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Amazon’s lack of a disability fiction category is yet another example of disability being marginalised in publishing.
Whether we like it or not, authors and publishers know that Amazon is a colossus worldwide seller of books and that there are lots of people who find their next novel not by going into a physical bookshop but by one click on Jeff Bezos’ website. But what if they can’t find your books because there isn’t a category for them?
In January Victoria Scott, author of Patience, a novel featuring a woman with Rett syndrome, got in touch with me on Twitter. She knew that I also write fiction containing disabled characters and wanted to let me know what she had discovered – that Amazon doesn’t have a category for disability in fiction. ‘Lad Lit’, ‘Rural Humour’, Holiday Fiction’ and ‘Literary Theory and Movements’ (for Sally Rooney’s Normal People if you’re interested) all have their own place in fiction’s taxonomy but disability? Nada.
When we turned to the email to discuss the matter she told me that she was astonished by what she’d found. “I could find adult categories for coming of age, aviation, fertility, animal fostering, contemporary urban — but nothing for disability" she says.
“So?” you may ask. Well on a career level it means that Amazon buyers looking for novels containing disability themes or disabled characters may not be able to find them, which affects our livelihoods. Being a bestseller on Amazon, whether it’s in the overall charts or the ‘Rural Humour’ sub-category, can fuel authors’ careers and encourage shoppers to buy the book with the comfort of knowing that it’s popular.
I grew up not seeing anyone like me, a physically disabled person, represented in fiction going about their daily lives like everyone else and when I became a novelist I vowed to change this
Delving deeper though into societal impact it’s another case of disability being absent, ignored, marginalised and excluded, which disabled people ourselves have long experienced and campaigned against. Both Victoria and I believe that representation and seeing yourself included in culture and society are extremely important in our diverse society. To coin a phrase, you’ve got to see it to be it.
Victoria believes that the absence of a disability fiction category is simply wrong. “I believe that reading about characters like Patience is a very special thing — it draws people into their world and shows them how important everyone’s life is, however our body or our brains decide to work. It helps readers empathise with people who they might not meet in everyday life, and that’s wonderful," she says.
I grew up not seeing anyone like me, a physically disabled person, represented in fiction going about their daily lives like everyone else and when I became a novelist I vowed to change this. By not including disabled characters in fiction we’re inferring that up to 20% (according to the charity Scope) of our population doesn’t exist, or certainly is not worthy of being a character in book. As Victoria says, "It feels a bit like disability is being pushed into a corner and ignored."
Our next step was to send a polite email to Amazon pointing out the situation and asking if we can talk to someone about the company adding a disability fiction category. We received an acknowledgement of our email, thanking us for getting in touch and saying that thoughts have been shared with the team that innovates products and services. At the time of writing this column, despite replying to Amazon and requesting to speak directly to a member of their team, we have not yet had the chance to discuss the matter with anyone.
"If we manage to persuade Amazon to introduce a disability fiction section, I think it will raise the profile of fiction with a disability theme, allowing authors who’ve chosen to focus on the topic to showcase their work," Victoria says, “that’s an important step forward in the battle for visibility and understanding, because fiction is a brilliant way of spreading the word without lecturing people”.
If the change is made, publishers will then be able to add us to the disability fiction category, as of course will anyone, whether traditionally or self-published, whose novel belongs there. Readers will be able to easily find books in that category and it will be another step forward for disability visibility, plus a knock-on effect could well be that Amazon sells more books. And it will be a tiny step forward in improving diversity in publishing.
We would love Amazon to engage with us on this matter and take a lead on disability visibility. We’ll be tweeting about it with the hashtag #DisabilityFiction – here’s hoping that soon we’ll have good news to impart.