by bell hooks
Even when a work by a nonwhite writer is in no way biased yet specifically addresses nonwhite experience, it is likely to be seen by mainstream culture as irrelevant to white readers. The one book I wrote specifically addressed to black women is a discussion of the politics of self-recovery titled Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery. When it was first read by the alternative collective that was publishing most of my work, they shared their concern that there might be no audience for such a book. Like most predominately white publishing spaces they thought that the primary consumers of their books were a white reading public. I vehemently challenged this assumption while also insisting that it would be crucial that white people and other nonblack people read work illuminating black experience. In the same way I believe it essential that black people read work that illuminates the experiences of all other nonblack groups. All black people educated in this society read and study work that illuminates white experience, even though whiteness is rarely overtly named. The politics of white supremacy allow the experiences of white people, usually those who have some degree of class privilege, to count as normal—as universal.
This thinking prevails in the publishing industry. Books that focus specifically on issues relating to black people written by black writers, especially authors who are not associated with predominately white institutions, tend to be seen as being only for a black audience. Publicity for these works will usually be most visible in publications that cater to black audiences. There are definitely some black writers who are only or most interested in attracting black readers. However, the vast majority of black writers, like most authors, want to attract a wide reading audience. In an animated conversation with a white female publishing executive about manuscripts, I shared that I was planning to write a book about women and midlife. She wanted to know if it was a book for black women or was it about, as she put it, “people like me.” She never stated that she meant white women. I inquired as to what she meant; she replied that she wanted to know if it was for a general audience. Nothing I shared indicated a lack of an interest in a general audience. Indeed, I had used the phrase “women and midlife.”
Although my manuscript looks at the experiences of women across race and class, I was reminded of all the books I had read about menopause that only address the experiences of white women but are represented as being about the experiences of “women.” I doubt that any publishing executives attempt to steer writing by white women in a more inclusive direction; they don’t have to. Black and other nonwhite consumers are accustomed to buying books that do not directly address us, but clearly there are shared experiences that cut across the boundaries of race. I constantly learn from books written by and about white women. If those books contain racial biases I critique them even as I benefit from the substantive information they contain. A work is not racist simply because it is by and about white women. An underlying covert racism operates when the experiences of white women are represented as synonymous with those of all women. In worst-case scenarios, if only the experiences of white women are studied as a way of comprehending female experience then our knowledge always remains faulty—inadequate and incomplete. These were the concerns raised by the most visionary thinkers in contemporary feminism. As a powerful corrective they changed the perspective of a wide range of women thinkers across race and class. As a consequence there have been significant changes in the expectations and taste of women readers.
Readers of books are much more open-minded than the publishing industry, including critics and reviewers, imagines. While my work has received relatively few reviews in the mainstream press, it is usually described as though it does not address a general audience or is in some way incomprehensible for readers who are not black. Despite these reviews a general audience of readers buys my work. And the bulk of letters I receive indicate that readers who are not black or female have no difficulty identifying with and/or understanding the experiences described. In conversation a young white woman editor who loves the memoir of my girlhood shared that she told another white woman peer that she had given a copy to a Latina woman who also loved it. This woman was surprised that nonblack readers enjoy the book. Surely, she would not be surprised to find that Latina, Asian, or black readers enjoy and identify with works by white writers.
As I often write work that challenges received understanding of subjects like race, gender, and class, it has been enormously helpful for me to receive feedback from readers. Often readers suggest subjects that they would like to see me write about or express interest in a subject that I want to write about but had my interest dampened by someone in publishing who suggested that the topic is not compelling. Encouragement received from readers inspires me. Before I published books I did not really think that much about reader response. Yet when any writer does work that is provocative and not well received by the mainstream world of critics and reviewers, the fact that the work is often misunderstood or misread can be so depressing that it can inhibit the creative process. At times when I have felt deeply discouraged, affirmative reader response has been one of the factors enabling me to continue to write.
In conjunction with letters received, teaching and lecturing has kept me in constant dialogue with a reading public. Often I am enabled to talk about topics I intend to write about before I begin writing. When individuals respond by urging me to pursue a given topic as they desperately want to read such a book, it is another affirmative reminder that I am on the right track. That reminder can be particularly important if the publishing world is not very enthusiastic about the project. This was certainly the case when I first talked with my editor at Routledge about a book on teaching. He expressed concern about the relevance of the topic. Once again the question of audience was raised. From my perspective as a professor I knew how often teachers and students expressed confusion about the teaching and learning experience, particularly when it came to talking about issues of freedom of speech in the classroom, how to cope with differences, etc. And I felt strongly that a book talking about these issues would be well received. That was the groundwork that became the catalyst for the collection of essays on teaching Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. There was an overwhelmingly positive reception for this work. I had not considered its potential to speak to audiences of educators who did not do university teaching since the essays were all focused on that setting. The relevance of the issues talked about to a wide and diverse audience was made clear by reader response. Readers were just incredibly passionate about this work, once again reminding me that the conservatism of the industry can be challenged and changed by writers and/or consumers.
