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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]BookTok (the original site that got younger readers reading Colleen Hoover, as an example) type videos are now all over Instagram and even Facebook. A lot of regular readers are driving reading right now.

I've also noticed that a lot of reader promoted books are diversity and/or progressive pushes, more than simply a great reads. [/quote]

+1M clearly there is an agenda with the books being published these days.

And no obama doesn't read these he endorses whom ever pays him the most to.[/quote]

I hadn't heard anything about Obama being paid. But he, like many, have an agenda on what he (his team) thinks people should read that furthers their beliefs. And many of the young editors who are buying these days are progressive. As a result, [b]they are buying progressive and/or diverse manuscripts.[/b] [/quote]

Right.  Because the world of literature has been dominated by white men for eons.  Some balance it way overdue.  Sharing voices of women or people who are not white, is hardly progressive.  It's just including more people in the story telling.[/quote]

It's been decades since literature was all white men. Even the oldest readers grew up with James Baldwin and Alice Walker in middle school. A women of color with a book is hardly a new thing in 2026. But a crappy book is still a crappy book regardless of the race and gender of the author. Mediocre books shouldn't get a lift because the author fits a box. Bad books are bad books. [/quote]

DP. 51 y/o here. Most absolutely did not grow up with Alice Walker or James Baldwin in school. [/quote]

I'm 56 and I totally grew up with Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. All fine writers. That was school reading. It's been decades since white men dominated literature. Maybe boomers can remember. But there's also nothing wrong with reading Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, Faulkner etc. A writer can't control their race or gender. A good book is a good book. And elevating something solely because the author is a woman and POC is lame. Which is why we have so many mediocre books. Bring back the 90s when quality mattered. Now excuse me while I tell some kids to get off my lawn. [/quote]

Publishing is a competitive, cut throat industry. It seems highly unlikely to me that they’re publishing books because they’re authored by women or POC. I’m going to offer an alternative explanation that not everyone agrees with you about what is a “good book”. “Quality”, as defined by you, has never been the metric for deciding to publish books now or in the 90s. Expected sales are vastly more important, as evidenced by the oceans of books published that are authored by James Patterson and Frieda McFadden. [/quote]

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