I want to talk for a minute about why Publisher's Marketplace racism towards a paying customer here is especially egregious (thread) https://twitter.com/StorySorcery/status/1326310147006795776

PM is THE trade record for publishing in the United States--it tracks a huge proportion of the sales to publishers, and what agents makes what sale. For $25/month, a user has access to MILLIONS of important data points on rights sold, the types of books acquired, advances, etc

Now, a large number of writers can find and get a perfectly good agent without using this resource--there are, of course, forums, Query Tracker, agent websites, and acknowledgment pages to point people towards possible fits.

HOWEVER, the bulk of these the above resources are either aspirational (like #MSWL--an agent asking what they want to rep in the future) or centered around querying writers' experiences (like QueryTracker, which has a lot of how long it took someone to respond, etc).

Like I said before, these resources are *fine* for a lot of writers. But do you know who it's NOT enough for? BIPOC and other marginalized creators.

Publishing is an inhospitable place for marginalized creators. A good agent for these writers will not only love their book and think they can sell it but will understand the unique situation their authors are in given the climate.

Does this agent rep enough BIPOC to know that most are offered much smaller advances, and understand how to combat that? Does this agent have experience in the specific microaggressions this author will face during publication&marketing? Will they be able to help them stay safe?

Hashtag diverse books are super hot right now, which means that there are a LOT of agents and editors out here saying they want #ownvoices or diverse books without doing the necessary work to understand what that means, functionally. This is where tokenism comes in!

And do you know the easiest way to tell if an agent is really experienced and committed to representing marginalized authors versus ones that want the hashtag only? By tracking sales. Which is where Publishers Marketplace comes back in.

PM is an invaluable resource for marginalized creators because deal lists frankly cut through the bullshit. Want to know what experienced* agents jumped on the #diversity bandwagon? It's right there! In poorly formatted HTML for all to see

(*obvs new agents don't have many/any deals, which is why PM is also great, because you can view their agency's deals, and see if they're in a place that does this work well)

So circling back to this abhorrent excuse for customer service, Publishers Marketplace, as a very necessary tool for BIPOC and other writers with marginalized identities, and as a not-necessary tool for everyone else, needs to cut this shit out.

PM needs to acknowledge its entrenched racism, and understand that they don't just keep track of trade deals--they are, whether they want to be or not, a part of how future deals are shaped, and need to take responsibility for who they keep out

At the VERY LEAST, PM should stop monitoring and limiting access based on IP address, especially since it's very clearly applied unequally and prejudicially.

Ideally, they'd offer free access to their site to marginalized writers for a year.

Imagine the books that would come out of a radical push to provide deal information to the creators that need it the most.