good morning. Good morning, everybody. We have an amazing panel in store for you for breakfast. But first, what do you think you too, can have one of these, donate to abfi at the welcome desk, and you can have a sweatshirt or a t shirt, and you'll be warm instead of frozen. There you go. And
and the bracelet I like, so I would like to bring up ABA Dei, a and communications senior copy editor Britt Camacho, to introduce the panel and who will be moderating. And if any of you seen her before, she's amazing in Action.
Good morning, everyone. We'll just get settled on stage anywhere you might so as Joy said, I'm Britt Camacho, I'm ABA dei and communications senior copy editor, and I'm very excited to welcome you to spotlight on black publishing today, like a spotlight, it illuminates something that is already present. So we're hoping that today, by the end of the session, you understand the importance and the continuous place of black publishing and publishers in the ecosystem at large. So to get us started, I will introduce everybody from nearest to first. We'll get it going, author, editor, publisher and children's community. She's a co author of just us books, a publisher and packager of books that celebrate African American children, as well as co author of bright eyes, brown skin. When I hear spiels, her forthcoming book is just book for house I music.
Next to Shell is Bria Reagan. Bria is a senior editor at Delacorte Press, where she works on middle grade and young adult fiction. She also edits for joy revolution, an imprint of Random House children's books, co founded by authors Nicola and David Yoon, focusing on commercial teen romance is written by people of color.
Last but certainly not least is Kwame malio, the number one New York Times bestselling author of the Tristan strong series. And if you don't know the books in the series, Tristan strong punches a hole in the sky. Tristan strong destroys the world. And Tristan strong keeps punching he's the publisher of freedom fire, an imprint of Disney, Hyperion, devoted to stories about the black diaspora by black creators. Welcome and thank you all for doing this.
So to get started, y'all, I'd just love to ask, how did you become publishers and editors? What drove you to publish children's books by for and about black life, specifically? And Cheryl, I'll start with you.
Well, this is a wonderful, wonderful place to be to talk about publishing, to talk about books. I love books, and we really got started as parents who were looking for good books for our children. And this was at that time there were only a few black authors and illustrators who were published by the trade and who were getting really exposure, you know, Walter Dean, Myers, maybe Eloise, Greenfield, Virginia, Hamilton, and just us books, the company, independent children's book company that my husband Wade and I founded. It was founded in 1988 really, to find books for our own children. So that's how I got started in publishing, although I had been in publishing for like years before, working on school textbooks for a company in Boston. So amazing.
We're glad you're here. Thank you, Kwame.
Oh, we just oh, we're skipping. Okay. No pressure. I thought I had more time. I think at the heart, and I could, I may be assuming, but I'm gonna assume this anyway. I think at the heart of every publisher is a reader who loves books, right? And so I think if you have ever shared some a book title joyously with another person, have you read this? You need to read this. You're getting all of your friends in on it. Next thing you know, you started a book club, right? You're recommending titles. Next thing you know, you're bringing them into the classroom or ordering them through your library's request form for the library to stock them. Next thing you know, you're starting a newsletter to talk about books by black authors, because a title that you Why has no one told me that this existed? So you start a newsletter, and then it's isn't too much for you to you and you don't have you know, kids to parent and books to write. Your editor approaches you and says, Hey, you have been championing, championing books by black authors. Let's work together to start an imprint to intentionally celebrate uplift and encourage these stories from the black diaspora to be shared and to be shared widely. And you foolishly like, I got plenty of time. I don't need to sleep. You just you agree like, it's awesome, and it is awesome, because, again, it all comes back to that young reader who just wanted more, more more stories and to share what an
answer right do not have me follow up. So my
journey, I think, I think, I mean, it started in high school. I was always a YA romance reader, but I was reading Sarah Dessen, Rainbow Rowell and Lauren Kate, and I just didn't see myself reflected in those books. But I actually tell my manager, Wendy moja all the time that I remember reading her name in the back of the acknowledgements. And I was like, I could do that. I believe in myself. And so I think I just made it a point to do it. I was I went to college, I studied creative writing, but I always knew I wanted to be an editor, and I was a bookseller at a chain. I won't mention I'm so sorry. I was also an intern at a literary agency, and then that manager connected me with rosemary Brosnan, who works for quill tree books at Harper. And then I worked there for
I saw the announcement for joy Revolution by Nicola and David Yoon. And obviously I read and loved their books, and I wanted to get into publishing to DO YA romance, and the fact that it was focused on people of color, I was like, was this made for me? And then I remember doing our interview, we talked for like three hours because we just connected so much and like what we wanted to see in the romance community. And I mean, our list is technically all people of color, but, you know, I do, and I also edit horror thriller for Delacorte, so I would say, you know, eight out of 19 of my authors are black women. All of everyone on my list is a woman of color, and we it's just great because, especially with my black female authors, share our experiences, like, Oh, I'll talk about it later. But in one book, we were just talking about how, like, everyone thinks ginger ale to cure. Another book, we're just, like, talking about, you know, sitting for like, 10 hours, getting your hair braided and so, like, those are like, the type of experiences that, like, you know, I didn't always have when I was an assistant, but it's great to have now. But, you know, we're also not a monolith. So I learn from my authors every day,
ginger ale, it's not a truth.
