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It’s 2019 and I still come across this version of the Shadow Speaker (Disney/Hyperion) with the whitewashed cover. Someone had this for me to sign at Comic-Con. Inside, I wrote something like “This cover was whitewashed”. 😆 
In many ways, this version is a relic. I have a copy of Octavia Butler's Dawn with the whitewashed cover. It's a reminder.
The Shadow Speaker is a post-apocalyptic novel set in Niger where the main character is Igbo and Wodaabe, I clearly describe her as very dark skinned, she shaves her head at the beginning of the book and there is not one white person in the entire novel. #Africanfuturism
This was an ARC and after I had my agent demand they change it, they did. However, releasing this ARC and putting the whitewashed image on Amazon for a few days have doomed me to having to see this cover pop up, even over a decade after its publication.
I'm revisiting it right now, but this isn't an incident I've been quiet about.
This was a lesson for me. It was only my 2nd novel, there was no “diversity wave” and I had to stand up to Disney...and I did. This won’t happen now for many reasons, one being the fact that I’ve established myself as a writer who doesn’t take shit.
If you look at all of my novels (which go back to 2005), I've never been afraid to put the faces of my black characters front and center, unapologetically (in the stories and on the covers)...even back when it was strongly considered a liability.
I've ALWAYS been an honest, unafraid, ambitious and clear black woman writer and there are far greater liabilities than sales.
When I googled, the first thing that popped up was the whitewashed cover. So HERE is the real cover:
Oh and here's the book trailer my brother @emezie (he's an animator) did for The Shadow Speaker back in 2009. It still makes me smile.
