by Sonya Kimble-Ellis
With the advent of the Kindle and other digital alternatives to the book, the publishing industry is having its share of struggles. Major bookstores are closing locations, while publishers are cutting back the number of releases and reducing author advances. As early as 2006, bookstore sales had begun to fall and have yet to rebound.
Despite these factors, a number of major publishers report that Black books are doing well. Black Expressions Book Club, which is owned by Bookspan, has over 460,000 members. That’s 100,000 more than the number taking part in the company’s popular Book of the Month Club. Markus Wilhelm, the parent company’s CEO, expects that Black Expressions will have double-digit growth in members and sales over the next several years.
The Association of American Publishers recently reported that U.S. publishers had net sales of $23.9 billion dollars in 2009. It’s estimated that African-Americans contribute more than $300 million a year to this number.
Despite strong sales, Black literature still has some challenges with which to contend. Among them are judgments made about content, unequal compensation, and segregated sections in bookstores.
Author William Fredrick Cooper credits some of the inequality in publishing to a lack of quality writing. “Waiting to Exhale, the book that started all this, not only told a story that needed to be told, but it was good writing,” said Cooper, who penned There’s Always a Reason and Six Days in January. “We’re not taking the time to do that, so how can we expect to be taken seriously by publishers or the public? People are churning out lots of books, but are they well written?”
Author Carleen Brice offers another take. “It seems with all the other entertainment options, books aren’t selling the way they used to,” said Brice. “I know of several authors who are former NY Times best-selling writers whose books are no longer selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Now they’re selling more like dozens of thousands. Where did those readers go?”
Brice said that the change could possibly be a result of readers having more authors to choose from. “If so,” Brice added, “that could be a good thing. Diversity of voices is a good thing.” Brice had her first book, Orange, Mint and Honey, turned into the Lifetime movie, Sins of the Mother. Her second novel, Children of the Waters, is on stands now.
Show Them the Money
The book publishing industry has always had huge disparities in the advances that companies give to authors. Contributing factors range from genre and number of books printed to an author’s track record and (dare we say it) possibly the racial makeup of the author and her audience.
In a New York Times essay published last April, author Michael Meyer said most publishers pay an average of $30,000 for mainstream books. There are, however, exceptions to that rule. Some authors earn as much as $60-$80,000. In rare cases, advances have gone into the millions. Last year, Scribner paid $5 million to author Audrey Niffenegger for her second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry.
Author and blogger Brenda Hiatt has been compiling research on book advances. A romance writer by trade, she notes that many Harlequin imprints pay an average of $4,000 to authors for their first book and $5,000 for subsequent novels.
Kensington, which publishes a number of Black titles, reportedly offers $3,000 for first books and an average of $3,800 for subsequent books, though some authors have received as much as $60,000.
