I normally don’t talk about my struggles publicly, but I have been going through something that after yesterday, I feel like it’s time to share my story.
When I started my publishing journey I was on TikTok, and when I released my first book, Night Shade, I began to show my face. Soon after, I started receiving comments regarding the color of my FMC’s skin, which was that of a black woman, and my own skin tone, as I am also part black. The comments were positive, people saying that they felt seen because the main character looked like them, and I loved that. But then I started to get other comments.
Those comments would say they were only reading my books because the FMC was black, POC, or BIPOC, or that they were only reading from me because I looked like a black woman. To some, that may be positive, but in fact, it is not. I write paranormal romance, contemporary mostly, but paranormal nonetheless, and I advertise and promote my books as paranormal. Reading something, just because of the color of someone’s skin tone (fictional or not), isn’t being supportive. What happens when you don’t like those kinds of books? When you prefer your characters to not be 700+ years old vampires?
Soon after, TikTok blew up with people stating that authors should write in their lane, meaning, if you’re black you should only write black characters, that by writing white ones you were selling out, and if you were white you should only write white characters.
At first, I didn’t think this would effect my books much. It used to take me about six to nine months to publish a new book and I figured that since I had shared the information and appearances for book two (and that neither one of them were black, but one was POC), everything would be fine.
It was not.
To date, that book is still my worst selling novel, even though it is a better written book. When it released, I got comments and emails telling me that people would not read it because it was not a BIPOC FMC, or not BWWM (black woman/white man). I thought it would eventually go away, but it hasn’t. In fact, it’s gotten worse, because my third book has a Latin FMC with dark skin, and that book sells on par with my first, while my second still does not.
I don’t think people understand how much that hurts. People don’t understand how much effort you put into writing your books, the countless hours spent behind the scenes that no one else shares with you. And that somehow, even in fictional worlds, race is still an issue. And I’m not the only one who has seen it. I’ve asked, several times in different author business groups and people have said they’ve experienced the exact same thing I have.
Yesterday, I got a critique by five different incredible authors about my whole author brand, and do you know what they told me? They said I should remove all traces of race from my author brand. To change my logo to just text, to change my book covers, to even remove my books from the Interracial/Multicultural Romance genre, because even though they are, it’s causing me too much chaos. And you know what the sad thing is? They’re right.
We read books to escape, to remove ourselves from this world for a short period of time and enjoy someone else’s story, but I forgot that some things don’t seem to change. People have preferences, and regardless of what I’ve done, how well I’ve done it, or the effort I’ve put into it, all of that is mute against someone’s preferences.
This has brought me down, considerably. But I know I won’t stay there forever, and I will, in fact, make all of the changes that were advised to me. I cannot and will not continue to fight a battle that I won’t win fighting on my own. I’m going to keep on this journey, and document my progress going forward, because I know that unfortunately, others will go through the same thing I have and maybe somewhere along the line my words will help them.
And for anyone who’s gotten to this point, remember you’re enough. You don’t have to be everyone’s cup of tea. You don’t have to conform to everything. You get to choose how to resolve things you don’t like in your life. For me, after dealing with all of this for more than a year, that’s changing my covers, blurbs, genres, etc. But I’ll never take down my books or change anyone’s skin color, or remove myself from publishing. I love what I do, even if others don’t like the way I do it. That’s my compromise, that’s me prioritizing my peace right now, and I urge you that you do the same whenever you need to.
With love always,
Melissa