Barnes & Noble is stuck in a public relations mess that it seems unable to clean up. A number of middle grade and YA authors claim that America’s largest bookstore chain won’t carry their current or upcoming hardcover books. The debate has quickly escalated into a discussion about B&N’s treatment of minority writers.
The controversy began last week when Britney S. Lewis heard from her editor that B&N wouldn’t be selling her new novel, “The Undead Truth of Us” because of a new policy discouraging stores from carrying hardcover debuts…
… By the time I reached Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt, he sounded exasperated by this controversy and characterized it as deeply uninformed … Contrary to what’s being claimed online, Daunt insisted that there is no B&N rule restricting the number of hardcover books by middle grade and YA authors. He also dismissed the insinuation that there is a corporate policy that limits books by writers of color. He noted that people are often drawn to bookselling as a vocation and that booksellers, as a group, are eager to discover new books and promote minority writers.
