Really interesting discussion. I found a Deloitte report that suggests men are far less likely to read books by women than women are to read books by men. I might do a response
I have no idea why so many young men hate reading liberal propaganda books assigned by their they/them teachers. Oh, wait. Maybe propaganda puts them off.
Your point on corporations is what I think is the main point on this topic. Simply put publishers are going to push what sells and what they think will sell. As a Dad with teens, my girls read and my son doesn’t. My friends sons don’t read, of the guys in my board gaming group only a couple read, and they don’t read a lot. I don’t think this is due to the current selection of books but that other forms of entertainment are preferred, videogames being number one. As a wannabe male author, I have noticed that the stories I write are not in line with current market trends, which makes it less likely for them to get picked up or sell well. What publisher wants to sink in the costs if the sales is maybe 500 copies? I think the real issue is one that has been going on forever and not limited to books, and it’s marketing. If someone writes a great trad sword and sorcery, unless it’s brightly displayed at the stores front or picked up by Netflix and made into a movie, it’ll languish and disappear into a dusty corner of your used bookstore. As for book covers, I miss the days of Michael Whelan and co. And I think that’s a different story.
Thank you. That is the central point I was hoping to make. What people who complain about the overrepresentation of female author's seem to miss or conveniently ignore is that publishers and bookstores are responding to the market for books. As for your own writing, I hope you will keep writing what you feel compelled to write and keep submitting.
Totally agree about young male readers not reading anymore. I saw a video by an education expert who says that schools have basically failed to teach students to read books anymore. They literally lack the stamina to read a book cover to cover. This is objectively a terrible state of affairs -- not only for the publishing industry but also for society. Also, I really miss the good old days of interesting illustrated cover art. Whelan, Frazetta, Vallejo, Foss, Pepper, etc. Those covers really sucked you in. That's why I spend most of my money in used bookstores, buying books from the last century.
Thanks for the respectful discourse. Much appreciated. It’s definitely a discussion that’s touched quite a nerve, as it’s become my most viewed video ever.
@@BookishTexanIt’s easy for many to skirt to one side of the cultural divide or the other in search of clicks, but nuance has always been trickier than the internet allows. I did a follow up video to this as well addressing several of the most common comments that were fired at me over this. Based on some of them, it seems a lot of people assumed I was saying there were no books for men, which isn’t true at all.
@ I can see that. Even with the additional question mark in my title I’ve had a few comments like that, I thought you were very clear about not saying there were no books for men and in all of your points.
I haven’t watched Mr. Douglas’ video yet, but I will. I just wanted to mention that female fantasy authors are frequently targeted by those who would ban books. I am not normally a fantasy or romantasy reader, but I have joined in on the reading of at least the first two volumes of Sarah J. Maas’ ACOTAR books because she is being targeted everywhere where books are frequently attacked. The entire state of Utah has banned her whole series, for example, and six of the seven authors banned by that state are women. Interesting, no? I will watch Mr. Douglas’ video, but having encountered few female authors in my two degree programs in literature AND having worked for my 40-year-career as a teacher of literature to bring into the curriculum some female voices, I will tell you that I’m not feeling a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Douglas’ argument, as you have presented it here. Discussion to be continued….
I don’t think I would describe my reaction to his video as sympathetic, but I did think it was worthwhile because he avoided (for the most part) misogynist statements and was very specific. I do think there is a fair amount of misogyny in the book banning movement.
@ I didn’t say you were sympathetic. I thought you were very balanced in your response. I just watched his video. I was filled with despair at most of the comments in response to his video all about how “woke” the world has come and how white men are so discriminated against. I was just filled with despair at the thought of even trying to enter into this discussion on his channel.
@ I did not read more than the first comment for the exact reason you cited. It is depressing. What frustrates me the most is that the very men who are whining about being discriminated against in publishing are likely the same men who have been telling women and others that if they wrote something “the market” liked they would get published and sell books. The hypocrisy of their current stance doesn’t seem to occur to them.
@@markwrede8878 Or more explicitly, "Women are not people. Women are merely property." Simone de Beauvoir was not commenting on the video, but on the attitudes of the public at the time, which may not have changed much. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the quote. .
