What I Learned Researching Bestseller Lists . . .

In preparation for Book Deal Bootcamp, my intensive that teaches entrepreneurs and experts how to get traditionally published, I dug into the bestseller lists.

Specifically The New York Times bestseller list, the USA Today bestseller list, and Amazon’s lists of top sellers and most read books.

What I found there surprised me, though in retrospect I shouldn’t have been all that surprised.

The lists of how-to bestsellers? Are currently all white guys, or close to it.

James Clear. Mark Manson. Bessel Van Der Kolk. Peter Attia. Adam Grant.

(Our client Vivian Tu shook the list up a little bit in mid-January with her book, Rich AF.)

The fact that the bestseller lists have been dominated — for YEARS — by white, cis, straight men is a real problem, and not because I’m against white guys succeeding. 

(My husband is a white guy. My brother is a white guy. My dad is a white guy. I could go on.)

What this domination signals to me is that women and folx of color aren’t getting the same visibility, initial promotion, sales momentum, and word-of-mouth that these dudes are getting.

And that’s a problem because readers need diverse books. 

While most of the research about the benefit of diverse authors has been focused on books for children, it matters for adults, too. 

Books written from perspectives outside of our own — and outside the cultural norms of capitalism, structural racism, colonialism, sexism and the broader patriarchy — allow us to broaden our perspective beyond our own experiences.

As scholar and educational expert Rudine Sims Bishop described, books written by diverse authors and from diverse perspectives create windows that allow you to see other people’s worlds that are unlike your own and sliding glass doors allow you to enter worlds that are unfamiliar to you.

Diverse books also lessen the number of mirrors — books that reflect or reinforce our own limited perspectives — that we encounter. Which is crucial if we want any kind of social justice, or even basic fairness and courtesy for ourselves and others.

I’m doing my part by seeking out marginalized voices who have great ideas for books,  championing their projects, and getting them six-figure deals. 

I encourage you to do your part — by purchasing, reading, or borrowing diverse books from your local library and independent bookstores, by following diverse entrepreneurs and experts on social media, and by supporting their businesses and ideas.

Not to mention pursuing your dream of becoming a published author.