News – Book industry missing BME opportunity

Books for All, a new report launched to coincide with the annual conference of the Booksellers Association, has slammed the book industry for failing to respond adequately to the needs of Black and minority ethnic (BME) readers. The research was commissioned jointly by Arts Council Englands decibel programme and The Bookseller magazine.
It reveals that, while 86% of booksellers claimed to have BME customers, only 18% had a section for books of interest to BME readers, 33% of publishers spend any advertising budget on campaigns targeting this group, and 1% of the top 5,000 bestselling books in 2006 to date are by BME authors.