https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/jun/09/publishing-has-ignored-and-pigeonholed-black-authors-for-too-long

Year after year, the industry has failed to reflect the society around it, and correcting that will require concerted effort

Over the past two weeks, people around the globe have gathered in protest against the terrible deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. In the UK, within just a few days, it was revealed that the case of Belly Mujinga, who died of coronavirus after being spat at in Victoria station, had been closed while the government’s report on race and Covid-19 showed that, as suspected, black people are disproportionately dying from the virus. 

Amid all the fury, corporations have been quick to express solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and publishers have been among them. As readers around the world have flocked to buy more anti-racist books by black authors, each day editors, agents and authors have taken to social media to call for more action. Mainstream publishers have made donations to Black Lives Matter causes, while the #InclusiveIndies fundraiser has raised more than £150,000. Over the weekend, authors also shared how much they were paid to write their books via the hashtag #publishingpaidme, which, among other things, exposed racial disparities in the advances paid by the big publishers. Agents and editors have been more vocal in asking black authors to submit their work in the future.