The Need

There is a significant underrepresentation of children’s book featuring Black children, and children’s books written by Black authors.

According to a report by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, just 9% of children’s books featured Black children (African and African American). Of those books that did feature Black children, only 33% of those books were written by Black authors (African and African American). This means even when readers are seeking out books featuring Black main characters, 2 out of 3 times, it wasn’t a Black voice that brought that story to life. While anyone is allowed to write any story, having stories through the voice and experience of those whom that story represents is important and should be a consideration when purchasing children’s literature.

The Response

Doresa Ayanna Publishing seeks to address this gap by producing books with Black main characters, from the voice of Black authors.

This gap in publishing of children’s books with Black characters, from Black writers, exist for a reason. A big part of that reason is lack of diversity within many traditional publishing houses. My research indicates there may be as few as twenty-two Black literary agents actively seeking queries. This list is for ALL genres, not just children’s literature. Cracking the ceiling into traditional publishing is tough for any author, being a Black author makes that an even higher mountain to climb, and takes away from the focus of writing amazing children’s books to get into the hands of readers who not only want them, but need them.

To address this issue Dr. Jennings, like many Black authors, has chosen the indie or self-publishing route. Dr. Jennings took that one step further, and created Doresa Ayanna Publishing, an entire publishing company. Taking away the “will this story every see the light of day” barrier has allowed Dr. Jennings to focus on addressing the need to spurred her to go from being an educator to an author, getting books for and about Black children into the hands of young readers.

Indie publishing is by no means the “easy route”. In fact, it is an incredibly hard task, made even harder with Dr. Jennings being a severe dyslexic herself! Writing, editing, copy design, cover design, distribution, marketing, and everything in-between are a part of her everyday experiences now. However, she wouldn’t change it for the world. The response to The STEAM Chasers: We Made That has been phenomenal. Her readers are already excited about the launch of The STEAM Chasers: The Blackness of Space. Dr. Jennings has committed to publishing a minimum of two novels and one journal every year through Doresa Ayanna Publishing. She hopes to expand the company to not only publish her own books, but those of other aspiring Black authors as well. She is particularly excited about the upcoming novel series that will be published in 2020 by her twelve-year-old daughter, Makaila.

Another thing that has made Doresa Ayanna Publishing unique is the commitment to ensure access to the content of children’s books with Black main characters. This includes ensuring audiobooks are available for middle grade novels written by Dr. Jennings. Dyslexia, language disorders, and even physical differences such as blindness affect all children. While books with Black main characters are hard to find, audio versions of those books are even more rare. While this is a costly commitment, Dr. Jennings has made it because her goal is for no child to be left out of the wonderful world of reading and books, and ear reading is no exception.

Doresa Ayanna Publishing is answering the call to fill the gap of underrepresentation of children’s books with Black main characters, written by Black authors.