Should I censor myself?

Question: I want to write a trade book, but this current political atmosphere, and the federal attacks on academia, are making me a little nervous. Would it be prudent to self-censor just a teeny bit? Or perhaps shy away from topics that might be seen as too “woke”? I’m deeply committed to my principles, but I’m worried that my political orientation is going to hurt my chances of getting a trade deal right now.

Great question. And one completely worth thinking about in the surreal world we find ourselves suddenly operating in.

As always, the answer is not black and white. But it might surprise you to hear that I actually have some good news for you on this front.

The first thing to say, of course, is that if you are an academic based in the United States, the answer to this question VERY much depends on your residency status. Obviously, for reasons that don’t need to be spelled out, the calculation about what to write is going to look VERY different for a native-born US citizen from how it would look for someone here on a H1-B visa. (And of course, as we’ve seen, US citizens are far from immune from some of these pressures).

What I’m going to say here applies mostly to US citizens. I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable advising non-citizens on how to navigate this question, given the high level of uncertainty and unpredictability in the air.

Let me also just say that I’m not going to address this question from the perspective of what personal risks you might be taking, or what impact this might have at your university or in your career. The answers to those questions depends on a huge array of factors, and are going to be different for every person. It would be impossible to provide blanket advice on this, because basically that question boils down to: “Is it safe to be an activist right now?” (I have no frickin’ clue).

Rather, I’m going to address the question of whether certain political topics or approaches might damage your chances of getting a trade deal — which is a very different question.

So.

Let’s say you’re an academic who wants to write on a topic like race, slavery, gender identity, Palestine, white supremacy, US empire, etc, etc, etc — which is quite a lot of you. What do you do? Is it just a “bad time” to go out and pitch a big trade book on these kinds of topics? Should you “read the room” and keep quiet for now? Maybe wait for a “better time” to pitch your ideas?

Not necessarily.

The first thing to understand about this dilemma is that book publishers work VERY differently from other media companies, or universities or government-funded bodies. To SOME extent, they are pleasantly insulated from the political pressures that other American institutions have faced in recent months.

Why? For several reasons.

First of all, the really big trade book publishers, such as Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, etc, are 100% commercial, for-profit enterprises. They are mostly owned by larger media companies that exist to return profits to shareholders. Therefore, their absolute top priority is selling books and making money.

Other media companies, by contrast, are much easier to push around. When a major newspaper or magazine publishes something controversial, it can very quickly find itself the subject of a boycott campaign, cancelled subscriptions, and so on.

When a TV station airs a program that Donald Trump doesn’t like (as happened recently with CBS and 60 Minutes), it can find itself under the pressure of government attack, lawsuits — or simply plummeting ratings.

By contrast, when a publisher puts out a controversial book that gets a lot of attention and becomes the center of a heated political debate…. What happens?

That’s right. They end up selling a LOT OF BOOKS.

And shareholders are happy.

See the difference?

This one simple fact will insulate you a great deal, as you think about writing that big trade book. So please, take a moment to breathe a (small) sigh of relief.

But WAIT! I hear you saying. Couldn’t a big publisher get sued for a controversial book? Or become the subject of a boycott or other kind of attack campaign?

Sure. It’s theoretically possible that a publisher could put out a book that so enrages the White House that they get slapped with a massive lawsuit, like CBS did. But are you really going to write that book? Be honest.

As for consumer boycott campaigns or violent protests? Again, ask yourself a simple question. Are you really writing The Last Temptation of Christ or the Satanic Verses?

I hate to break it to you, but at the most, your book will enrage a relatively modest number of people, for about five minutes — which means it will help with your book sales. That’s it.

And that’s something that will actually make most publishers VERY happy.

So — does this mean all bets are off, and you can operate exactly as you would have done a few years ago, completely oblivious to the political realities that we’re living in?

Not so fast.

While big book publishers are generally not afraid of a little controversy, they are also VERY much afraid of publishing books that don’t quite “fit” with the current zeitgeist of the American public — and therefore don’t sell.

What do I mean by this?

Well, let’s remember 2020 for a moment, shall we? In 2020, if you wanted to publish a book about America’s racial reckoning, or why white people need to reflect more urgently on their unconscious privilege…. The world was your oyster. Publishers were snapping up books like that and cranking them out as quickly as they could.

Why? Because there was a large public appetite, particular among progressives, for books along these lines.

Has that appetite disappeared? Not exactly. In fact, it’s safe to say that those same progressives, that same 25-35% of the book-buying public that was very motivated to read those kinds of books in 2020, still very much exists — and is still very much open to being educated in this way. And they still buy books.

BUT. (And here’s the big point). What is on the minds of those same people today? Like at the VERY top of their list of anxieties and curiosities? Is it race and white privilege? Maybe, for some people. But for a lot of those people, if you ask them what’s most on their minds (and therefore what they’re most likely to buy a book about), they’re going to say, “fascism” or “American decline” or “authoritarianism” or something else.

See the problem?

It’s not that your natural base of progressive, bookish, political engaged readers has disappeared. Far from it. And it’s not that book publishers are suddenly going to start pandering to the White House and publishing more books about the glories of the Founding Fathers. Far from it. Your core readership base is still largely the same. And book publishers are still largely focussed on putting out books they’d be interested in.

But their attentions have shifted — a little.

Does that mean you can’t write about race or slavery or queer politics or Palestine? Not at all!

And that’s the good news.

But it DOES mean that you need to be a little more savvy about how you frame your topic, how you position it for the marketplace — and the tone you take when you write.

All things that — as luck would have it — we here at Scholars to Storytellers know how to help you with.