I am saying yes to the boycott. I can say that here freely, with no worries.

Everyone who comes here understands everyone has a choice and can respect that. That's why I like coming here. (though that's not the only reason)

I can't in good conscience buy, sell, suggest another Bloomsbury title. This was not an easy decision for me and I still hate it.

I hate the fact that I won't be handselling the Ellie Mcdoodle or Princess Academy or Kiki Strike anymore. All books I love.

This makes me so sad but it has to be done. I've had a enough.

The fact that this happened yet again, so close to the first time, proves they don't care. I can't be bothered to promote or sell books by a publishing house that practices Whitewashing on a regular basis.

The sad thing is this didn't have to happen. There is no publishing cover law or mandate that requires a cover face. Personally, I think its over done.

The only Bloomsbury title I will still sell is Liar. To prove Brown does sell. Yes, I know it doesn't sell as well as White.

But who's fault is that. Publishers have deemed White girl covers the only worthy girls on YA covers a long time ago. It will take time to correct the brainwashing.

I completely understand where you are coming from Doret and I'm struggling hugely with this. It's really bothering me.

And yes, I do wish someone would explain why they put themselves in this position and didn't just go with a nonphoto cover. In every way, that choice to go one step further and lie (just like with the original Liar cover) makes it that much worse.

YES. Yes, yes, and yes. Thank you, Colleen.

Having not yet read the book, I have only Leila's exasperated blog post to go by. I don't know this particular book, but I do know a little bit about the publishing process. A lot of the decisions that we see when a book comes out were made two years previously. This doesn't excuse anyone, but perhaps explains what seems to be insouciance. I do think that perhaps someone would have caught this, but it takes time for people to begin to think differently and to change from a long-time way of doing things.

Certainly I'll be interested in seeing how this plays out; will Bloomsbury be shamed into change? Is the author Persona Grata enough for them to do this? (To be honest, I thought that's what LIAR had going for it -- an outspoken, popular, best-selling writer, who would speak up.) Will be interesting to see.

Colleen,

Thanks for the gathering of all of the relevant posts. I reviewed this book a week or so ago and didn't remark on the cover because it seemed to have been pulled in favor of what I think is the British one. In fact at the time, I couldn't find an online image of the Caucasian version to use on my post.

I agree that this cover and others are about saying that certain people are not worthy. Certain people are not beautiful. Certain people are somehow lesser. It makes me ill.

On our blog, Jacket Knack, we touched on the issue of race on covers from another angle with another new YA book this week.
http://jacketknack.blogspot.com/2010/01/debut-novelist-olugbemisola-rhuday.html
The publisher (Scholastic) chose a silhouetted image on the cover rather than a person of color. The editor explains her reasons in a post we've linked to. Have a look, if you're interested.

Colleen,

Thanks for providing us the space to talk about the issues intelligently. Thanks for respecting everyone's individual choice. Thanks for always giving me the space to speak freely.

Your support and friendship mean more than I can say.

And frankly, I wish the author had thought about all this when she first saw the cover. Because it is her story and it is her name on the cover and at the end of the day, she owns this as well.

This part makes me sad. Because authors do fight for for this and we lose all the time.

We lose when it's big, like, this character is the wrong race. We lose when it's small, like, why did you put purple lipstick on my tomboy protagonist? Not only do we not have a say when they design the cover, we are ACTIVELY rebuffed when we ask them to CHANGE the cover.

The more we argue, the more our editors get pissy. They withdraw marketing support. They stop championing our books. Somehow, our books never makes it to the big book conferences where booksellers and librarians make their buying decisions.

And it may horrify you but our editors monitor what's in our blogs. They tell us to take things down. They suggest things for us to write. Not always, not all the time. But if they want something down, they always wave that stick-- I have your book in my hands, you wouldn't want anything to happen to it, would you?

And this system is abusive about other things. Publishers routinely ignore contracted dates. They routinely hold payment until it's convenient to them, or you're behaving in a way they want. And they have the power to reject your second contracted book to infinity, meaning you can never sell a book to anyone else.

So to see people say the authors are complicit in this, I guess we are. But I guarantee you we are not EASILY complicit in this, nor WILLFULLY complicit in this, and funny enough, we keep writing fat, and gay, and teens of color ANYWAY.

It's not a blameless, faceless other we're blaming. Somebody who decided to write a character of color is no more happy to see a white girl on her cover than anyone is. But our editors, our publishers, our marketing departments are the ones who decide to cover us that way. All of their names and sometimes their faces are available on the corporate websites.

Please, as an author who fought to make sure the kids on her cover were not all white and now can't sell a second book because she's "difficult", believe me when I say we are fighting from the inside. And we are losing there, too.

And here's something actually useful. Open the book in question and look at the Library of Congress page.

It's become fashionable to list the cover designer on that page, right next to the typeface setting.

That's who ultimately decided to put a white girl on the cover of a book with a protagonist of color.

You're awesome, Colleen! We desperately need more posts that make it plain and welcome debate. I'm linking to this on my blog...

All righty. When I first read this, I'd only read Leila's blog post. I'm up to speed now; the last article I read was @ jezebel, and now I'm going to think about some of what I found in the comments.