I really wonder about whether the author has to be male for it to appeal. Would Mr. Douglas ignore The Green Bone Saga, which has more male perspectives than female and is very combat heavy but is written by a woman, but pick up Book of the Ancestor, which is entirely female PoV and also very combat heavy, because the name on the cover is male?
@@jojobookish9529 That is a good question I think for other make readers. I think based on statements in his video that Mr Douglas doesn’t have a problem reading books from either sex.
I’ve always assumed that women read more books by male authors (in all genres) than men read female authors. Do you happen to know if there are any statistics on that?
@@HannahsBooks The channel According to Alina shared some information about this in a video from a few months ago titled How Women Took Over Literature.
Coincidentally reading Assassin's Apprentice at the moment. She chose Robin Hobb as a pen name I believe to be neutral-sounding, just as many female fantasy authors used initials for years, because fantasy was such a male-led genre and this was felt to help sales to men. I grew up thinking fantasy was largely for my brother and his friends, rarely for me - Twilight was the first "fantasy" that mostly girls were reading for my generation. I think what we see today did be seen as simply the pendulum swinging in the other direction. High profile female fantasy authors can now dominate sales under their own names. There's intelligent and engaging fantasy available to every gender, and many series with male and female central characters. If men choose not to read new works largely by women, there is a huge back catalogue of male fantasy authors - but that may not help a new male fantasy author!
@@tillysshelf Thanks for the information about Robin Hobb. That doesn’t surprise me. I agree that, maybe since Twilight, things have been moving the other way. Most of the negative reactions to this that I see from men are resentful of this change for reasons that have little to do with the books themselves and everything to do with having to compete.
Oh Tilly, you mentioned Robin Hobb neutral pen name 🤩. She was successful as Megan Lindholm but not as successful as she became as RH. I only discovered her through The Elderling Realm books, but would be interested to try her books as ML.
@@PageTurnersWithKatja I didn't know she published anything as Megan Lindholm - I'd be interested to try one of those but there are so many Fraser books to read first!
Tilly I am so delighted you are reading Hobb!!!! Hope you enjoy your journey with Fitz! My response to this it is Epic fantasy having little shelf space that is more sterytypically appealing to men and fantasy romance which has a big boom and is not taking over the romance shelves, but the fantasy ones, which steryotypically appeals to women. So there is less Epic fantasy shelfspace. It is a publisher thing for sure. I always felt to have to seatch more for Epic fantasy and within Epic fahtasy the amount of women given shelf space or stories with queer normative narratives and from global majority authors is much slimmer. But i guess you would be frustrated if books used to have more epic fantasy (be it dominated by white male authors) than previously.
@ChattieTheMadChatter I'm enjoying it so much. I think there has always been romance in fantasy (Aragorn and Arwen!) but it's a more modern theme for romance to be made more central to the plots, and romance sells so naturally gets more shelf space. Personally, I don't mind how big of a role romance plays if the world, magic, characters etc are good.
You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the book publishers' motivation. While literature is art, selling books is business. It's sort of a vicious circle, if men don't show up as a target audience the way a specific group of female readers did, men-targeted books won't get the same treatment. And I, as a woman, am not thrilled about CoHo and SJM being the most popular ones either. Anyway, I'm listening to Blue Graffiti by Calahan Skogman rn and it's pretty slow and uneventful, but it feels like a very 'written by a man for men', 'inspired by Hemingway' type of deal. I'm enjoying it plenty, I'm sure I'd love it more if I were a guy. But yeah, I only found out about it because the author was in a show I watched, so there's that.
@@justwonder1404 I’m a Hemingway fan, so I might have to check out Blue Graffiti. The business end of this discussion is what I think carries the weight. Booksellers want to sell books and so they provide books to their biggest group of customers.
