Month: November 2023

THE INDIE PRESS NETWORK GUIDE

Sensitivity Reading and Editing

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There is a lot of contradictory information swirling around the subject of sensitivity reading and culturally sensitive editing, and the terminology has become embroiled in the culture wars. While many mainstream publishers have relied on such readings of their titles for many years, the role has only come under such close scrutiny in more recent years, and increasingly become portrayed as ‘fiction’s new moral gatekeepers’ (Spectator). For a summary of the debate to date, the Bookseller have you covered.

For those who are interested in the role such reading and editing might have in the independent-publishing sphere, we spoke to Holly Edgar, the founder of Write Up, an editorial agency that works ‘with authors, publishers and employers who want to create a more inclusive future by creating content that inspires everyone and excludes no one’.

If getting your language right, your descriptions accurate and making sure people can see people who look like them in the media they consume makes people happy, comfortable and respected, why wouldn’t you do it?

Why is sensitivity reading/culturally sensitive editing important?

Holly: This is a biggie, but for me, it comes down to kindness. Bear with me, because I know that sounds twee, but if getting your language right, your descriptions accurate and making sure people can see people who look like them in the media they consume makes people happy, comfortable and respected, why wouldn’t you do it?

A longer answer is that it helps avoid inaccurately portraying marginalised people or cultures. Sensitivity readers are specialist editors who pinpoint elements that may lack authenticity and find scenarios or storylines that, for various reasons, might seem improbable within the context of their community or own experience. Because of their lived experience, they have a greater capacity to identify inaccuracies and stereotypes about their community and are in better positions to suggest changes. In-house teams at UK publishers are currently not very diverse, so the potential for spotting bloopers that way is still fairly limited.

The idea is to make the author and publisher sensitive to their work’s possible issues and implications and let them make an informed choice about any changes to be made. While some cultural errors, like an Australian character saying they’re ‘going to the ball game’ won’t cause harm, the repercussions of stereotypical or inaccurate portrayals of marginalised communities can be profound. Accuracy in representation is about avoiding harm and fostering a more respectful and inclusive narrative.

Seeing people like us on TV or in books matters a lot. It’s how we make up our minds about different groups before even meeting them or how we think others will see us. If the media consistently paints a group badly, or even just in one particular way, we eventually believe that’s true. It affects how we expect people from that group to act, and if we’re part of that group, we might even feel like we should act a certain way. Not all media representation is negative, but there are a lot of harmful stereotypes out there (equating ‘fatness’ with ‘laziness’ is one) that influence how society sees you.

Also, not everyone even gets to see themselves on the screen or in books, which makes you feel like you shouldn’t exist, like you’re not OK just being yourself, and that’s a lonely place to be. You start believing you’re not important and that maybe people won’t like you if they see the real you. But when you see bits of your story in everyday life, it’s affirming. It makes you feel less alone and more normal. Finding movies or books about subjects that matter to you, or a character you can relate to, helps you start accepting yourself and reminds you that you exist in, and are a valid part of, the world.

For educational materials, where I started in publishing, content needs to be especially relevant to the audience. If your textbook is for the Caribbean, show a Trinidadian teacher in a Trinidadian classroom, not a random Black person, in a stock photo probably taken in the US. Take the time to notice that Trinidad also has ethnically Indian and Chinese populations, so the kids in the class should be racially mixed. Give examples of scientists, mathematicians or authors from the region. It’s about doing the work as well as meeting syllabus requirements.

What are the different options available for publishers with varying budgets?

Holly: We can do anything from commissioning authors, reading the entire production stage (e.g. draft, final manuscript, layouts, colour artwork) to picking out specific parts of the text or images that you want a closer look at. Our usual package covers one production stage (usually the draft manuscript), and the reader would annotate the Word file in-line and send a detailed report summarising their feedback (and, importantly, giving context so you and your author can make an informed decision). We advise publishers to build this into their costs ahead of time, rather than leaving it to the last minute or trying to take a chunk out of other bits of the budget.

