Hi. Thanks for turning out. Im laura miller and im the books and culture columnist for slate. Com. This is another social social distancing social from future tense in partnership with a partnership of slate, new america foundation, and Arizona State university. Today we talking about the future of books, and im joined by priscilla painton, who is Vice President and executive editor of simon and shuster and brandon tensley, a writer for cnn politics. Hi, i priscilla and brandon. You have to up mute. Nice to be here. Thanks for having us. When i was asked to sort of moderate this, one of the things it brought up brought to mind are brought up in my memory is how in the early 2000s it seemed like everywhere you went there was like a Panel Discussion of the future of books and peopling making predictions but the future of books and how things had to change and which they needed to go, and that was all tied to the emergence of ebooks and ebook technology. Most of the people said at that time did not turn out to be true. Ebooks did not take over from print books. And in particular younger readers more than any other Demographic Group preferred print books. So, the idea that Book Publishing needed to change with this technology well, maybe it did some ways but not neighbor the ways that people thought, and im wondering, first, priscilla, i dont know if you remember that time or the kind of craziness that went along with it, but do you feel that i dont know how much credit you gave to that idea at the time or but what do you think pow . Do you think any of to the pries disks are likely to pan out and how has hat changed your own personal feelings about predicting the future of books. Im terrified to make predictions. Im still terrified to make predictions. Was then and i am now. Before becoming a book publisher is was a political reporter so i what i would say is that, youre absolutely right. I remember the charts. You would see the ebooks go straight up and think that is he end of the book store. But what happened is that about five oar six years ago that trend stalled, and as you say physical books continue to thrive. The biggest development, though, is that not only do millenials like physical books, they love audio books. And that has taken off and that is also very good for publishing because what it means is that you can take a book with you as you vacuum your living room, you can take a book with you everywhere, and that is also frankly at a time when we needed a very reliable source of income. It has turned out to be exactly that. So, the good news for me dish mean to me the big headline is so simple which is people will read are reading more than ever. Theyre just doing it across whole different set of platforms, but this i call it the harry potter phenomenon, which is everybody thought we were no longer making generations of readers. Well, a whole series of books of that popularity came along and what we have is generation after generation of readers who just changed maybe changed the way they consume a page but dont change theyre desire to see something on a page. One of the changes that feels the most urgent right now has been about diversifying the industry, and we just recently he seen the day of solidarity where 1100 Publishing Industry workers took a day to do whatever they felt was necessary to support people of color who are writers or who worked in the industry, and have exacted some promises, although its always never clear what exactly those promises will pan out to be, from managements about making the industry more representative. Its very white, anywhere from i have some figures right here depending on which survey you look at, its anywhere from 76 to 84 white, where the general population is 60 white, and hispanics and blacks in particular are underrepresented, and im curious, you, brandon, youre a young writer of color, and i dont doubt that you have ideas for books or probably working on one. How is the Publishing Industry look to you from your perspective. Its interesting for me because i see that there are certain more Diverse Voices being represented, that are out there, and those are i think ecenter voices that people love and elevate and celebrate, but then when you take a step back you realize everybody is talk about the same few people so it seems like maybe a few people get in and we have this which are invaluable and people are revitting. Revisiting them right now and you think about all the people who have not been that successful, have not been able to actually break through, and when you think about it, i think its i dont want to say necessarily disheartening like the industry has not been changing but youll see how much it still needs to change to find writers who not only want to write these stories but are empowered to actually write the stories. I think one thing ive noticed recently, especially on twitter probably noticed different campaigns and people are trying to talk about what they were paid for books and things like that. And its pretty galling to see somebody like roxanne gay paid 70,000 for bad feminist, just like she is already pretty well known by that point and really respected as a writer. And so you see stuff like that and see people at least ive seen people talk about theyll have an idea for a book project and maybe theyll approach an editor and the editor might say this sounds really good. This is a story that needs to be told but it dont know if im the person to work on that story, which is sort of a doubleedged sword because on the one hand it shows a degree of selfawareness that is important, but you dont want to necessarily mess up somebodys work, if its not something you feel comfortable working with, but on the other hand you still need the editors. You still need people who are comfortable working with diverse stories and the sorts of stores that maybe it makes people uncomfortable to edit a book about race and racism but at the same time that shows we need to make people get to a point where they feel comfortable and they have the resources to be able to actually do this sort of thing. It does impact a lot of the stories told, and peoples willingness to the at the temperature, somebody seems to like this back