Dialogues between readers and writers can challenge cynical notions about consumers. These conversations take place in diverse locations through the mail, at lectures and public readings. Bookstore readings are one of the most powerful settings where writers are given an opportunity to encounter readers. Although I find book tours very difficult because there is often too much contact within short amounts of time, they do allow writers to meet their public. These events are important because they provide one of the rare spaces in contemporary culture where people come together and mingle across race, class, and gender without having to pay a fee to do so. The bookstore reading remains one of the most democratic locations where ideas are exchanged in our society. Even if there is no question and answer between the writer and the public, the audience has the opportunity to chat with one another. This is significant precisely because there are not that many public spaces where ideas are exchanged without cost in our society. Nowadays, most bookstores allow the reading public to sit and really peruse a book so that someone who cannot afford to buy work still has an opportunity to look at the contents.
I wanted to write this essay as a gesture of gratitude to the many readers who have taken the time to share their thoughts about my work with me. We live, read, and/or write in an anti-intellectual society. Vast numbers of people are illiterate and do not know th
e pleasure of reading. It is easy for writers, especially dissident voices, to feel as though we write in isolation. When readers communicate with writers about our work, that sense of isolation is disrupted. I would not have written so many books without the passion of readers, without their urging me to write more.
Writers should not dwell on the issue of audience. However, it is essential for any writer who wants to speak to a general audience without perpetuating structures of domination to write in a manner that welcomes any reader. Writers do not need to worry about whether our words can carry us across the boundaries of race, sex, and class. Words invite us to transgress—to move beyond the world of the ordinary. If that were not so the world of the book would have no meaning. This does not mean that writers should not be vigilant about the way we use words. Here the old truism “It’s not what you say but how you say it” holds. Irrespective of the subject matter, whether it reflects a common experience or not, readers are capable of great empathy. Writers must trust that readers are ready to receive our words—to grapple with the strange and unfamiliar or to know again what is already known in new ways.
the writer’s true home
When I lived in a small town away from the world of big-time publishing, almost all my energies were concentrated on the vocation of writing. I did not have an agent. Then my books were all published by an alternative press. Since advances were not an issue (as the press did not offer them) I did not sit around fretting about how much money I would collect and when. While I thought about audiences (every writer wants readers), I can truthfully state that I did not spend much time thinking about whether my writing could be sold for lots of money. Then, I was clear about the life I wanted to lead: I wanted to live a simple life.
In my small town, it was and is easy to keep life simple. I had a daily routine. I would be awake early to meditate and exercise, then I would write. By afternoon, I would wander around town, ending up at the local bookstore. Later I would watch a movie and read. Nothing much interfered with this routine. Like many writers what I most lacked in this world full of the stillness and space for contemplation that is essential for thoughtful creative work was meaningful engaged conversation. A really great conversation can be such a stimulus to any writer who works with ideas. Of course in my town I have friends with whom I talk about all the important issues of life. It was just that I wanted the talk to go deeper, to extend itself like a high note from a soprano saxophone, extend itself in such a way as to remind the listener of the transcendent power of words and ideas.
My decision to move to a city was motivated by the desire for substantive conversation, especially for talk with other writers. I also wanted to expand the reading audience for my work. All my writing peers had agents. They assured me an agent would not only help me to sell my work for more money but that by doing this I would automatically acquire a larger audience. Younger black women writers who had not yet published books but who were way more sophisticated about the nature of publishing than myself urged me to find an agent and indeed shared their information. On my own I had contacted a black woman agent who had shown no interest in me or my work. I could not discern whether it was the feminist aspect of my work that made her deem it irrelevant and uninteresting, but she did not encourage me to send her manuscripts. Then a young black woman writer who had not yet published a book suggested I speak with her agent, who had just sold her proposed book for more than two hundred thousand dollars. This was an impressive sale.