Believe in yourself and that you're
here too. So something that really struck me about the work that you all do are the names of your imprints and publishing houses, right their stories in themselves, just us, freedom, fire, joy, revolution. So how do these concepts of just us or justice, as it sounds to me, freedom and joy sort of drive the way you publish books for young people.
Well, when we started just us books in 1988 Wade and I were sitting around the table trying to think, Okay, we published, we actually, we self published a book, Afrobeats ABC book before we started the company, and we're trying to think of a name for a company, when we decided, Oh, we're going to actually do this on a full time basis, and that just went off, and it was just a two. So it's just, it's just us. We went had a long list of names, none of which I can remember now, but I remember saying, Well, look, it's just it's just us. How can we what? That's it just us. So we started as co founders, as parents, together, and a lot of people have come to ask us, are you saying justice? Are you saying and in a way, I think we are, and we'll take it because we do publish books and look for authentic stories that liberate us, that free us, that represent us in all aspects of black life, regular children, doing regular things, counting 123, BC, so it's for Apple, it's for alligator, but it's also for Africa, which is the beginning. So that was a concept that we had, that's part of us. So that's really how justice has come to be, and we have come to represent books that talk about freedom,
justice, justice.
Wade Hudson is here as well. So yeah, he wrote down
a quote from David Yoon, and he created the logo, and he said it's a heart protected by a shepherd. It's a signal to readers that when you pick up a joy rev book, they will be swept away by a great story that shows people of color in the full breadth of their humanity. And one of the most universal feelings is love and joy. We all crave it. We all want it. So why shouldn't black and brown characters get to experience it and see themselves on the page like our lives are not limited to struggles and overcoming adversity and trauma, and you know, as an editor, I when I get a submission that has any amount of trauma, I immediately like, curl up in the ball. I'm like, I can't handle this. I think my life is I've experienced enough to know that, like, I just want to center my center my work life, we and I, I'm 30 now, and I'm like, This is it? This is I just, I'm going to be working for the rest of life. And so it's like, I need to, I need to fill my time with joy and happiness and like, love and like, there's nothing like more revolutionary, especially for teens and like, that first love, like I can I can remember it. I just like, the swoons, the feels, the text, you know, and like, that's what I want to give teens in young and, you know, adult readers too,
call me. It feels almost wrong to have fire, excuse me, excuse me. In the title. When we're talking about books, it just seems like it's there's something just illegal about that, right? But fire is a force. Is part of nature. It is natural, it sweeps, it consumes, and then afterwards, new growth forms. So I want you to think about the feeling that you got when you picked up a book and it was like, written for you, like this is all the vibes, if it's swooning, if it's action adventure, if it's joy, that all consuming need to read it eating can wait. Excuse me. Excuse me, my my phone calls, my parents. No, not them, not my parents, family. You know, they, they do insert themselves. But the the that all consuming need to cons to to read and devour stories. That's what I think about when I think of of fire, right? And then when you couple that with freedom, the freedom to read, the freedom to read whatever you want without restrictions or bands or limits or constraints or judgment from someone else. You read this, you read that, I do and I enjoy it, and I feel better about myself when I do read it. So freedom, fire and its totality, when we put that together, is to free is the freedom to love reading. And we want you to love these stories from the black diaspora that we're sharing, because at the end of the day, it is a celebration of storytelling, and we want you to read, and that's and so that's why, at the end of every talk about freedom fire, I always say we want to spark a change. We want to ignite again that love for reading, as if you have picked up that book that was for you for the first time. Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all so much for walking us through that process and what the hearts of your imprints and the hearts of the stories that you work to bring out in the world. I'm going to shift gears a little bit and say, as a I work in Deia, and so I have a lot of conversations about equity and this mode of thinking that says, why wouldn't you just call yourself, like a copy editor? Why wouldn't you just call yourself, you know a communications person. So what is the importance of you being black publishers? Of being known as Black publishers? Why? One might say, why wouldn't you just call yourselves publishers? It's not something I would say, but it's something I would love to hear your thoughts on. Specifically, how does bringing your identity into your publishing, shape your list, your work, its reach, et cetera.
