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The Structure of the Book Publishing Industry in Canada Pub 371 (Fall 2017)
Omosigho Ibizugbe
My project looks into the world of Canadian publishing, and explores the presence of only a few voices for Afro Canadian publishers and writer in the Canadian publishing industry. My podcast guests and I will be unpacking the lack of representation, access, opportunities and what can be done to prolong the longevity of existing and new Afro Canadian publishers and writers. In my podcast I am having two guests on two different episodes.
Keywords: Canadian Publishing, Diversity, Representation, Literature, Publishers
Good day my amazing readers, hope everyone is geared up and ready for the mix of rain and snow the beautiful city of Vancouver has been displaying the past few days?
Today I will quickly cover a topic that I have always been interested in unpacking, which is the lack of diversity in the Canadian industry. We have talked so much about marketing, publicity, sales and literary Canadian events the past few weeks. But it is only right to also talk about the kinds of books we see out there and the lack of diversity in the kinds of title and content we see in the Canadian publishing industry. As most of you are aware, I am not an expert in Canadian publishing as these are my personal views and opinion on things in the industry.
Diversity is a real and important issue, when kids are looking at books and the books are not that reflective of what you see in the classroom and the societies they live in, then how accurate and honest in the Canadian publishing industry. The saying start them young falls into all ramifications, we need book more diversity starting in children's book and a more diverse representations of the content and characters depicted in such books. After much consideration in 2014 kids Can president Lisa Lyons Johnston says the company has “made a concerted effort because people are asking for diversity.” That’s visible in its fall release of the book Families Around the World, by Margriet Ruurs and Jessica Rae Gordon. “It has all kinds of families, families with two mothers, families where the kids are adopted, so we’re really making an effort so everyone can see themselves,” at least they are taking a step into the right direction by creating such books to make kids understand at such an early age what Canada and it’s people represent.
Firstly, let’s talk about the need to create a diverse Canadian publishing industry. What does this achieve? Diverse stories, diverse voices and representation of what canada stands for. I am not just talking about the lack of inclusion of people of colour, but also people who identify as Queer and people with disabilities. We need to get clear who we are making books for and who we are selling them to. If we are being honest when we talk about mainstream book readers and who the industry makes books for, we usually think of the white Canadian population and that they are the majority of book buyers. But if we look around, isn’t that contrary to what we see in Canada? Then why do majority of books just target the white audience? Are people of colour and every other reader, not Canadian enough for the publishing industry, or do they just have one market to focus all their money on? Just something to get us thinking about the problems in the Canadian publishing industry. Because think about this, the main reason why we have best sellers in Canadian literature is because the book reached its full potential by simply not selling to one market but also by selling beyond their initial target audience. Putting a limit to the kinds of content they want circulated in the market is detrimental to the growth of the industry.
This isn’t a rant I promise, I just go off based on the information I have found at bookstores and literary awards and finding lack of diverse books on the shelves and award lists. And lack of research in this issue has made it rather difficult to get a source and put the numbers to great use when explaining this problem. However I have found a few data sets courtesy of Ms Leonicka Valcius, who is the founder of DiverseCanlit and holds a chair of The FOLD Festival board of directors which is the festival of literary diversity.
These informations are on literary awards data set is from the year 2002-2013.
The Writers’ Trust of Canada is a charitable organization that seeks to advance, nurture, and celebrate Canadian writers and writing, founded in 1976 by Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Graeme Gibson, Margaret Laurence, and David Young.
Writers’ Trust programming is designed to champion excellence in Canadian writing, to improve the status of writers, and to create connections between writers and readers.
http://www.writerstrust.com/About.aspx
After much research done by Ms leonicka Valcius, she found out that from 2002-2013, 89.69% of winners where all White writers, 2.17% Middle Eastern writers, 4.35% Black writers and 2.17% Indigenous writers. The numbers might have changed for the better after 2013, but just going off of this data set, where exactly are people of colour in Canada go to get their works recognized, publicized and rewarded, when literary awards in Canada aren’t honoring enough writers of colour which makes it seem like their works aren’t worthy enough.
TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards celebrate excellence in children’s literature by rewarding the best literary work by Canadian authors for children aged one through 12. Sponsored by TD — and administered by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre in association with the CBC, this is one of the largest prizes in children’s book awards. Since the program started in 2004, 120 books have been honoured through the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award in both official languages.
https://tdreads.com/home/td-supported-initiatives/td-canadian-childrens-literatures-awards/
If you look closely at those numbers, it just seems like they gave the writers of colour awards to fulfill all righteousness as the numbers seem so close knitted. Which is really disappointing seeing how the government pushes the notion of Canada so diverse and multicultural, but our creative works says otherwise. What are your thoughts on this?
Good day, my amazing readers hope you had a warm night and don’t forget to start your day with a hot cup of coffee or tea. If you recall last week on my blog I explored the lack of diversity in the Canadian publishing industry, from my point of view. This week I’m looking into the lack of Afro Canadians in the publishing industry, again i need to remind you that I am no industry expert and these are my personal views.
As an avid reader, I always love meeting with like minded people to discuss books and get recommendations. But one thing I noticed was anytime we were talking about writers of African descent, we would always talk about the likes of Chimamanda Adichie, Maya Angelou, Oprah and Connie Briscoe. But we have never talked about Afro Canadian authors except from Austin Clarke and Lawrence Hill, don't get me wrong there are many other Afro Canadian writers (here’s a few others: Wayde Compton, George Elliott Clarke, Esi Edugyan, )but not many of them have a large exposure and popularity in the Canadian publishing industry. And I was pleasantly surprised on the lack of Afro Canadian owned publishing houses in Canada. From my research I found only Commodore Books, which could also explain why we see only a few Afro Canadian authors releasing books back to back. Do they have fellow Afro Canadians in publishing houses to advocate for them and the type of content they write?Why is that? Do they have as much access and opportunity as White authors do in the publishing industry?
Are they not authentically Canadian or Canadian enough to get the same treatment as White authors?
With this being a problem in the industry, what can literary agents and the Canadian publishing industry do to change this? What can we as readers do to also help change this?
All these questions will be discussed in my two part podcast series exploring; the lack of Afro Canadians in the Canadian publishing industry. The first part will be an introduction into the topic as I unpack this issue.
For the second part I am very pleased to announce I will be having Ms Leonicka Valcius, who is the founder of DiverseCanLit which is an online twitter conversations about the various problems in the Canadian publishing industry. She also hold a chair of The Fold Festival (Festival of Literary Diversity) board of directors. We will also be unpacking this issue and get her perspective as a Canadian publishing expert and have her answer some questions. Do tune in and join the conversation by commenting!
First part of the Series with Omoh
Second part of the series with Léonicka Valcius
Wally De Backer. (2012). Somebody That I used to Know [Goteye featuring Kimbra]. On Punk Goes Pop 5 [digital download]. Australia: Columbia Records.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
© Omosigho Ibizugbe, 2017
Available from: http://journals.sfu.ca/courses/index.php/pub371/issue/view/1