Can you suggest any resources for presses starting to think more about inclusivity?
Holly: We offer training and workshops from the ABCs of inclusion to really in-depth stuff (last year, one of our consultants did a talk about the anthropomorphisation of characters in children’s books and their racial connotations). But it can also be as simple as ‘What’s intersectionality?’, ‘What do I do with a sensitivity reader’s feedback?’ or ‘How do I know if I need one?’.

Any top tips for publishers who want to improve the sensitivity of their offering but aren’t yet able to stretch to a full read?

Holly: I’d say get in touch with someone at the commissioning stage who can read your outline or synopsis and pinpoint any potential pitfalls. Then, you could always get someone to read specific parts (e.g., we recently read one chapter of a book that focused heavily on an Islamic character).

Resources

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
Last updated: 29th November 2023
Author(s): Will Dady, Renard Press, with Holly Edgar from Write Up

THE INDIE PRESS NETWORK GUIDE

Look Inside and Discover

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Most readers will be familiar with the concept of ‘look insides’ from Amazon’s listings, where customers are given the chance to open a book digitally and see a short selection of a book’s content – and according to almost all sources that report on such things, this is a vital piece of a book’s metadata, and can account for increased engagement, discoverability and sales.

As a result, it’s important for small presses to take advantage of ‘look inside’ possibilities – and there are many. Here are a few companies to think about:

 

Amazon’s Search Inside the Book Program

In order to upload to Amazon’s Search Inside the Book Program you’ll need a Seller Central PDF Upload (UK) account. Amazon supply some information here, and in the first instance you should contact them to ask for access.

Once you’re set up you’ll be able to upload your PDFs (again, they provide information, but you’ll likely find it easiest to make one PDF of the full book’s insides, with a front and back cover appended within the PDF, named by its ISBN, e.g. 9781913724009.pdf). Once you upload it they’ll process it – check back in a few days and you should see it on their website.

If you produce ebooks as well as print editions, when you upload a Kindle edition Amazon will likely link it to the print edition and offer the ebook as a ‘look inside’ option for both formats.

 

Google Book Previews

Another free service, Google’s all-in-one upload solution enables you to add full PDFs to your account, which will allow selections to be previewed on Google.

Like Amazon, they want the full inside PDF, and you’ll need to fill in lots of metadata too. (Please note, if you’re a classics publisher they might refuse to take your titles which are in the public domain, as they limit this to their favoured – here’s looking at you, Penguin – publishers.)

More information about the service can be found here.

 

Exact Editions’ Reading Rooms

Launched in 2022, Exact Editions have created a platform for publishers (with both free and paid memberships) which offer look-inside possibilities, billed as ‘A book marketing platform publishers can use to connect books with consumer and trade customers to drive sales’.

With the free version, publishers can upload their full PDFs and create ‘digital book previews’, which contain a selection of pages from the front and rear of the book, with a link out to the publisher’s website (or desired retailer) when the sample is finished. (Find an example of one of our titles here.) While the majority of presses use these links on their websites, social media and newsletters, each link comes with a QR code, which of course you could print and distribute on posters, flyers, etc.

Uploads are quick and simple, and although the free version means you need to upload titles one by one, it doesn’t take very long to do.

Exact Editions say the pro version also allows publishers to: share extract(s) of the book digitally with customisable preview pages; distribute time-limited full access links to books for digital review, inspection, and rights copies; curate time-limited virtual book collections, including either previews or full access to the books included; access the bulk-upload tool.

For many publishers who want to supply inspection copies digitally, this is a viable – and less expensive than many alternatives – option for sending time-limited access to digital titles without blindly sending out PDFs.

It should also be noted that the free version of Reading Rooms comes with a visually accessible graph of statistics, which, if slightly basic, is likely all the information (and more) that you’ll require – what has been read, etc, how many times – while pro users have the possibility of adding Google Analytics search properties for their titles for more in-depth stats.

