such as #PublishingPaidMe was so powerful: “it removed the veil” so that Black and white authors could compare their publishing stories through numbers, explains Ms. Philyaw.
An industry which started as a concerted, anti-English effort evolved slowly over time to only profit the fortunate printers who inherited the European technologies brought from overseas. Nowadays, five— and soon to be four— major publishing houses have monopolized the publishing of books and still mirror the concerted ownership of the industry from previous centuries. Since the 1600s, the process of opening up publishing to more writers has been extremely slow, though progress has been visible in recent years. “It benefits all of us when all writers are given a place to tell their stories,” says Buzbee. And with new outlets such as Amazon’s Direct Publishing services, it is easier than ever before for writers to share their voices to the world, though the question of financial stability remains unsolved due to the luck that is involved with finding a publisher who can support and share one’s work. “Anybody can put their work out there, but the problem is getting it seen,” says playwright Ms. Michelle Kolos Brooks.
Works Cited
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