everyone seems keen to show how ‘diverse’ or ‘inclusive’ they are. For some, it may be a sort of virtue signalling,” she says. “It’s great that more Black writers are geting deals, so long as it doesn’t turn out to be a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes.” She cites the importance of the work of the Black Writers’ Guild and that of publishers such as Ellah Wakatama, whom she first met in 2000 at a Penguin part when the now Canongate editor-at-large was an assistant.
Across the board
Busby also emphasises that the trade needs to take a holistic approach. “Diversit takes many shapes, it’s not just about ethnicit. Gender, educational background, localit, age, whether you listen to people who are over 50, as well as to Millennials.”
But Busby is positive about working with organisations in making the industry more open, and has a busy itinerary over the next few months. “I feel extremely privileged to be the president of English PEN and to be working with a great team of people there. I’m look- ing forward to going to Jamaica later this month to the Calabash International Literary Festival, doing a panel with some contri- butors to New Daughters of Afica [Myriad Editons, 2019 (A repub- lication of Daughters of Afica, published by Pantheon Books in 1992)]”. Busby describes Daughters of Afica as “one of my most rewarding projects in recent years”. It gave birth to an award at SOAS that grants a free
course of study to a woman from Africa and the first recipient, Idza Luhumyo, went on to win the Caine Prize last year. Also on the cards is a new volume of Busby’s collected writings. However busy she gets, Busby will not rest on her laurels—during the interview with The Bookseller, she questions the concept of The Black Issue: “If the reasoning behind a Black Issue is that there is not enough coverage of Black writing in the regular magazine, or that Black people don’t read the ‘normal’ Bookseller, we have to ask why that is. Will white people not be equally interested in reading The Black Issue? Let’s make sure that there is good representation in all the other issues as well.” She added: “We all need to be part of the whole industry, so that it is not a novelt to have in-house Black personnel... No one should feel marginalised or peripheral. Talking about the mainstream doesn’t have to mean we’re not part of it. I am central to my life, I am not on anybody’s margin.”
TheBookseller.com
This translates into page-turning stories that feature a range of characters and locations. “We enjoy championing underrepresented voices with a current focus on working-class and Black writers,” McGilchrist adds. The press currently publishes three books
McGilchrist’s indie Dinosaur brings children’s fiction into modern day
Text Natasha Onwuemezi S
onya McGilchrist, the one-woman-band behind new children’s publisher Dinosaur Books, says that “underpinning every
book is a story we think that a child would really want to read: engrossing, exciting tales with fascinating characters that transport children to another world.” McGilchrist set up the firm in 2015 when she
struggled to find books “with main characters that were from a range of backgrounds” for her children to read. She also couldn’t find “fiction with a dinosaur theme—my son loved dinosaurs, like so many children—but when he got to seven, it became difficult to find dinosaur-themed books. The majority seemed to be picture books or for younger readers.” Dinosaur Books was born; its first series, The Secret Dinosaur, is for seven to nine-year-olds who love dinosaurs. Before publishing, McGilchrist worked as a
producer for BBC News, “Today” on Radio 4, “BBC Breakfast” and for documentaries for BBC Two. She pursues the same values in publishing that motivated her as a journalist: integrity, a belief in quality and, above all, respect for the audience.
a year and is hoping to increase that to five a year by 2025. The press’ lead title this year is Last Girl In by British-Jamaican author Cheryl Diane Parkinson. “It’s a story with a Windrush and cricket theme that moves back and forth between Jamaica of the past and the UK of today and of the 1950s,” says McGilchrist. “The main character is a 13-year girl, Kerry-Ann, who has inherited her Jamaican grandpa’s love of cricket but is facing a problem of prejudice and bully- ing at her local club. Via a fun time-slip adven- ture, she learns more about the struggles her grandpa faced as a child and when he first arrived in England—and this inspires her to overcome the bullies. And of course, there’s a lot of sporting and cricket fun.” For McGilchrist,
the biggest challenge when starting out was marketing and distribution. “Getting our books into the hands of readers was the greatest chal- lenge—like all publishers, we are always looking for ways to make our (potential) readers aware of what we have to offer,” she says. “It’s a pretty crowded market and it’s hard to break through. We decided to grow organically, so there wasn’t a huge marketing budget... There still isn’t!” Opportunities abound
though, making the endeavour worthwhile. “In the days when I used to do much more direct selling at school-fair stalls, I can still remember the Black mum who approached me with the words: ‘I’ll have one. Got to support independent publish- ers.’ It meant so much because
it showed me that customers actually like to buy from micro-companies,” says McGilchrist. “It had been hard to get the industry to trust our titles. The open-mindedness of customers encouraged us to sell directly, and when we started out it was our best sales opportunity.” Book bloggers and reviewers were also “kind
enough to take a chance and read books from an unknown micro-publisher,” says McGilchrist. “We ended up getting some high praise for our books and that was both encouraging and useful in building further connections. It is still hard to convince booksellers to take a chance on smaller publishers, though it is getting easier and we’re very grateful for the booksellers that support us. And there are some fantastically generous ones out there.”
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It had been hard to get the industry to trust our titles. The open- mindedness of customers encouraged us to sell directly
Sonya McGilchrist
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