"2025 and the return to a GOP president, as well as ongoing efforts to ban books by and about LGBTQ+ people across the country, have created a chilling effect in the publishing industry, according to a new report from The Hill. Several industry professionals told the outlet that over the past year, more publishers have rejected queer book proposals and manuscripts, while authors have seen a drop in royalties for their queer books. The anti-LGBTQ+ right's fixation on children's books has made things particularly difficult in children's book publishing."
"As The Hill notes, PEN America tracked over 10,000 book bans across the country at the height of the book-banning craze - which has targeted books by Black authors along with LGBTQ+ titles - during the 2023-2024 school year. During the 2024-2025 school year, the group identified nearly 7,000 bans across 87 school districts in the U.S. Some authors of banned books have reported spikes in sales in recent years, and at least one bookseller told The Hill that sales of queer novels remain steady."
"Young adult novelist and LGBTQ Reads creator Dahlia Adler noted that publishers are more likely to invest in books that will not get banned, while Irene Vázquez, an associate editor at independent publisher Levine Querido, explained that children's and young adult publishers rely on wholesalers that sell books to schools and libraries for the majority of their sales. Those wholesalers, she said, have become "more hesitant" to purchase LGBTQ+ books. Darius the Great is Not Okay author Adib Khorram blamed book bans for a recent 70 percent drop in his royalty checks, and said he and other queer authors have turned to writing adult fiction because of the fraught climate around LGBTQ+ children's and YA books."
Rising political pressure and concerted book-ban efforts have produced a chilling effect across publishing, particularly for LGBTQ+ titles. Publishers increasingly reject queer proposals and manuscripts, and several authors report significant royalty declines. Children's and young adult publishing faces acute risk because wholesalers that supply schools and libraries have become hesitant to stock LGBTQ+ books. PEN America tracked over 10,000 bans in 2023-2024 and nearly 7,000 bans in 2024-2025 across dozens of districts. Some banned titles have seen sales spikes, but many creators are shifting toward adult fiction to avoid the fraught climate for children’s and YA LGBTQ+ work.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]