Where Is the Diversity in Publishing? The 2015 Diversity Baseline Survey Results

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Looking for more recent numbers? Check out the 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey statistics. 

The Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS 1.0) was created by Lee & Low Books with co-authors Sarah Park Dahlen, PhD, St.  Catherine University and Nicole Catlin, graduate student, St. Catherine University

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By now it’s no secret that publishing suffers from a major lack of diversity problem. Thanks to years of research by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, we have ample data to confirm what many readers have always suspected: the number of diverse books published each year over the past twenty years has been stuck in neutral, never exceeding, on average, 10 percent.

Countless panels, articles, and even conferences have been dedicated to exploring the causes and effects of this lack of diversity. Yet one key piece of the puzzle remained a question mark: diversity among publishing staff. While the lack of diversity among publishing staff was often spoken about, there was very little hard data about who exactly works in publishing.

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