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Hey y’all! It’s me, PN once more with your bi-weekly fix of all things romance-related. As always, I hope that the last weekend found you well. I’m trying to stay in the warm fluffy cloud that is romance considering Texas is removing the mask mandate and allowing businesses to open up to 100% capacity on Wednesday. I won’t lie; it is more than a bit overwhelming and anxiety inducing. Just to alleviate any concerns there may be, I’m still planning on wearing one, no matter what the decree says. But, I know that a lot of other people, especially those that never wore one to begin with, are going to take this and run with it. Some of these may include my own family members.
The silver lining here is that I’ve already seen a number of businesses and libraries saying that they were still going to require masks. So, at least some people are still trying to keep precautionary measures in place. The cynical part of me feels we’ll be back at square one by the end of this month, especially with spring break being next week, but only time will tell.
It’s a “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst” situation right now.
The Ripped Bodice released their 2020 Diversity Report last Tuesday, to showcase the state of romance books published by authors of color and Indigenous authors. And, as in previous years, it was quickly shared across the various social platforms. Danika reported on Book Riot as a news piece and sadly it doesn’t appear much has changed in the last five years.
However, this year some good points were also brought up as to the true validity of these findings. This came from a variety of people in the bookish community, including authors, bloggers, and podcast hosts. This was something that was buzzing all around Twitter in the last days, but a good summary of the constructive criticisms can be found in this thread.
And, upon further reflection, I can see the reason for, at the very least, a little bit of concern. According to the chart listed in the report, of the 16 traditional publishing houses mentioned, one allegedly ignored all forms of communication, and five declined to participate. While on paper, that seems damning, we really don’t know why those companies chose not to participate.
They could have not felt comfortable sharing that information about their authors, especially ones who may not have their pictures on their books. This isn’t information that they can just give on demand for a myriad of reasons. Their authors may have expressed a desire to not have that information shared. And, if that information couldn’t be found out, then it was, by their own admission on the FAQ, guessed.
I wasn’t aware that this has been the case and, frankly, that is a huge concern for me, because you can’t always tell by looking at someone what their racial identity is. Depending on what part of the continental United States determines what people will guess my racial ethnicity to be. And very rarely are they correct. Now, I’m not shy about saying I’m biracial and there have been a few correct guesses in the past. But it comes down to that, most times, someone can’t tell by looking at me alone. It would have to be confirmed by me before you could put it down as fact.
One thing that seems to be constant is that the intent behind the report is pure and I don’t disagree with that. When it first started, it was very new and it did shake things up. Five years later though, the methodology needs to change. More work needs to be done to ensure that the correct information is being obtained. They even state, on the same FAQ, that they’re not statisticians so the margin for error is possible.
One way to do this would be to hire a data analyst to gather and properly calculate the findings. Otherwise, it can come across as the same information every year with a different presentation, which was one of the recurring concerns that was brought up. And honestly? It’s not like it’s new news or something that we didn’t already know. We already knew that there was a problem in traditional publishing with things like #PublishingPaidMe floating around recently.
The next step is what can be done about it. How do we make publishing houses accountable for not uplifting these types of voices? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that as readers we have a lot of power in what we read and which authors we support. And that is a good first step in the right direction.
Speaking of diversifying your reading, you may want to peruse this article all about Asian-American love stories to add to your TBR.
Check out this great piece on why we need more romances with older heroines.
Exciting announcement for all us Lore Olympus fans!
And Alyssa Cole dropped this awesome bomb on us too!
Looking for some quick steamy reads? Silvana’s got you!
New Releases
Here are some of the new releases coming this week.
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Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
The Devil in Her Bed by Kerrigan Bryne
Everything After by Jill Santopolo
Queen’s Ransom by Layla Reyne
Learned Reactions by Jaycee Ellis*
*You can also find an excerpt from this one on Frolic.
Deals
And here are some of the deals I managed to find.
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Teddy Spenser Isn’t Looking for Love by Kim Fielding is available for $1.99
Who’s That Earl by Susanna Craig can be snagged for $0.99
The Wife He Needs by Brenda Jackson is $1.99
That’s all for now! Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you later this week. As per usual, you can catch me on Twitter under @PScribe801. Until next time.