You know as an African American woman, identify with African American History and Culture. Identify by calling myself a black woman as well, for just us books and for publishing, it really is important in this day and time and from the beginning, to put that out there, right? We want people to know that we're African American, that we're black, that we represent authentic stories, that we are publishing, stories that we want to tell. For so long we have been erased, misrepresented, stereotyped, and I don't think people in general recognize in necessarily, in this day and time of more diversity, that racism is so much embedded. So the ask the question of asking, why would you want to be black? Almost says, Why don't you want to be white? And we don't realize that it's embedded in our language. So it's important to us to present unified portrait of black people in the diaspora, just as human beings, but it's necessary to call ourselves black because everybody else did before, it was a positive term. So it's like having Black History Month. People ask, Why do you have black history month? Well, it's needed because we've been here forever, and the history has not been known, it has not been told. So you need to know that it is black and I'm proud of it. So let's go on and buy my book.
Completely me. Are you ready? Yes. What are you going to say to impress everyone and then,
like, stop it. So an analogy that I just you I feel like I hammer it into the ground, I use it over and over and over, right? But I think it's applicable, probably because it started with my then toddler, now four year old, and I'm sure it's something that you know you out there, if not, if you haven't seen it apply to children, or you've applied it to your own children or to children of others. When you go to a birthday party that is not for you, you still have fun, right? You might walk away with a goodie bag with some bubbles in it and a bouncy ball. You're going to have some cake or a cupcake. There might be a bounce house, you know, you got dance a little bit. You're going to have fun, but the day is not for or about you, and yet everyone's having a great time. It's a novel concept. So when we say that, you know, we are publishing books out and celebrating Black culture and black stories, that doesn't mean that you can't read them and enjoy them. In fact, I encourage you to
y'all claps, I feel like I should just stop right there.
That's fair. Okay,
yeah, I'm a black woman who edits books. I can't hide my identity. I'm proud to be a black woman. I also don't go around saying that I'm a black editor, because I think it's obvious. But we're also just still in a world where people automatically see me and say, like, Oh, you're that black editor. Like, that's how I went to predominantly white schools, like high school, college, and I was like, in college, I remember someone saying, Oh, you're that black girl, because there was no one else in that science class who was so I'm very used to it, unfortunately, and I think in terms of equity, I think we do equity is not saying that I'm the same as my white counterpart, my white editors and colleagues. It's giving me the extra resources and support so that I can be as successful as them, knowing that I'm fighting in many battles, knowing that, like the we can't be on the same ladder. I need a taller ladder in order to be in order to be successful. And I, you know, I think people are often conflating equality and equity. I am looking for equity in publishing. I
in that concept again, and it's kind of based in racism, that universality means bland or all world, but white, I mean, and that's that's in the lingua franca. That's the language. So that, if your book about an African American boy named Jamal, for example, who has a busy day at school, are you identifying that as a black book? Because the name is Jamal, and it's identified with boys who are named Jamal rather than Peter, who sits in the chair and loves his chair and is not named as a black boy, but his name is Peter. So I'm saying in the language and in the assumptions that people make about literature, universal is all that, but blacks or Asians or Native Americans or any bipoc People are exceptions to that. So therefore our books are not universal. And that's not true at all. It's not true at all. So if your character happens to be an African American boy or girl or cis person or gay person. They're a human being. So the categories, you know, we get all confused about them, but our books are universal, and they talk about the human experience. And I happen to be an African woman, American woman, or that happens to be a black child, but that experience can be felt by children anywhere. And Kwame says it best, and he can say it again.