We spoke to Ellie Burnage at Exact Editions when writing this piece, and she said:

Exact Editions’ Reading Rooms for Books allows publishers to freely upload an unlimited number of PDFs, selecting the number of pages available for preview at the front and back and a web page (shop link) to re-direct readers to. These book preview links are completely ad-free (as are the QR codes) and can be distributed in any digital context such as websites, social media, blogs, newsletters and more.

Visit the Reading Rooms for Books sign-up page here and enter your company name, your email address and password.

Please contact readingrooms@exacteditions.com with any questions.

It’s also worth noting that Exact Editions run campaigns several times a year, and offer publishers the opportunity to submit titles to their collection, meaning you can submit (normally two) titles to be part of their Pride Month or Black History Month collections, offering free promotion opportunities.

At the time of writing publishers can opt for either a free or pro service; the paid service starts at $249 p/a.

Resources provided by Exact Editions

Reading Room For Books Explained

Reading Rooms for Books

 

 

Jellybooks

Another small company with big ideas is Jellybooks, which launched its Discovery platform to great acclaim in 2021, with a collaboration with Blackwell’s.

Publishers setting up an account with Jellybooks can upload their ePub (ebook) editions to create ‘look insides’ for their titles – which are then available for bookshops to use on their websites. Here’s an example, using one of Fly on the Wall’s titles. Like Exact Editions, each link comes with a QR code, which of course you could print and distribute on posters, flyers, etc.

We spoke to Andrew Rhomberg at Jellybooks for this article, and he said:

The Jellybooks Discovery platform offers publishers the opportunity to improve book discovery. The platform provides high-street bookshops and independent retailers with online book excerpts and audiobook snippets from participating publishers either as web modals or links. The platform can also be used for social media marketing, author care, publicity and publisher’s email newsletters to improve the customer journey from discovery to purchase.

Discovery samples are distributed from publication date onwards and are tailored by Jellybooks to the requirements of each bookshop, retailer, publisher and partner with customised purchase paths (buy buttons at end of sample) unique to each.

You can grab your sample links either manually, through our publisher portal, or programmatically through our API, which is dead easy to integrate.

We also have a lot of retailer integrations: we are used by dozens of smaller indie bookshops such as Rossister Books, Coles Books, Book-ish, Truman Books and many more – and of course Blackwell’s too – and Dubray is the latest to have gone live (they call it ‘peek inside’). Coming soon are Easons, Stanford’s Travel, Toppings & Company, Guardian Bookshop, Times Bookshop and more. Blackwell’s also uses samples in their weekly email newsletter. A list of participating retailers can be found here.

Jellybooks aims to take as much hassle out of the process as possible and ensure wide distribution to bookshops and retailers. Past promotions have included an interactive magazine with the Booker Prize, and an Easter promotion with Blackwell’s. The latter also uses sample in its weekly newsletter to readers.

The service is used by over 100 indie publishers, including Bluemoose Books, Dead Ink, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Istros Books and Fly on the Wall Press, as well as larger publishers such as Bloodaxe Books, Granta Books, Luath, Birlinn, Bristol University Press, DK, Pan Macmillan and Penguin Random House.

It is worth noting that some publishers have access to this service via their ebook aggregator (Andrew said they can receive feeds from Faber Factory, Ingram Coresource, Codemantra, Bookwire, Consonance, Inpress and Turnaround Publishing, ensuring a fully automated submission and update experience).

Jellybooks also have a National Literacy Trust project in the works, which might be of interest to children’s book publishers, and they say they also run promotions using books on the system – e.g. producing postcards and bookmarks with QR codes on and distributing them at Gardners’ trade show.

Publishers wanting to find out about the upload process can do so here. At the time of writing the service starts at £100 p/a + VAT, and a free trial is available for Indie Press Network members.

Resources provided by Jellybooks

Jellybooks Discovery for Publishers

 

 

Resources

 

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
Last updated: 15th November 2023
Author(s): Will Dady, Renard Press