Situation Report

In recent years, a number of books by black authors have swiftly become permanent bestsellers in paperback. Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land and the Autobiography of Malcolm X have all sold more than a million copies. By contrast, Richard Wright's Native Son, America's first big bestselling black novel, has taken 20 years to reach the same level--almost 40% of that came within the past three years.

College black studies programs are creating a need for histories and source books. Black bookstores have sprouted in major cities across the country, including New York, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New Orleans. Articles are talking headily of a large "black book market." Black poets are being distributed in pamphlet as well as book form.

But the blacks' real literary advance so far has been startlingly small statistically.

There are only four top-level black editors in New York trade publishing, probably fewer than 30 in the whole book-publishing world. (In addition, there are at least 15 small operations run completely by blacks.) Most books on or by blacks being presented today are reprints. This is especially true of black studies texts, which are mainly reissues of earlier works. Of the new titles, many are by white scholars who have moved into the new market.

In the whole book industry (22,000 new titles last year), it is estimated that only 35 new books were actually by blacks. Trade houses report that from 0% to 8% of their books are now by or about blacks. But one major (and typical) New York publisher, noting that its output of black books has increased "sharply," reckoned the actual score at two new titles in 1969; up to six in 1970.

These figures are not solely the result of discrimination. The market for books among blacks is still small. The educational market has been fed mainly with reprints, and the popular market, largely white, remains satisfied with a handful of bestsellers.

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