I will say I was I will say that if you can relate, empathize and understand the plight queen to be Rhaenyra and House of dragons. You can understand the plight of Jax or Tristan strong, or any other black character moving through life and the obstacles that they face, because, you know, I think black children are a little bit more believable than dragons.
And I said this on our prep call is like, I remember reading this article and there was a white reader, and she said I did not know that black people love the thing and that really, as a, you know, as a romance editor, I like, I really sat with that. And like, there are people who think that I experience love differently. And like, how do I, how do we overcome that? How? Like, I mean, the point of joy rev books is that you see kids, these teens of color, just falling in love and finding joy and just going through all of the same awkward moments as every other teen does. It is not like, I don't we Joy rev we don't lead with, this is a black romance. No, this is a romance that has black characters. This is a romance that has Indian characters. But these are swni commercial love stories. I think when we get caught up in the the mission of like, I want to sell Black Books, right? I think sometimes we're getting away from these are commercial stories that anybody would love, like sometimes and like Nikki Dave and I said, say this all the time, like, we don't want this to feel like vegetables, right? This is not homework. I want this to be like you are reading this book, just like you would like a Sarah de book. That's what I want to get to. And it doesn't feel like, oh, we need to pat ourselves in the back for reading black romances. It is just, it's just a fun story.
Bria, you have so perfectly transitioned us into our next question. So I will toss it back to you, because particularly in the romance market and in general market, but all over there's an emphasis on marketability, on how do we get these books to readers? How do we get them to connect with these stories if they don't see themselves on the cover or things of the you know, these assumptions, like you said, Cheryl, so do you ever you kind of answered this, but if you'd like to expand, do you feel at odds with the market or the industry as you work to share these stories, just as stories and experiences from the heart and Bria, I'd love to start with you in the romance market and horror too.
Yeah. I mean, the short answer is yes. I mean, we know that book talk is helping to sell books, but I think a lot of people of color, especially have talked about it, and know that the Tiktok algorithm is biased, and the cut has, like, actually a really good article about racial biases of Tiktok and so it's like, really having to fight against that bias. It's really hard for black creators to get the visibility, because we keep circulating the same few white romance authors, which is, you know, those are great books. Divine rivals is wonderful. I really do love Rebecca Ross, you know, powerless things, but like, I do want to see other people. It's like, we just need to be more inclusive. Like, we can have those stories, but we also need stories with black and brown faces. You know, I just want book talk to allow more people and like, I think once we know that book talks algorithm is a little bit biased, maybe more concerted efforts to go against it. And I also like when you're seeing bookseller, when you're seeing bestseller list, like I can understand, you know, as if you're an author, if you're feeling discouraged by the lack of diversity on it. But I tell my authors to not put too much pressure on themselves. Just do, just be you, and then people will eventually come to you and appreciate your work. And I, you know, I think as obviously, like I hear sales, I hear marketing, I hear publicity and what they're saying, and like they we've made strides. I mean, where, when I started in the industry in 2016 the marketing plans, and looks very different. And I think we've definitely broadened our horizons, which is great. There's still more work to be done. I just like, want to get to the point where, like, we're just, like, normalizing these stories. And, yeah, I think that we have, we have work to do. But, like, I'm very optimistic that we can get there. And I we, I need, I need books. I need booksellers to help us fight against booked a book. I mean, book talk is great if they show the true diversity. And like, the there's so many phenomenal especially, well, I mean, I mainly read and edit romance, but like, there's so many phenomenal Romance Writers. And like, there are so few that breakthrough. There's, like, Talia Hibbert, who's my author, you know, Kennedy, Ryan, Jasmine, Guillory, but there's so many more beyond that. And I'm like, and I'm reading them, and I read them for fun. I'm like, Oh, how is this person not broken out yet? I just do not understand it. And I think it's just us being a little bit louder. It's not it's not enough to just to, like, congratulate people. We need to show up and support
thank you.
