In December 2015, British publishing stood accused of woeful blindness to diversity, and not for the first time, after World Book Night announced its titles, and none of the 15 books was by a writer of colour. An apology was issued by organisers but a wider malaise had already set in, and along with it, the troubling feeling that WBN’s oversight was less an isolated incident and more a recurring pattern of exclusion that stretched across the literary establishment.
 
A report on the state of the books industry had been published earlier that year by the development agency Spread the Word, which drew attention to how intransigently white, middle-class and male remained, from literary festivals and prizes to publications and personnel.
 
The industry has been announcing strategies for change since 2015. Publishing houses have rolled out paid internships, mentoring schemes and traineeships to attract socially under-represented and BAME (black, Asian, minority ethnics) applicants on an unprecedented scale, as well as creating opportunities for women to move into boardrooms.
 
To name a few recent initiatives: Penguin Random House is offering interest-free rent loans to draw more applicants from outside London and has set a company goal “for allnew hires and the books we acquire to reflect UK society by 2025 in terms of social mobility, ethnicity, gender, disability, and sexuality”. Harper Collins is launching programmes for BAME employees and those taking long-term parental leave, while Hachette is encouraging diversity at an executive level in a mentoring scheme with board members.
 
Some schemes show promising signs. Penguin’s scheme connects aspiring writers from socially excluded communities to agents, editors and authors, is helping to demystify these professions.
 Margaret Busby, the writer and pioneering publisher, regards the endeavor for better representation in publishing as a struggle begun decades ago and still no closer to being won. Mainstream publishing, she says, is too institutionalized in its biases to be corrected by a few new authors or schemes.

In the1980s she helped to found a group that campaigned to diversify the industry. An article she wrote in 1988 posed questions that are still being asked today, such as: “What are publishers doing to make their companies a more accurate reflection of their lists, readers and society?”

“What’s happening now is more initiatives,” Busby says. “But the problem can’t be solved with initiatives.”Margaret Busby believes the struggle for better representation in publishing is no closer to being won.

There is overwhelming agreement among excluded communities that systemic change can only happen when inclusivity is filtered upwards. There is not yet gender parity on boards, even though women outnumber men in the industry; a lack of social diversity is one of its most stubborn problems.