Authors called David more likely to be on bestseller lists than BAME writers

The Bookseller magazine has published analysis finding a ‘shockingly low’ number of BAME authors in the UK top 500 titles of the year

A writer has more chance of making it into the bestseller charts if their name is David than if they are from an ethnic minority, according to new analysis from The Bookseller magazine which found a “shockingly low” number of books by British BAME (black, asian and minority ethnic) authors in the top 500 titles of the year to date.

Looking at last week’s book charts, the magazine found one book by a person of colour in the official UK top 50 – American author Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, which had just won the Man Booker prize. The first title by a British writer of colour, Matthew Syed’s look at the secrets of success, Black Box Thinking, was in 368th place.

Related: Turned down 18 times. Then Paul Beatty won the Booker …

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