Bloomsbury whitewashes cover (then they don't) ...

This week, publisher Bloomsbury resurrected the controversy over their practice of placing Caucasian models on the covers of books where the main character is clearly a person of color with their release of Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore, a Young Adult novel. A furor erupted online with readers and authors alike voicing their disappointment in the publisher. Today, Bloomsbury stated on their website, “Bloomsbury is ceasing to supply copies of the US edition of Magic Under Glass. The jacket design has caused offense and we apologize for our mistake. Copies of the book with a new jacket design will be available shortly.”


Now, while I appreciate the publisher correcting its 'mistake', I think it bears examining why the 'mistake' was made in the first place. As Justine Larbalestier pointed out when she went through a similar ordeal over the cover of her YA novel Liar less than a year ago, there's a long held belief that covers featuring models of color hurt book sales. That particular tenet, as I understand, hasn't been backed up with any quantifiable data (after all, I'm sure there are numerous examples of books featuring Caucasian models selling poorly, and I'm willing to bet those numbers eclipse the poor sales of books/covers featuring people of color since Caucasian authors who write about Caucasian characters are published in exponentially greater numbers than their multi-ethnic counterparts), yet we see this 'mistake' being made over and over again.


And that's incredibly discouraging for those of us who would love to see books/covers that represent broader diversity along side the books/covers we're used to seeing in our bookstores and libraries (evident by this moving open letter by Ari Valderama of Reading in Color). And I do mean along side, not relegated to some separate-but-equal 'African/Asian/Latino/etc-interests' section (don't get me started on how much difficulty I have finding books I'd like to read in the section that was supposedly built to cater to my ethnic tastes...).


With the election of the first black president, it's been said we're living in a 'post-racial' America. I beg to differ. If you disagree, I say pick up a book some time.