This has been such a busy week for me, I have not been able to get to my blog.  At some point, I hope to pre-write my blogs and just upload whichever one is slated for the day; but at this point, blogging is just one of the spinning plates in my life.  Though these blogs may get sporadic on occasion, blogging is a creative endeavor that allows me to connect my passion for culture with my interest in demographics and market segmentation.

In fact, that is my topic for today: how writers should think about writing for the cultural marketplace.  Having worked in both radio and television, I have retained an enduring interest in marketplace dynamics, particularly as they apply to demographics.  Having an interest in the dynamics of the marketplace works very well for me as a writer, and yet, there are times when it seems that the marketplace has little impact on publishers in real life.  For example, as a black woman, I am always interested in black America, and the psychographics of black culture; or rather, how the market is segmented by income, age, regionalism, and other such cultural factors that truly impact perspective. It would seem that publishers wishing to make inroads in obtaining “ethnic” market share would take psychographics into consideration when establishing a market plan for a particular culture.  As for writers, a good writer knows that a character’s perspective and identity are the result of environmental influences — or psychographics.  Certainly, a discussion of what constitutes an environmental influence, and the relative strength of environmental influences, would be key to the author’s thought process, but we won’t take the time to examine that here.  Suffice it to say, no matter how “black” I think I am, my black may not be like your black (or what you think black should be).  My black identity is based on the cultural influences that have surrounded me from childhood.  Those influences are not all black influences.  They can be a result of any number of social, or even political factors, but they are at work on my viewpoint as a character in my so-called life.  Add generational perspective to the mix, and you’ve got all kinds of different black going on.  For example, last week, I mentioned the cultural influence of the Cosby Show on my generation.  Bill Cosby’s show influenced Americans regardless of color.  In my mind, The Cosby Show was one of the last truly iconic sitcoms on television.  It would be great to have another Cosby-type show on TV, but even if such a show did exist, it is likely that it would not have the same impact as the original.  Why?  Because there are so many entertainment choices for Millennials (the generation of young people who will be coming of age in the next five years), that no single program acts to influence a wide swath of that population.   This is what author, Chris Anderson, calls the long tail.   If the long tail can apply to “white” America, then as an identifiable segment of the market, it should also apply to black America, or Latin America, or Asian America, or Native American America, and so forth.  Besides that, any marketing professional will tell you that black America (and all the other culture Americas) are not monolithic; despite the way they are portrayed in our media.  Black American life is wide and vast and deeply layered.  From Harriet Tubman with her brave shepherding of slaves to freedom; Sojourner Truth, stumping for both equal rights and women’s rights during the 1800’s; and even Mary Grant Seacole’s heroic nursing of sailors during the British Crimean war to Jay Z, one of the wealthiest men in hip hop. Each life is equal in reflecting black life.  They are assuredly as equal as Tamarion Crackhead, who always seems to be able to get a starring role on television cop shows.   Look, any researcher worth his salt could find numerous examples of heroism, social justice, literary excellence, or any other laudable attribute, in black American life, and even rooted in African cultural tradition.  Yet, American media, including publishing, prefers to employ the old, the tired, the “us and them” standard in creating products (yes, a book is a product) for black audiences.  Is this an attempt to prove some deeply buried belief?   Wouldn’t a glance or two at the spending habits of Black America erase any doubts about the viability of the market, and the varied interests of black readers?  (Note:  The purchasing power of black Americans is estimated to reach $1.1 trillion dollars by 2012.   Book and magazine purchases are a significant portion of spending in black households.) One would think so.  One, depending upon the publishing entity, would be wrong.

Now, contrary to everything I have said heretofore, I would like to put on the hat of representative of black America for just one moment – I own hundreds of books.  In that respect, I am as black as black can be.  It should be noted, that black readership has followed an upward trajectory since publishers began targeting black readers and tailoring product offerings to black audiences.  This tailoring includes the introduction of a broader range of subject matter.  Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same for those who refuse to get a clue.  Many writers, writing books for black America, still write in narrow channels.  What are these channels so egregious to the black reader?  Popular topics include the following:

• Teen Pregnancy
• Drug Abuse
• Drug Dealing
• Slavery
• Racism
• Physical or Emotional Abuse
• Helping white people connect to their spirituality using ancient ethnic wisdom, or voodoo
• Saving weird white kids who have no white role models, and getting in trouble for it.
• Being welcomed into a white community and making friends with white people
• Crime (evergreen in the industry)
• Being black and how to deal with such an affliction – I didn’t realize it was an affliction until someone told me it was.  Imagine my shock.

What a fun set of memes.  No wonder these books (oftentimes written by white authors) are of little interest to black readers and do not sell.  Where are the black Harry Potters?  Where are the black Frodos (or, even better, Legolases)?  Moreover, why are publishers so terrified of a black person on the cover of a book?  Don’t ya’ll know Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben have been making mucho money for their respective companies for years?  As much as it pleases you, dear author, to excise your conscience with another story about how black women get abused by their abusive alcoholic boyfriends, or how grating racism is on the black soul, I encourage you to run from those themes like you would run from a house on fire.  You will not sell books to a wide range of black America with such themes because frankly, it comes across as arrogant and preachy.  Save your sermons for church if you want me to spend my hard-earned twenty-eight dollars and ninety-five cents.

So, to repeat, there is no monolithic black culture.  Continued insistence on viewing the black reader as part of some stereotypical group is not only insulting, it is more of a reflection of the insister’s ignorance than any indication of black life.  Nevertheless, if you want guidelines, consider the following: The black reader wants the same things that the reader known as Everyman wants, i.e., a well-written story which satisfies his/her literary craving.  That story might be a mystery.  It might be romance.  It might be action-adventure.  It might be fantasy.  It might be biography.  Whatever genre the story, the one thing above all that is required is authenticity of voice.  It is the only way to capture the black reader.  Pasting a cardboard stereotype in your book and featuring a bucket load of slanged  up trash talk only marks you as a poser.  Worse, it will alienate your reader, and  make you look insensitive.

Blind Item:  One well-known author wrote a book in which a white protagonist goes into a bar full of black patrons.  This protagonist, who is female, picks a fight with a big, brawny black man.  As a reader, I was horrified by the racist assumptions inherent in the scenario.  The message was that any black man would hit a woman given provocation.  The message was that black people had no morals, and if the protagonist wanted to stir up trouble, she only needed to go to a black area of town.  It was extraordinarily insensitive.  If the writer didn’t see that, the editor should have.  If the protagonist somehow sought forgiveness for her racist views, I never knew it.  I stopped reading after that scene, the first in the book.  I also have not purchased any other of that author’s books.  The protagonist could have gone to any bar.  Alcohol and anger (the protagonist was angry) = trouble.

In conclusion,  let me share one final truth about the black reader.  This is a truth that does cover the entire group of readers, and it may be the only one that is stereotypical.  That truth is this:  Black readers, unlike white readers, do not only read books by authors who are black (again, research indicates that many white readers do not read multiculturally).  In my mind, it is just a reminder that black readers are much more discriminating in their literary tastes.  Now that is a truth worth thinking about.