Marketing is a big M word, and to be reflective, let's think about marketing and what it is now and what it has become. And going back to 1988 with Afrobeats, book of black heroes, we were told that these titles were not necessarily marketable. There's no market. Why would you need an Afrobeats ABC book. But why not? I mean, so the question about marketability is within the mind of traditional ways of selling books, that the books that need to be on the shelves are and that we're on the shelves we're a biography of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Booker, T Washington, George Washington, Carver and there were a couple of others. But if you look back to the data from 1988 you're not going to see when I was little or Jamal's busy day, or raise your hands and resist the talk books on specifically about race, because they're there. I don't know that's a too controversial a topic. Why would you need a afrobex book? Why would you need to talk about, let's think about that. So marketing people told us when we brought ideas to them, and this was every publisher, almost every publisher in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, that these books are not marketable. So we said, why are they not marketable? How many black people do you have in the United States? How many parents do you have? How many black kids are there? Why can't it be so marketability is, you know, a funny kind of term. Who determines what that market is. You know, when sold out books in the streets and with distributors who taking your book to the people who then said, We are the market for this book. So in terms of bookmark book talk other avenues, you've got to get reviews, you've got to have the gatekeepers, and you've got to have the publications and the media, but ultimately, the people are the market, and they provide what needs to be in that market. So just something to think about. It
is something to think about. Thank you. Kwame, anything to add?
I mean, they have so wonderfully, you know, captured the business, you know, market and publicity and these terms, I almost feel like they're, you know, we and you as as booksellers, have experience with this, right? That you have two audiences, right? You have people who are coming in looking for categories, right? They purchase categories, all right. I need any romance books. I need black romance books. I need. I'm looking for rom coms. I'm looking for fantasy romantic. See they're purchasing cat, which is fine. They're looking they see what is selling. They see the trends. They want more of that, right, whether they're readers or they're buying other readers, right? And then you have a story. They don't care about categories, right? They don't care about where this slots into. And a lot of times, categories are invented and books are slotted in there, and then they're slotted back there five years later, right? Based off of what is trendy, what is buzzworthy, right? But some readers, I want a story, right? And so when a reader who wants a story comes in, you toss the category labels out, and you tell them, Well, what do you like? Well, you know, I was just reading this, this family, this magic family, I would like to see more. You know, magical, you know, family stories, and you're like, Tracy Baptiste has a local magic story coming out, and tell me more. And so we are pitching, you know, readers don't care about what the label is on the spine, right? They want that story inside, that label out. There's a lot of times for us to shelve, you know, to categorize, to sort, you know, and to to, you know, show off our wizardry with Excel sheets, right? Like, that's, that's, that's on the other side. But readers come in, they're like, I just read the most beautiful sci fi, you know space, you know space. Love Story. Do you have more of those? Oh, I do. I love that as well. I was reading this. I was reading and you get into a conversation as two readers, right? And so do I love as from the from the publisher side. I love labels because I look for those, because that's what I want to you know, my parents, you know they they instilled that in me. I didn't know that there was a disparity in black stories. It's because doritha in Bali and I met in Balia traveled around the country in the world, looking for black stories. And they would come home, and they would fill up the bookshelves outside of our bedroom. And so we would wake up and come out, and we had a library of books with faces that looked like mine and my siblings on them. And I thought, This is how the world operated. And it was a it was a brutal shock when I figured the opposite, right. And so my goal is I am going to be the parent to all of the young readers out there, and we want to stock those shells so they don't have to worry about pick stories as they see fit, because we've done the hard work for them. I
I'm feeling some fire you all have so embedded in this work, sort of discussed these sort of historic and present barriers that there are to publishing black children's and young adult books, but to name them and put them in the room, they include book banning, inequality, racism and a general need for more Black Books. Authors, illustrators and publishers across the industry, despite that, putting aside that pain and that difficulty, how do you define and measure success for yourself and for your stories. And how do you fill your cup up in this work, despite those things that would have you otherwise not do this work at all. Cheryl,
