Black Writers Face Greater Challenges In UK Publishing, Industry Leaders Say

Black writers matter.

According to some industry insiders, UK publishing is now less accessible to Black authors than it was five years ago.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement prompted some publishing houses to confront racial inequality. However, some literary professionals claim that the number of Black writers being published has significantly decreased over the past 18 months.

Sharmaine Lovegrove, cultural strategist at Hachette UK and co-founder of The Black Writers’ Guild, stated that it is now more complicated for new Black authors than before 2020. Lovegrove notes that the industry struggles to build diverse audiences and cater to the specific needs of Black authors, who are sometimes labeled as “difficult” when they advocate for themselves.

“The biggest mistake was seeing it as a trend as opposed to an opportunity to cultivate something meaningful that was missing,” Lovegrove told The Guardian.

Selina Brown, founder of the Black British Book Festival (BBBF), shares these sentiments. In an interview with The Guardian, she pointed out the absence of cultural sensitivity in the publishing industry.

“Marketing teams within publishing follow a process: they target white consumers,” she said. “They put all the books on a conveyor belt, and it’s the same every time. It can’t work. You cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach to every book,” she said in an interview with The Guardian.

Brown also mentioned that she has observed a significant decline in the number of Black authors pitched to her. She pointed out that some publishers view diverse authors as a “risk.”

Despite these challenges, Brown’s brainchild, the BBBF, continues to grow. It operates a community library in London and plans to open another. In collaboration with the Glastonbury Festival, the BBBF launched a children’s book festival in Birmingham.

This year’s festival will be held March 29 at Manchester Central Library. Its lineup includes notable writers such as Kit de Waal, Kehinde Andrews, and Jeffrey Boakye. Admission to the event is free.