Who, or What, is an Author?
“What book do you believe should exist, but currently doesn’t?”
“A memoir written by an ordinary person with an unremarkable upbringing who isn’t famous, insanely talented, or filthy rich.”
I’ve had a version of this exchange with over 40 people. The most requested book is a book about a “normal” person, going through an ordinary human experience.
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Publishing a book feels like the ultimate Renaissance accomplishment—you’re really someone when you have an entire book to your name. But who is an author, really? Someone who has 80,000 words to say about something? Someone who has the diligence and discipline to get those 80,000 words on a page, and then has the chutzpah to pitch those pages to an agent, believing they are inherently worth something? That’s what a traditional author does, yes, but I don’t believe that’s the only definition of who an author can be.
A few years ago I was flying back from Singapore and I succumbed to the in-flight entertainment options. I selected a movie that shall remain nameless (the intent of this post isn’t to drag another creative work, I’m just illustrating a larger point with this example). I was offended watching it. The movie was about the complex relationships between women, but the director was clearly a man—it could not have been more obvious that he was directing a movie about complexities he had never himself experienced. I put on Killing Eve after suffering through the movie and I had the opposite experience. I knew almost immediately that the creator was a woman. The writing was brilliant, and the subtleties and nuances of each female character came from a knowing that only another woman could have. As a viewer, I felt understood.*
Now let’s look at books: in any given year, somewhere between 70-80% of the bestselling books are written by men. When you look at racial diversity, the numbers are even worse: the New York Times published a study that showed that of over 3500 popular fiction books published between 1950 and 2018, 95% were written by white authors. In 2018 alone, 89% of the books in their sample were written by white authors. Unsurprisingly, they also found that 85% of the editors acquiring and publishing books were white, too.
Going back to where we started: the typical reader wants to read a book about an ordinary person. Why? Because we are constantly trying to relate to other people and their stories. We want to see ourselves, our human experience reflected back to us by someone who can put words to it in a way that we haven’t been able to. We want to feel seen, understood.
When the United States has a population that’s 50.8% female, 13.4% Black, 6% Asian, 19% Hispanic or Latino, and only 60% white but 95% of authors are white and 80% are men, how can we all possibly see ourselves in books? Per an article published in the Atlantic, the person most likely to read a book is a college-educated Black woman—but when she walks into a bookstore she’s overwhelmed with stories written by white men. When she wants to see herself in a narrative, when she wants to feel truly understood by an author, how is that possible within our current definition of what an author looks like?
Since time immemorial publishers have been the gatekeepers of widely read and celebrated stories. Publishers have created our image and definition of an author. Publishers who have not always been representative of the people who read books.
As a publisher, I am now part of shaping this definition. My approach to finding authors for Parea is a little different, though. I haven’t gone to agents, I’m sourcing authors myself. I’m talking to people who may have never considered writing a book because they didn’t think their story was valuable enough. In fact, most of the authors who I approached in the very beginning said “no” on the basis of believing they didn’t have anything to say. I put one such author in front of an accomplished non-fiction editor and the editor told her “I think you’re a fascinating person, and I believe you have more than one book in you”.
I believe authors go far beyond the words they’ve written. Authors are agents of cultural change. They have the power to transform how we think and feel. They can create new behavior in readers, they can uncover things that have been hidden for decades. Shouldn’t we be equitable in how we distribute this power?
Parea authors aren’t celebrities, CEOs, billionaires, influencers, or renowned writers. They’re not all one gender, or one race. They’re not all American. They’re a group of diverse human beings with stories, knowledge, and ideas that people can identify with. They’re eloquent, they’re gifted storytellers, but most of all they’re relatable. They write their books for you, the reader.
Let’s celebrate them and their stories. Let’s work together to evolve our definition of an author. Let’s all benefit from a greater shared understanding of the human experience.
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*This is not to say that men can’t write women well, or that women can’t write men. It is hard to argue, though, that writing about one’s own experience will likely be more authentic than writing about an imagined experience, no matter how hard you study it.