The cover of Millenia Black’s book–she sold the foreign rights when it was self-published.

As soon as Penguin acquired and pubbed it, they made it a for-blacks-only book, not marketed towards or fit for the eyes of foreigners or anybody not black.

Why? Not because the characters or theme was black–but because the author was black. Narrowing the potential readership to supposedly target readers by race only happens to black folk.

The author is severely criticized for bring up the word racism, of course, and taking action on her own behalf. According to most everyday racists, there is no such thing as racism against blacks unless white sheets are involved.

Other races do get occasional targeted marketing (an ad in Latina magazine, etc.), but generally the marketing of their work is also inclusive of the readers of their genre as a whole. Angela has an interesting series of interviews from several of these fortunate nonblack authors.