or idea but they seem skittish taking it on themselvesful those are my general observations over the past two to three weeks with at the protests. Do you feel like theyre skittish because theyre basically white editors and dont feel like they understand the issue in the organic way that an editor of color would . I do. I think its a matter seems like on the one hand its a matter of respect. Dont want to botch somebodys very intricate story but race. On the other hand i think that can also be sort of a crutch so that people dont have to do the work required to actually rigorously think but the issues that people want to read about. Its a matter of a disconnect between lived experience in the sort of intellectual experience that youre suppose told be able to work with and its a question of how to bridge that divide, how other doo you bet white publishers or editors to feel comfortable putting their weight behind these sorts of stories. One of the things that everybody is talking about this week is the fact that the paperback bestseller list on amazon is almost entirely the antiracism which is exciting but then you realize, most of the people who need to buy those books are probably white. I dont think black people necessarilied in to read about how to be antiracist. So, in a weird way, most of the books are written by people of color but theyre presumably written for still like so much publishing for majority white audience, even though there are a lot of readers of color who are beside in reading about their own fiction but their own experiences other kind stories about their own experiences, and priscilla, what do you think are the most promising or even effective i mean, the industry is not budged that far on this but like have you seen strategies or policies that seem particularly helpful or promising to you . This . Basically get more editors i was going to say, to i think the solution to skittishness is to have a diverse imprint, and youre absolutely right that publishing remains one of the most starkly white businesses around, and its i guess it has the capacity to be dangerous because presumably books have something to contribute to the culture. So that by definition is not a healthy situation. I mean, youre right that the good news is that i just was reading the New York Times bestseller list, the top ten entries, print and ebook nonfiction, are about race. Thats never thats not happened in a lifetime, ever. It starts with white fragility, number one, and number two, so you want to talk but race, number three, how to be an antiracist and goes down to our favorite, just mercy and of course number 11 is michelle. I think i mean, based on what ive seen i dont this strategy is that the people who have the right nerve endings for the stories should be all of us, i think. There shouldnt be a skittishness about it but more importantly, we just need to change how we hire. Its really basic. And theres i mean, i dont want to get into detail but still a sort of a kind of its on the side kind of attitude as opposed to its integral to our list. Its not this thing we do over here, and that is a big attitude that needs to change. You can correct me if i get this wrong priscilla because i havent actually technically worked in Book Publishing mitch understanding is for decades the economy of Book Publishing ran on the cheap labor of sort of junior staff who all came from, like, the same set of east coast schools who were mostly women, who maybe at a certain point i mean, many of them were not even necessarily on a real career track, this is just their little hobby job because theyre parents were rich but they were doing until the married stockbroker, whatever and that was like the economic model of publishing that your junior staff were people who did not need to be paid living wage, or to really have you didnt need to offer them like the possibility of ever getting one, and it seems like its only gotten worse because the industry is in new york, and its more and more difficult to for anyone on even a middle class income to live there let alone what editorial assistants are paid. And yet everyone always says publish is a low margin industry. So i think one of the issues is partly that theres a certain class of people who can afford to work for publishing, who can work their way up in publishing. Im assuming you came in at a higher level from journalism which definitely happens but people who want to start out in the trenches and work up they have to live in new york on a pittance for several years and then there arent that many not that much theres no guarantee. Theres not that much space to move up in. So, that limits the candidate pool a lot. It limits people by race and also limits them by and im wondering what are some of the measures that can be taken to deal with that . Because i feel like thats just a wall that you hit at a certain point. Well, youre right that 50 or 70 years ago there was a culture where publishing was that your entry job was for people who could afford to not make a lot of money. I would say the salaries of entering people are still low, and are still difficult to live on in new york city. If theres one if theres if one of the things that comes out of the pandemic is that were suddenly able to sort of expand the universe of where people can live and edit that would be a very good thing. Spoke to a brilliant editor today who was let go of his job by another publisher because he wanted to relocate to providence, and i said, youre going to get hired because no one cares anymore where you edit your book. So thats the good thing. I think the biggest remedy is to change the range between the higher salaries and the lower. You dont make lot of money even at my envelope publishing, Vice President level. Its not like working on wall street or at a high level a big ibm type place, but theres still i think quite a gap between what entry level editors get paid and part of i think the philosophy behind that is you actually get trained right out of school. You get trained on the job. So what that the good news is that what i have seen in recent years is a lot of hiring of nonwhite, very ambitious for books type people who just have to be near book every day of their