On June 23, author Carmen Maria Machado announced she had canceled her virtual event with Tattered Cover, Denver’s oldest independent bookstore. “Unlike the owners,” she wrote, “I know that choosing neutrality in matters of oppression only reinforces structural violence.”

The issue was that while many bookstores had supported recent Black Lives Matter protests by curating reading lists and centering Black authors, Tattered Cover had released a statement last month proclaiming neutrality on all issues of “public debate.” It later apologized after several employees quit and authors canceled virtual events.

The incident may have been an unfortunate anomaly, but it also afforded a publishing industry already facing criticism for racial disparities in its dealings with authors and editors to focus on the other end of supply chain — the stores that decide which books to put in front of readers.

Across L.A., a thriving ecosystem of independent bookstores is engaged in conversations about inclusiveness in bookselling, especially as Black and antiracist-themed titles have come to dominate Southern California’s bestseller list. “We try to keep our politics present in terms of the books we buy,” said Adam Lipman, manager of Small World Books, a white-owned bookshop on the Venice boardwalk, but he conceded that selling books by lesser-known authors is not always easy.

“There’s lists going around now of diverse books that stores should stock,” Lipman said. “But we’ve had many of those titles. And ones by some Latinx authors, or fiction which deals with inner-city lives of African Americans, just didn’t sell.” The store has since reordered some of those titles, but Lipman’s frustration is not uncommon for booksellers with small marketing budgets and “razor-thin” margins. Both of these factors disincentivize taking risks on authors who don’t have publishers investing in promoting their books. Read Rest of Article Here