An Open Letter To Agents, Publishers, Booksellers, and Librarians Regarding Diverse Literature.

Thanks to the incredibly powerful #WeNeedDiverseBooks Campaign, many of you will soon be heading off to BEA 2014 with a renewed sense of what is marketable.

As you do, please remember that for every wonderfully talented author appearing on BookCon’s, We Need Diverse Books panel, there are countless numbers of us who were out ahead of this movement, yet could not find a champion willing to be in our corner.

If you are truly invested in finding and promoting diversity in literature, you’ll need to rethink the way you view independently published authors of these books. Most of us are talented, hardworking, and brave individuals who refused to let the “no’s” of traditional publishing keep us from telling our diverse stories. We are one of the greatest resources of diverse and multicultural literature available. 

I hope you will keep this in mind the next time you are approached by an independent author of a diverse book. Our champions are found in those who recognize and promote quality literature regardless of who published it.

Kelan O’Connell