Reading and race
Who reads more fiction these days? Blacks or whites?
I don’t know the answer, but I had an experience on Saturday that has set me wondering.
I signed books at a Barnes & Noble in Bowie MD. We sold 14 copies of “To Love Mercy.” The bookstore manager, Connie Gleaton, was so pleased she asked if I’d like to come back and do it again. (Any time, Connie!)
Bowie is about 40 minutes from where I live, but I didn’t know much about it prior to Saturday. Based on about 2 1/2 hours in this Bowie Town Center bookstore, I’d estimate the local demographic as affluent black, and the bookstore clientele as about two-thirds African-American.
But more than two-thirds of those books were bought by African-Americans — about 12 out of the 14, I think.
African-American bookstore clients were friendlier and easier to talk to. Caucasians and others tended to avoid eye contact.
Now, as I never get tired of repeating for those who still don’t know it, I am white. Really white. Pinkish-white, to be specific. That certainly didn’t get in the way of conversations with blacks in Bowie.
It didn’t in Chicago either. I addressed a range of audiences there, some all-white, some all-black, at least one pretty mixed. My gut feeling in Chicago was the same as in Bowie — that I was doing at least as well with blacks as with whites, maybe better.
What might be going on here? Like I said above, I don’t know. But as usual, I have some wild guesses:
1. The novel’s themes of race and religion appeal more to blacks than to whites.
2. I appeal more to blacks than to whites. (Maybe it’s the hat.)
3. Black strangers are just easier to make personal contact with than white strangers.
4. Blacks are becoming more committed readers-for-pleasure than whites.
The most interesting speculation is No. 4, and here (for a change) I have some evidence:
– The rise of African-American oriented imprints at major publishing houses — Harlem Moon (Doubleday), One World/Strivers Row (Villard/Ballantine), and there are quite a few others.
– The current New York Times bestseller list: “I Say a little Prayer,” E. Lynn Harris, #1 in hardcover fiction; “Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings,” Tyler Perry, #2 in hardcover nonfiction; “The Covenant with Black America,” #4 in paperback nonfiction.
But I also have anecdotal, but extensive, evidence for Speculation No. 3 too.
When we were publishing the FEDERAL PERSONNEL GUIDE, I worked a lot of trade shows where civilian federal employees congregate. I gave away free copies of the GUIDE. I’d make eye contact, thrust a GUIDE toward the prospect, and say something like “How about a free copy of the FEDERAL PERSONNEL GUIDE?”
Since the GUIDE had a $14.95 cover price, and since about 99% of the people at such meetings find it highly valuable, you’d think I wouldn’t get any turndowns. But I did.
Invariably, white civilian federal employees were harder to give a free copy of the GUIDE than black civilian federal employees. Whites were harder to make eye contact with. Whites were harder to chat up.
I don’t think it’s me. I think there is something qualitatively different about the reactions of the two ethnicities in these meet-the-stranger situations.
Or maybe it really is the hat.
Frank S. Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com
P.S. This is BEA Week! BookExpo America, the biggest book show in the nation, takes place Friday-Saturday-Sunday at the Washington DC Convention Center. I will be signing books and holding forth all three days. Come chat me up at the Publishers Place booth, located in the PMA (Publishers Marketing Assn.) cluster. I’ll be wearing a white straw Stetson hat.
But you knew that.