I would ascribe the majority of the problem to the type of people who work in Big Publishing. In other words, it's their nature and they are unable to change. The best you will find is at Hachette: and they are French. The salaries for young publishing pros have gone down in recent years, not up. The entry levels for young publishing pros are so low-paying and so difficult that they winnow out all but the most obsequious and gossip-addicted, thereby putting the field even farther behind in terms of DEI. Every friend I had who worked at mid-levels in NY publishing during the early to mid-2000s has been laid off - often multiple times. There is no job security and financially, the system is completely extractive and exploitive of all pros - from writers to artists, designers, and editors. Publishing companies make money off international currency trading, which is how the multinationals manage to stay afloat. How do I know? Reviewing their mandatory financial filings in EU and US. They also receive funds to publish various books that serve political agendas or are payoffs (you did not think they contribute their OWN profits to publish endless books by the Clintons or Obamas, right?) They are incapable of understanding the problem - and maybe in a deep down sense, they do not want the majority of people to regularly buy and read books. They want to make and sell products for people like themselves, despite the fact that they are a very small percentage of the overall population. I'm reading a book called Animal, Vegetable, Junk by NYT cooking author Mark Bittman. Part of me cannot believe the book was published conventionally, as the beginning chapters are a scathing denunciation of the way agricultural practices have damaged society and the planet - accelerating up into the 21st century. I was a young reader during the time when publishing was a human endeavor and there were a few great editors who did bring up and nurture authors. Few to none of those authors were diverse, but some did express original viewpoints and tell compelling stories that did not wholly revolve around the obsessions of the richest and oppression of everyone else. You're saying what I was saying in 2005, Walter - and what I lost my house and filed bankruptcy over. Now it is your time to carry the ideas forward.