Oh Please. Two of my men friends write fantasy. The late Raven Bond wrote Steampunk, and John Michael-Greer writes Lovecraftian fiction. My dad's army Paratrooper and drinking buddy, Patrick Andrews, writes historically accurate 19th Century Oklahoma Western fiction. All three of them are well regarded. Women historically buy and read more books, especially fantasy. The entire genre of fantasy (aside from Dunsany, Tolkien and a few others) was regarded as one beneath men or not falling into the category of serious literature for a really long time. Robert E. Howard was not well regarded for decades after his death, nor was Lovecraft. Has he looked at the Star Trek novels or the monthly Western series? Has he heard of David Gerrold or Charles de Lint or Allan Dean Foster and their younger contemporaries? Has he spent any time at conventions on an author's panel? Does he understand that publishers (aside from the major top ten or twenty authors) require authors to do their own promotion? I know several women who are published and well regarded fantasy authors. All of them have to promote their own works. They don't get to choose their covers. Almost no one does.
@@Kitsaplorax I think you misunderstand his point. He wasn’t arguing that there were no books for men but that books that he think would be more interesting to men are not given as much shelf or display spsce.
as a female, i actually am not too keen on the romantasy genre, but i think the "spotlight" on this is due to booktok (which i also don't really follow). i guess there aren't many male authors promoting on booktok ? 🤔 it seems that the audience of booktok do buy the trending books and that's why publishers and booksellers are currently selling out on romantasy titles. i highly doubt that there is an intentional gatekeeping based on gender. they mostly care about the sales at the end of the day, and if male authors find that platform to amass a following, i don't see why publishers and booksellers won't give them the so-called "spotlight" as well
@@maggyfrog I don’t think there is any gatekeeping either. Like you I think TikTok has created a market for the kind of books the maker of the video I referenced is talking about which is just how capitalism works. Thanks for the great comment.
@@BookishTexan i wonder if the guy who made that video is aware of the stigma on "chick-lit" before romantasy was cool. on that note, i can sort of understand the idea that some male readers just wouldn't pick up female authors or books centered on a female protagonist. i can't say that there ever was a stigma on books written by men for men. he's definitely looking at this the wrong way. side note: in my real life observation, gen z and alpha readers tend to lean towards manga and graphic novels, and the authors of popular titles are still mostly men
@ I definitely think he is reacting negatively to a recent trend in publishing that is, in my opinion, long over due. The broader movement that I think his video is a part of is that of men, particularly white men, to cast themselves as victims because for the first time they don’t dominate the publishing field.
@@BookishTexan What an absurd comment. Race has nothing to do with the disdain many men, and some women, have for the current state of the book industry. I don't know about the bureaucracy of the publishing industry and that aspect of things, but neither do the majority of people. The average everyday-man searches for book, reads book, and discovers a problem therein; they are not making videos online or watching videos online. They are normal people who If they are alienated is due to the subject matter and quality of what they are reading, not because of some flippant idea about race. If the market is not providing for them, they will inevitably check out. And moving outside of the mere realm of entertainment, this is terrible for developing boys who suffer in reading, writing, and general English ability, who advance into college unable to string sentences together beyond the ability of a fifth grader. To dismiss these underlying issues as a matter of petty race whining or victim self-casting is snobbish at best.
@@sodacan1415 So your solution is to somehow force publishers and booksellers to publish and provide space for books written by men, for men, even if the market for such books is either non-existent or at best unproven? How would that work? Just because race has nothing to do with it for you doesn’t mean race isn’t a factor in the complaints of others. In this country dismissing any statement about race as absurd shows a lack of understanding of this nations past and present.
You make an interesting point about book covers. "What is attractive to a reader" is a topic that has been discussed a lot, especially by readers who have been around for a while. We usually don't need to be "attracted" to a book in the same way someone who is less likely to pick up a book needs to be. On the female-side of reading, I know I often complain about cover redesigns, as they often look bad, but then a lot more people pick up the book. A Court of Thorns and Roses got the cover redesign that a lot of the fans disliked, but it compelled more people to pick up the book than before. Same with movie covers; those who have experience with the TV/Movie adaption would see it and be more compelled to pick it up. So it a marketing strategy targeted at book collectors and new eyes. I would love to see what types of book covers do end up attracting male readers. If they need compelling, then that isn't a bad thing to market to them a little. There are certainly plenty of books that exist and are published now that men would like. Maybe a topic to bring up to book sellers or librarians, to see if they can make a space to match interest.