life, and they theres more the pool is getting larger and we are Getting Better at finding those people and hiring them. One promising concept has come out of the organization we need diverse books, which started in childrens Book Publishing, which is to sort of help fund internships for people of color and i would hope other lower level jobs so that people can actually afford to get started in the business if they dont come from money. But brandon, i want to ask you what you think what you feel is missing. Youre a younger reader, a reader of color. What do you see Book Publishing industry not providing to readers like you. This is such a tricky topic so im being very careful how i talk about it. One thing i think about is a need to sort of expand the universe of what kinds of stories people want from writers of color. I think theres often a sort of assumption and its not totally inaccurate that the only topic that writers of color are able to talk about or experts on are their own lived experiences. So i feel like beyond the genre of a memoir or collection of like firstperson essays or Something Like that, you dont see as much i havent seen as many sort of books that allow that range of creativity, that range ofler and racing, that range of interrogation, and again, its not necessarily a bad thing but becomes a bad thing when thats the only thing that is really available. It seems like thats the only way to break into the industry is like, okay issue guess i have to dissect some part of my life for make a part of my life legible for write readers ands whited aens and ill do it. I think be able to understand that there are many, many things that writers of color, that readers of color are interested in besides purely learning about their own experiences. Not saying its not important but its expanding that conversation, expanding that representation. What ive also heard some writers say is just the focus only on the traumatic experiences as opposed to its a whole range of its human lives. They have everything in them. Are you working on a book yourself . I am trying. I guess its not related to im not guilty of what i just im not not get of what i just said. The idea im interested in is Whitney Houston as a cultural figure, somebody who hasnt gotten the sort of more cultural criticism treatment and so im interested in sort of looking how she is somebody a lot of ways her life the microcosm of expectations we have, that Mainstream Society has of black artists, somebody who came in very top heavy who is obviously black but sort of didnt want her to seem too black and how that changed the trajectory of her career later on. There was a moment when she is she changed the sound of her music after that so i am really interested in this broader sort of legacy of the effects of mainstreaming on in particular black artists. Im guilty a little bit of what i just said. I do that expand that to music. Sounds fascinating and maybe theres somebody who is listening in who is in publishing who will find that intriguing. Sounds great. Let talk a little more about technology because future tense is about technology. What you said priscilla but a audio books struck a nerve because ive been writing about enemy for a while. Got into them ten years ago and theyre just a complete addiction for me. I dont i can completely control the number of physical books i acquire. Anytime one is on sale ill go ill probably want to listen to that some day. We love you. Thats great. But it does seem like theres a lot of competition for podcasts and theres actually a great app called autumn that now has top level audio book readers reading long form journalism chase dream come through for me. First of all, brandon, are you an audio person at all or just an eye ball reader. More of an eyeball reader but you mentioned people millenials ill be a representative for millenials i guess millenials like both or see the benefits of both. So im in two book club is joined, once the pandemic started, and so one is a Gay Book Club and were reading reading the hard copy of politics the form of immortal girl by andrea lawler, came out and then the other one is trenches by andre sally. And that one thats at audio book. Thats one i listen to when im cooking dinner or cleaning up the house honor something. When you step back, people are doing both. Im doing both right now. I have definitely seen from some of the younger readers ive met this love of the print book as like an escape from screens, which is which is not what was anticipated but that is like you there are tiktok videos of people opening books and turning pages in a strange way that i just feel kind of alien to me. Almost like a fettishizing the fact its on paper. But clearly is presented as this relaxing escape, and yet well, i dont know. Print sales really did really get a boost during the pandemic. So maybe that kind of fit width all that it ben then oddow books are the book that you read so that you can multitask really, and i think its great but i know a lot of people feel like its not really reading because youre not giving your full attention. Be interesting to see where that goes. But the more popular audio books become, the more significant the performance becomes because its not just like a simple translation from the page to the microphone. Theres another artist involved and that can make a huge, huge difference and as you were saying, brandon, he read is his own book . Yes. So thats got to be fantastic i think were at the point where we can take some questions. It that i dont know. I cant tell. I thought we were at that point but im not getting any signals. So, while were waiting to figure out if people have questions, priscilla, you mixed audio books but what else do you see on the horizon in the Book Business . Well, today we acquired a book that is going to come out in four different formats immediately. One is the first is as an audio book because its by a famous artist. Then the physical book is going to show up and then at some point its going become both a cd and a vinyl, and its a book of poetry, and im only mentioning that because we never would have sort of five years ago there would have been first the hard cover, then the paperback and then