we love it when we go to as an author and as a publisher, because we wear different hats, with multiple hats, to see a child come up to us and say, Oh, that looks like me. I got a baby sister. You know, we published a book like, I'm a big sister. Now I'm a big brother. Now. Those are stories that are meaningful to individual children. And as kleinley has said so eloquently, you know you see yourself in that book. You see yourself as being represented. And we get wonderful letters from teachers saying, Oh, thank you for just making the story available. So I would say that the success comes not in terms of book sales. We've never had a New York Times bestseller, but we've sold like millions of books on the street, and they are not necessarily recorded, because they weren't recorded at that time. They've been hand sold, or parents have given to children from a book fair that was at their church or at the Y or summer camp. So seeing the smile on a child's face and getting a letter that says, you know this looks like me. And thank you so much for for giving me an opportunity to see myself in a book. And that's that's wonderful, because for so many years, you you didn't want to see yourself in a book. If you want to find something out about a black person, don't look in a book at all, or I didn't. So absolutely it's heartwarming. That's that's a measure of success for for justice. Bria,
yeah, so an editorial, in order to your books have to sell. Well, so highly suspicious and unfairly cute. Being a New York Times bestseller helped immensely. Having, you know, a book sell in seven countries, like I have a book called fake decent mooncakes, which did, and that was helpful, I think, when I was named a PW starwife, in the right direction, even just like being here and booksellers and authors saying, like, Oh, I know who you are. I'm like, wow, okay, then you there are people who understand what I'm aiming for, and like our mission and like that. Thank you. If you have come up to me, they really appreciate that. And but like, what fills my cup is just having my authors come back. You know, sometimes they sometimes they don't and, but I think if I establish a really great connection and bond with my authors that like brings me a lot of joy, if I get to the point where they feel like they can, you know, email me almost whenever, or like, text me and and just have really genuine conversations I love in the margins of an edit, just saying, this is the experience I've had and like us, just like going back and forth and understanding and talking about life that fills my cup, because I don't work with a lot of editors who look like me, and so it's really nice that I can turn to my books, turn to my authors, and just like, have these, like, really genuine conversations and seeing, you know, my authors books in stores and then shelves, I'm like, Oh my gosh, you know, I've done this. Like, 14 year old Bria is just like, so proud of herself. And, you know, I get to, like, now I get to, like, go into like _target and like indie booksellers, and like the bookstores, and like, I show my mom the X, like, there's my name, and then she, like, takes a picture. I'm like, I gave you the so that I think, I think, you know, being an only child, like making my mom proud, which really truly, like fills my cup. But you know, so too do my authors? Yeah.
So I will. I will. There are two, two different kind of stories, I'll say as as a publisher, of course, we want the accolades. We want the sales, because that means, through capitalism, we get to continue to do more of that, right? So we obviously want that. We want, you know, and we applaud when Tracy's moco magic gets a star review, right? We are excited when titles do well, if they hit list, all of that is wonderful, and we want to achieve that. Me, personally, when I was first doing Tristan strong punches a hole in the sky, I was in Philadelphia, I was doing an event at Uncle Bobby's, an independent bookstore up there, and a mother came in with a kid who reminds me of my four year old now, so he couldn't have been much older, curly haired, brown boy just bopping around, just in his own little world, as they tend to do, punch, Punch, punch. You know that's what they do, right? And there's a giant free two foot poster of the book cover of Tristan strong punches a hole in the sky. And if you know that book cover, Tristan is on the on the cover like this, with John Henry on his back, and the little four year old, five year old boys just popping along. And he sees the cover, and he just stares at it, and he stands there for like five seconds and and then he does the pose, and his mother takes a picture, and she's crying, and I'm crying, which is like he can't read the book yet, but he saw his face and that, again, our first attempts at are seeing the pictures and interpreting and making our own story. And so to create, you know, he is creating, in his mind, some story based off of that book cover, right, that fills my cup, right? And then to have you all come up to me, as Bri was saying, individually, telling me stories like that. Of there's this kid who, you know, he wasn't really into any of the books I gave him Tristan, or I gave him an advanced copy of Jax, and he read it, and he loved it, and he came back, and he started asking for, do you have more when you all send me, tell me, find me and give me stories like that. That refills my cup and that reminds me of what I'm doing it for. Am I doing it for the star reviews? I love star reviews. Am I doing it to hit the New York Times Best Selling list? I would love to hit the New York Times Best Selling list. I would love for all of the freedom firebugs to hit the New York Times bestselling list. Do we want adaptations? Yes, we want all of those accolades. Want children to read these stories find themselves and enjoy i
i My heart is so full. I have to say we are at our last question, and I love to leave everyone I already feel inspired and ready to get these books out in the world, in the abstract, what I do at ABA, but I want to make sure that the people in this room who do that every single day, and thank you for doing that, by the way, feel that they can do matter their role in this industry or in their store. So in addition, we've talked about book talks algorithm, sort of cheating the system, getting getting through to readers and people on social media, as well as stocking and selling these titles. What's one action you'd like to see members of the industry take to uplift black publishers, black stories, black illustrators? Is there any measure of support you feel goes overlooked, or things like that? You can think, take your time.
