It’s common knowledge that publishing has historically had a diversity problem. Lee & Low’s quadrennial Diversity Baseline Survey of industry professionals showed that in 2024, 72.5% of industry members identified as white, while PW’s annual salary and jobs survey that year found 76% of publishing members industry identified as white. The industry, especially since the Black Lives Matter movement gained traction, has taken steps to diversify its workforce, and may be making some progress. The most recent PW survey found that, for people who have been in the industry for six years or less, 61% identified as white.
One of several organizations that have been formed in recent years to promote diversity is Inkluded. Created 2017, the nonprofit aims to give aspiring BIPOC publishing professionals the knowledge they need to get their foot in the door.
Inkluded has grown rapidly in the past year: it announced partnerships with Hachette Book Group and Macmillan in June and September, respectively. Funding from the partnerships helps support Inkluded’s public events series, which seek to familiarize attendees with the variety of publishing roles that are available and the paths one can take to reach them, says Cecilia Gray, director of operations.
The support of two of the Big Five publishers also bodes well for the future of the organization’s flagship program: the Inkluded Academy, a tuition-free publishing boot camp hosted virtually over the course of eight weekends. In addition to granting every participant a stipend, the academy is remote, and it meets on the weekends to accommodate working students.
“There are so many barriers to publishing based off of location alone,” Gray explains. “Moving to New York City is very cost-prohibitive for those without generational wealth.”
The academy has graduated nine students annually since 2019. Like many publishing courses, the curriculum casts a wide net, covering editorial, marketing, publicity, production, and rights, and places graduates into a network of mentors and employers to help them launch their careers. But unlike, say, the Columbia Publishing Course, it does not require participants to live in New York City, or to trade their job for daily seminars.
By Gray’s calculations, Inkluded boasts a 75% job placement rate for academy graduates. Among the success cases is Danielle Maldonado, who completed the program in 2022. After a stint as a PW intern and completion of the academy, she spent a couple of years working as a freelance copy editor before landing in a managing editorial role at the indie children’s publisher Levine Querido. She worked her way up the ranks and, earlier this month, made the jump to Ballantine Books, where she’s now managing editor.
Maldonado credited Inkluded with getting her foot in the door. Coming from a nonprofit background, she learned about managing editorial operations through the academy and realized how well it fit with her skill set, even though Maldonado says the role of managing editor position isn’t one that’s often depicted in media portrayals of publishing. “I was doing program management and was like, ‘This is the perfect fit for me,’ ” she says.
Maldonado has continued volunteering at Inkluded since she graduated and is now gearing up to chair the academy committee next year. Her plans after taking the helm include expanding support and mentorship for graduates who are still searching for jobs. “I do my best to also help others get their foot in the door and continue giving back to this network,” she says.
Gray echoed Maldonado’s statement that popular media representations of publishing emphasize editing and agenting jobs but rarely mention other types of opportunities, such as those in marketing and publicity. Even discussions of editorial and agenting roles, Gray says, don’t highlight that those positions, which are heavy on manuscript review, have working styles that diverge from a typical nine-to-five role.
Inkluded’s two other programs, Spotlight and Pathways, focus on filling this knowledge gap. The longer-running Spotlight is an in-person speaker series focused on lesser-known publishing specialties, while Pathways, which launched in September 2024, invites guests to host virtual workshops on how to reach those roles. Both programs are free and open to the public. Recent Spotlight talks have included Hachette Audio's Nita Basu on audiobook publishing and Annette Pollert-Morgan, executive editor at Sourcebooks Fire and Young Readers, on YA editorial acquisitions.
Apart from their financial support, Inkluded’s partnerships with HBG and Macmillan help integrate the organization with mainstream publishing networks, Gray says. HBG is working with Inkluded to create events for their employees, and Macmillan has helped Inkluded connect with potential speakers.
Gray hopes that Inkluded can get all the Big Five more involved with what they’re doing, which she boils down to “breaking barriers.” “All of these publishers, they really do have phenomenal DEI programs,” Gray says, “and I think in the industry, there has been a huge shift in interest of increasing diversity and having new voices and perspectives.”
While she recognized the current political climate has made it more of an “uphill battle” for support, Gray says that most of Inkluded’s success has come from generous individuals who believe in its mission. “We have seen consistency in those supporters who have been with us since day one, so it’s very nice to know that it wasn’t performative in the beginning.”
