The Bookseller - Trade Interviews - Q&A: Dominique Raccah

What's driving this change?

I think it stems from today's readers demanding what they want. They're not sitting around passively waiting for someone to tell them what to read. At one point I had named this speech: "Is the Age of Gatekeepers Over?" We're watching readers ask for a wider range of subjects and characters, non-traditional relationships, different kinds of family structures, LGBTQ+ and non-binary representation, etc. Especially in romance and YA, we're seeing readers connect with these gritty, emotional stories that tackle big, messy, real-world topics. We're publishing into that and seeing huge growth there, especially in romance and YA, and you're also starting to see this trickle down into children's books. It's unleashing a whole new generation of authors who aren't afraid to tell these important and difficult stories, and address complex issues that readers of all ages see in real life. Readers are buying these books, getting them signed, pre-ordering them to get associated merchandise, collecting multiple titles in a series [...] this is huge for our bookselling partners.