Yeesh.

I can see how a Bloomsbury boycott might grow out of this. I can see why it's a last-resort reaction born of frustration and fury. And I can also see how - in the VERY long term - it might start to impinge on sales numbers and get Bloomsbury's attention.

But as a writer I can also see another, shorter-term consequence to this as well, and that is a devastating effect on WRITERS. Somebody somewhere has already said this but it's worth underlining - we who write the books have very little, if any, say about what's going to be slapped on the cover of said books. Boycotting a publisher based on its covers really means that individial BOOKS don't get sales, and that means that individual AUTHORS see their careers go down the tubes because everyone os judged on the sales numbers of their last book and when those are looked at there is no footnote to say that those sales numbers were low because of a boycott of the publisher possibly because of a cover on a different book which wasn't even yours. ALl that the buyer of your NEXT book sees is that your last book failed to sell - and that's all they want to know. Nobody's going to be asking why.

I know that this an issue, and an important issue, but the publisher stands behind a front line of cannon-fodder authors who are going to be the ones being hit by this. And if this echelon of writers should fall and fail, that doesn't mean that your missles will hit the publisher. It merely means that the publisher will probably find more cannon fodder to stand between them and the world. THere are ALWAYS those out there who would dig out their own eyes and give them to BLoomsbury on a silver platter for a publishing contract - the young and the hungry and the enthusiastic and the new writers won't stop coming, clamouring for the contracts, for the books. ALl the publisher needs to do is simply drop an author after the first book, after eveyrhting possible has been squeezed out of that first book, and pick up anotherbrand new author to replace the one they're leaving behind. THis road is littered by the potential corpses by the wayside, indivdual writers' dreams careers quietly breathing their last in the ditch while the BLoomsbury coach, out of which they had just been pitched, continues trundling along the road without looking back.

I can understand the impulse. But if you are Joe or Jane Average Author, who doesn't have a voice in what's put on your book cover, or you don't have the groundswell of clamour which caused the cover chaange for "Liar", or your book has nothing to do with the current controversy at all - you're paying the price for sins you did not commit and cannot atone for. I just feel deeply sorry for those authors who will find themselves in this position through absolutely no fault of their own. Collateral damage.

Is there any way of getting the ARTISTS on board with this? As a group? Any way of getting the message across to those who design book covers for the publishers, and get them to read the book and try and be faithful to it rather than getting a "cover brief" from a higher-up and just designing a cover to that brief to be put on a book they otherwise know nothing at all about?...

Hope, please understand that I am a writer. I understand what you have said here (and Alma as well). My point about the author was that she owns this now. She might hate it - she might have fought tooth and nail about it - but it's out there with her name on it and she owns it now.

I don't equate this issue with petty complaints about the text (someone is always going to complain about something - I just an email the other day on an essay from two years ago); this is a whole bigger deal. Your collective frustration many issues between authors and editors, publishers, etc is understood but I don't want to conflate multiple issues into this one.

This is about one specific issue - books with dark skinned protagonists who are depicted as light skinned on the cover. While I certainly may say that a book could easily have had a multi ethnic cast (I mentioned this the other day with Cat Burglar Black by Richard Sala) I would never hold that against the author or publisher. It's just a comment. This issue is something else altogether.

I am sorry though that you have had so many problems with your publisher and wish you only the best.

Has been twenty years now and I still feel, "Makes You Wanna Holla."

I have to come here to regroup and clear my head. This of one of the too few spaces where there is sane and rational and honest discussion.

It's hard being black full-time. Can anyone relate?

I do hope authors know I want you to have power. I want you to sell books. But I cannot, will not suffer the disregard, disrespect and marginalization anymore.

Hope and Alma, I really appreciate your comments about this. This shouldn't be about going after authors.

And Colleen, you know I adore you, but I have to disagree that Jackie Dolamore owns this in any way. She wrote the kind of character we have all been asking for more of. The publisher is to blame.

It's simply not fair to ask authors to potentially jettison their careers when it will accomplish little. I am all for a letter writing campaign to Bloomsbury or every publisher in New York, and for continuing to point out instances of fail loudly (and all other constructive protest methods), but it is simply not fair to call out an author and try to force them to speak. The author is not the responsible party. At least in the case of covers, I think we're all agreed that's just not possible, because authors don't control covers--especially debut authors.

These are complex issues that involve business issues and contracts and reputations for authors. And, actually, I think that's been reflected in most of the discussion of the MUG cover, which is as it should be.

You know what's awesome? That we can disagree here on whatever and it never flames out of control.

Thanks to everyone for that - which is great.

To the authors and cover issue - at what point does it become more acceptable to say that publishers all too often make lame cover choices. I'm talking way way beyond this instance. How many times have we all posted on covers we think are stupid and completely off base? Yet the response is always "that is the way it is". Wouldn't it be grand if authors started saying this is my work and I at least want a voice in how it is presented? Talk about a dream world.....

Amen! Authors should get a say in their covers, we should encourage authors who write about poc and we should hold publishers accountable for whitewashing and not publishing books about poc. I haven't read all the comments yet but I'll try to later. I don't want to sound like a parrot, so I'll stop here.

