White Publishing Industry v.2
Race, Equity, and Book Publishing
As of 2025 and also historically, the publishing industry of America is predominantly made up of white people. White people make up the majority of publisher positions and authors who get published. This is a problem because it doesn't accurately reflect the scope of race and cultures that exist in America's "Melting Pot."[1] In PEN America's article, "Reading Between the Lines,"[2] published in 2022, the article exposes the biased whiteness of the publishing industry and describes not only the problems authors of color face when attempting to get published, but employees of color as well in editorial spaces.
The greatest examples of this issue can be seen in the Big Five publishing houses, Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and HarperCollins. PEN America released a number of statistics detailing the DEI statistics, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, of each of these companies. Though each company records their DEI statistics, only three of them make those statistics publicly available, these being Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan. Of these 2020 - 2021 statistics it was revealed that the whiteness in each publishing house was about 80% for PRH, about 65% for Hachette, and abut 70% for Macmillan. Though their DEI statistics are not widely available to the public, Simon & Schuster did participate in PEN America's study for 2020 - 2021 with their white make-up being about 67%.
Condemning the publishing industry
This is where Jono will use this interview to corroborate the Penn America claims with Bernadine Evaristo's claims and the DEI article.