For years I had naively believed that if authors were paid advances and the published manuscript did not sell we were required to pay the money back. Given this assumption I could not understand the reasons anyone wanted huge advances. It astonished me to discover that no one paid back advances when work did not sell; the publishing company simply writes off the unearned advance. Another younger black woman writer, Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker, encouraged me to talk with her mother’s agent. All the agents I spoke with prior to meeting this agent had intently impressed upon my consciousness that black writers were the “in thing” and that they could really sell my work. One agent assured me that she could deliver enough money for me to buy that loft in Soho that I wanted. I did not doubt her words, for she was known for her six-figure advances. Yet the crass materialism that informed her ways of talking about writers and writing was alienating to me. And I could see why writers new to the very art and act of writing, eager to make money and a name for themselves, would not necessarily find anything disturbing about this approach.
It disturbed me because I was not accustomed to thinking of my writing as a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, nor was I at all interested in creating a public persona that would be part of a marketing package. After all, I was the writer who had published books where I had religiously refused to use a picture of myself on the cover. I had rejected blurbs because I wanted the ideas in the work to be the selling feature. The ideas in my books did attract readers. While the alternative press did not give advances then or pay royalties on schedule, the books had sold. In my undergraduate creative-writing classes, I had learned from the published writers who taught these courses that few of us would ever make money from writing or become well known. The only reason I went to graduate school and acquired a Ph.D. in American literature was so that I could support myself as a writer. Everyone knew that academics writing books were lucky to find a publisher and a few readers. In those days no one that I knew saw writing as a way to make a living.
Twenty years later all that had changed. Writers were not only making a living from their work, they were receiving huge sums of money. At forty years old I moved to New York City hoping to change my fate as a writer. I dreamed of leaving my academic career since I was only well suited for teaching and not at all inclined to do administrative work. I chose a high-powered agent (the one recommended by Rebecca Walker) who was not crass in her approach, who was sincerely engaged with books and writers. Her style was low-key and nonintrusive. And most importantly she was interested in selling the work, not in shaping work so that it would be salable or in shaping salable writers. This pleased me because I wanted attention to be focused on the work, not on me. Most of my writing years had been spent in relative isolation. While my books were well known not that much was known about me.
When my agent auctioned my first book to a mainstream publisher she included in her packet photocopied statements that showed how well my other books had sold. At one point in the process she shared with me the feedback that she might not be able to get a large sum of money since the individuals in publishing she was trying to sell the work to were not familiar with the work. It did not matter to the world of mainstream publishing that the books I had published with an alternative were not only steadily selling but were being taught in almost every university in the United States; the fact remained that I was a “nobody” on the New York scene. These experiences were all lessons teaching me about publishing today. I learned that the young writers who received big bucks even though they had not yet sold any work were individuals whose names were “known” largely because they wrote for local newspapers and magazines. I was learning that it was more important to have a marketable name than to write a good book.
Most of my writing life I had shown no interest in writing for magazines. At times when I was working on a book of essays, if a magazine editor approached me I would agree to publish a piece, but I never wrote essays specifically for magazines. My experience with the publishing world in New York changed that. I began to write for newspapers and magazines so that my name would be out there—so that I would be a writer editors would recognize. I justified this shift in my own approach by telling myself that these actions were necessary for me to acquire a larger reading audience. On several occasions, encouraged by agent and editors, I passively submitted when my work was edited in ways that seemed to me to remove its provocative edge. I was encouraged to believe that these compromises would in the long run help to expand my aud
ience. To some extent this strategy was helpful even though it was still the issues the works addressed that attracted readers as well. All the strategies I deployed to expand the audience for my books worked. My agent also acquired another contract for me with a substantial advance. Concurrently, media focus on black intellectuals also catapulted me into the public limelight, which brought greater attention to the work.
Suddenly, I was no longer a writer working in private. Whether I wanted it or not, the media created for me a public persona. Having a broader base to share ideas was the most exhilarating aspect of this newly acquired notoriety. It also created the opportunity for me to meet other thinkers and writers with whom I had longed to engage in conversation. More often than not the conversations about ideas and aesthetic concerns that I had imagined taking place did not happen. Usually, everyone was most interested in talking about the business of publishing, trading information or comparing notes. And high on everyone’s list was the issue of how much money people were being paid for book deals. Like other writers who were for a long time ignorant of the way publishing works, I was amazed to learn that writers who had already received huge sums of money for books that did not sell well were still able to negotiate new and better contracts. I was told by folks working within the industry that it was simply because these individuals had “star” power, that everyone could know a book was lacking in literary merit but if the author’s persona was strong enough to attract global attention that mattered more. It was difficult to make sense of it all when I was being told that my work could not attract huge sums because editors feared it would not sell. Of course the fact that my books have all sold well can be conveniently ignored since it is not fact that matters; connections and persona matter more.