Colleen as always you've gotten to the heart of the matter =)

After reading authors' points here. I am more inclined to boycott.

Bloomsbury is counting on people caring. It's as if Bloomsbury's using their authors as shields.

Bloomsbury is counting on people knowing that authors don't make that much money and any boycott could damage many careers and be costly.

It makes me sick to think big wigs of Bloomsbury's might sitting somewhere-

"Oh don't worry this boycott won't go anywhere, too many people are concerned about the livelihood of authors."

As much as it pains me to do it, boycotting is the right thing (for me) to do.

If Bloomsbury acted with some sense and thought about their authors before the bottom line this would not happen.

I must agree, I don't think it's the author's job to speak out. Its her job to create, and she did that.

BTW, I like the subtle cues to the MC race in Magic Under Glass. They're there if you are smart enough to notice, but the author doesn't beat you over the head with it.

One last thing - If this gets big enough, and an author leaves Bloomsbury. I don't think another house will question low sales.

I've never encountered the kind of pressure other authors are mentioning here, but I'd just like to point out that authors have CHOICES. This isn't a do or die situation...if you write sci-fi/fantasy with PoC and some big publisher's trying to bully you--WALK. Take your work to a small press like TU Publishing. Self-publish (which is what I did). If what matters MOST to an artist is her work and getting it out into the world, then she shouldn't be swayed by a corrupt publisher into making a poor ethical decision. Authors are not powerless pawns unless they choose to be, and its a HARD choice to break away from the industry norms, but it's still there and they're accountable for the choices they make. Standing in solidarity with the publisher (by staying silent) doesn't impress me. Dolamore could actually BENEFIT if she spoke up now--I know I never would have bought LIAR unless Justine spoke out the way she did.

Doret: "If Bloomsbury acted with some sense and thought about their authors before the bottom line this would not happen. "

Amen, and amen again, and in the true spirit of the fable and the fairy tale, amen for the third time. I could not agree more strongly with this. Books are NOT dishsoap or paper plates or pasta sauce or socks, and they are increasingly being sold and marketed as just that - another commodity. If the black socks don't sell, why, stock the shelf with the white ones (how ridiculous is *that* when you reduce it to this level?...) The problem of course is that socks are socks and you might shrug and pick up whatever colour is available so long as the item is sock-shaped and fits your foot.

But BOOKS AREN'T SOCKS, and WRITERS AREN'T SOCKS, and READERS AREN'T SOCKS and STORIES AREN'T SOCKS. And as long as they are being treated like socks we're going to have this sort of thing happening.

Publishing is not a high-profit business. It can't be; it was never meant to be. Publishing is no more and no less than the conduit through which stories are funnelled from writer to reader. This process is not compatible with your sock-selling business model - and the definition of a good book should not depend on the number of copies it has sold, or not sold. I am not a complete ingenue, and I know that there was never such a thing as a "Golden Age", but it does seem to me that in years past the publisher's role was far more a nurturing one where they would pick an author and support that author's long-term career rather than the current "Let's go out and grab as much MONEY as we can, and if the author isn't helping to do it, DUMP THE AUTHOR, there's always another one where that one came from."

The cover issues we are having, I suspect, are not the product of someone actually looking at a given book, thinking about it, loving it, making sure that it gets out there and is read by those people who might be out there crying out for such a book. No, it's a question of somebody in a position of power looking at a a book as a commodity and saying that black socks (i.e. characters of colour on book covers) don't sell, so even if the book in question has black socks coming out of it in palletloads ... well... "the best we can do is help the black socks sell by slapping a white sock on the cover - and we hope that the readers are distracted enough not to notice that they are actually buying all those black socks when they're busy plunking their money down."

This disrespects the story and the book, it disrespects the writer and creator of that story, it disrespects the reader of that story.

But there you have it. Bloomsbury doesn't appear to be thinking about its authors, OR its readers. The only thing that appears to be on its collective corporate mind is the current market value of black socks.

sorry i've been a bit out of the loop on this one - finishing up my schooling and all in the wilds of northern vermont.

i'd like to propose again the same boycott i suggested for the LIAR controversy that never took place because they changed the cover: buy MAGIC UNDER GLASS (support the writer) and send the dust jacket back to bloomsbury asking for an appropriate replacement.

i think it is troubling that bloomsbury didn't seem to learn from their last, most recent experience, but they need to be shown the error of their decisions rather than ignored. boycotting might affect them on a financial front, but they'll never really know how many books were not bought as a result of their decisions. if they receive physical proof and have their noses rubbed in it, so to speak, they might get housebroken.

Alma, I am really moved by what you said. Thank you for giving us more insight into the industry.

I think the discussion is more important than anything. Yes, people will boycott, and yes, people will disagree about how to handle their frustration and anger. But more importantly, the discussion will continue, and that will attract attention. Then you might get a result like this:

From a statement sent out by Bloomsbury:

“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.”

Very good move, Bloomsbury. Now let's hope they don't decide to just go with the "ambiguous" UK cover and actually show a woman of color.