Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
If they weren’t collecting demographic info...then how would they know what the races of the authors were? Collecting demographic info would only ENABLE preferential OR discriminatory behavior.
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I've had the same argument as a reader, I believe it was on Book riot. I read a little over 300 books a year, and when I saw the yearly challenge was mainly based on reading with other races and genders, I brought up that - as a coincidence - almost all my authors were female so there was no reason to read more female writers. It depends on the genre you read - I read a lot of Urban Fantasy (mainly female writers), romance (mainly female writers), cozy mysteries (mainly female writers)...you get the picture.
Someone brought up the race of the author and I had to look into it. I responded I honestly had no idea because I never look at pictures of authors, and mainly never read up on authors that I read. I just go by the plot synopsis and sometimes the cover. I don't know what race the author is when I'm reading the book., which people then said was unintentional systematic bias within the system from the publishing company, etc. I didn't join the challenge after that, it was too intensive for the year with how I usually read, which is more mood-reading.
Edited to add:
I want to be clear no members were accusing me of unintentional racism. The point that I've heard made is that through promotion, social network websites, and publishers, that the books that were landing in the hands of readers were mainly from white authors. They were not stating that readers were selecting books based on author race, but that most of the books being pushed toward us and actually published happened to be based on race from the publisher end of things, based on the marketing companies, etc. As to the truth and stats of that, I have no idea.