I'll go. If anyone Yeah, for sure.
Contact your, you know, your your your connections, you know, with publishers, and tell them, hey, we have schools that are hungry for author visits, especially in the middle grade space. That's how we get in front of our readership, right? So if you like, Hey, I'm in this area here, and we have schools that sorely need, you know, authors from freedom, fire, from joy, revolution, from just us books to come in and talk. They are hungry for these stories. That's, you know, one of the biggest ways, if you can't, if you couldn't tell when we get in front of you, you know we have fun and you're going to have fun. So imagine what happens when we get in front of the students. Those kids won't know what hit them. We will be talking about everything under the sun, except for books, because at the end of the day, they're going to form that relationship with us as authors and speakers. We're not coming in from trying to sell them something. We're coming into them trying to talk to them as people, finding out what they like. Insult them a little bit, because that's how I roll, right? If you've never walked into a middle grade classroom ready to insult kids, you've never prepared adequately get us in front of him, and we will form that relationship. And at the end of the day, when we leave, they will that dude, that lady, that author, was pretty awesome. Was pretty cool. Remember when he said he could beat you at 2k and I was like, and then the next thing you know, they find their footsteps as they're chatting and they're walking to the library like, Hey, do you have their books? Can we check them out? Let's see what they're about. Forming that relationship first getting us in front of the students is so important, because if you tell them to read something, they're not going to read it. But if you tell them that you know you with the Green Bay Packers and Madden like not on and you'll just be like, who did that? Kwame and folly are right? So I could trash talk them while we're playing, talk to your connections. Get us in front of those kids. I promise you, it'll be a memorable experience for them and for us.
He said it all. So I say we love independent booksellers. We make our connections with independent booksellers who make connections in the community, with schools, with libraries too, because independent booksellers will come with just us Books Authors to sell books at a library. Author visit. And it's really important for children to see the author, to experience them, to know that they are real people and not just a name on a cover. So relationship, I don't know about k2 and I don't know about I'm a different generation, but it's still it's still good. I think at Justice books is just us. Books, we still make a difference, and that difference is in an individual kid, a teacher who can bring a lesson, not in a didactic way, but in a real way, through connection of storytelling and our humanity. So booksellers like I say, buy our books, invite us to your stores, connect with and keep doing the things that you're doing, to connect directly with the community who wants to see what we can bring in.
I mean, I'm just like, I'm just happy and grateful to be here. We're happy to and like, you know, also to get out of the house. I mean, as an editor, I'm just like, behind a computer, editing books all day. I'm not out in the world. I'm not like, the awesome field reps here who like, get to talk to all of you. And so I really need you to be my voice. I'm like, I wish I could go around the world, around the country, just like, telling people how great my books are, because they truly are fantastic. So I need you to do that for me, please. I have, like, the passion, like, how you stock and sell books is, like, really, like, crucial, right? Like, you need someone to, like, really, just talk to a child, understand what they're looking for. The way you hand tell is just so important. Again, I know from a little bit of experience as a bookseller like you guys, are really, really vital to making all of our books just be a success. And like host as many events as you can with guaranteed audiences. When I see, you know, authors go to events, and there are very few people, I get very sad, you know, put these books. Hi, right there. Face, like books by people of color out. I mean, I'm, I'm do, if I'm well, I'm, you know, I'm from Philadelphia. So if I'm, like, in Uncle Bobby's, or if I'm in a New York books, or I will do it myself. But like, if you don't face my cow, I will, but please do start a book club if you don't already have one, you know, you can use me like I'm I'm relatively available to do things I know that, like, you know, editors don't get this opportunity to speak to booksellers, so I really appreciate you taking the time to scare me out. Yeah,
thank you.
I cannot thank you three enough for your generosity and wisdom and time and the things you are tangibly bringing into the world, for young readers, for us in this room, and for booksellers, I hope you take this spotlight as a piece of light back with you wherever you're headed, no matter where you're going next, and feel that these stories are also stories that your community needs to, and that we all need black publishers
in this industry. To continue, as an industry, so thank you so much for your time. I don't take it for granted. Thank you all for your time and enjoy the rest of the program.