@@silversolar7181 I’ve never been a cover buyer. When I go to a bookstore I usually know what I am looking for, but I have to admit the covers I showed in the video don’t make me want to buy those books. I hope though they aren’t keeping me away from them subconsciously.
As a man, I love to read. As I look through my library and the books I've borrowed, easily 90% of the authors are female. I do feel kind of awkward going to Target & being the only male hanging out in the book aisles. That felling fades. I love thrillers & women just do it better 🤷♂️
6:27 - Really good questions - what factors consitute a book for men? Or is Epic Fantasy as a genre he feels appeals to men? Would men consider The Sky on Fire (for example) or The Sheepfarmers daughter epic fantasy. Both written by women with a female protagonist but a fully fleshed out imaginative world, strong plot, adventure and battles. To me the epic fantasy needs a world, layers of lore and history exploring themes such as friendship, oppression, identity, revenge etc.
The reason men don't read has far more to do with socialisation than marketing. A lot of male bonding is based on sports and occasionally trending tv shows or movies. The men I've talked to about the subject don't see the value of reading fiction and perceive more complicated literature as pretentious.
Granted I'm dyslexic and so books are quite tiring for me and live in a country where neither Target nor Barnes & Noble operate (according to their websites they have no branches in Great Britain) and while I'm not a good judge of what makes a book good to read I write books myself (often shorter than expected lengths for novels but hopefully still fun). I plan to unpack some of these ideas in a future video on Autism and Public Life but for now I might be able to help with some of the wisdom I learned from the Austrians (School of Economics, not an adherent myself but I take a syncretic approach to ideology) namely that incentives will play a large role in shaping the actions of corporations unless the economy is 100% Centrally Planned (and even then the Central Planners also respond to incentives as well). They see a situation where women are the main consumer of fiction books (a situation which is largely unchanged since the mid 1800s and may have been true before then but since European literacy rates had been at most 10% of the adult population before the 1820s comparisons are not so useful, and other regions of the world have less data to work with) and regardless of the reasons for why this is the case a corporation will likely focus on gaining the biggest market share and so focus on the largest audience especially as they utilize investment capital (referred to in Austrian texts as "expansionary credit") to gain revenue which puts a back end incentive to provide the largest returns to their investors and thus pursue the largest share of the book publishing market as this maximizes the return on investment. Smaller publishers are more able to focus on the more niche concerns as their only source of incentives is the revenue drawn from consumer demand but traditionally they have lacked the reach of major publishers who can use their capital to buy advertising slots and all manner of media reminding you of their presence (all those posters at railway stations and supermarket promotion bins come at a cost) which lowers competitive advantage since consumers also have imperfect knowledge of what's in front of them and with limited time and resources will (most of the time) take the path of least resistance which is to see the main advertising as the landscape of the book world when smaller voices are submerged. There are ways around this; Some like to blame people as lazy for not using their limited time and resources to get past the mainstream of literature but personally I feel this approach doesn't achieve very much at best and makes fiction an esoteric pursuit at worst which exacerbates the problem further by alienating new comers. Another solution are for government intervention to promote books that provide for non-mainstream customers; Education Campaigns, Grants, Regulation of Corporate Interests so that they can't keep others from getting exposure in the market usw. Another solution is for a more grass-roots approach which involves communities promoting books which don't follow the mainstream, similar to government intervention only consumer led and without the means to change competition laws directly. Another solution being to try and adjust or even break down the mainstream although this would require institutions and in-groups since adjusting the politics and culture of a population is difficult but not impossible and neither are unperceptive to the economics of their population either. While this is only a brief outline I hope it can be at least somewhat useful.
Literacy rate was way higher than 10%. That's why there had to be standardisations of spellings in the first place - people *were* writing and reading, just not in the same ways as the people from the next town over. Literacy rates in Europe have historically been measures of ability to read and write Latin, not one's native language. Otherwise though, you make good points. I've seen the same thing in tabletop roleplaying spaces - everyone is quick to jump on people who don't enjoy D&D, saying "well then go play something else", but no one is ever making good suggestions of what people would like to play, so it turns roleplaying into, as you say, an esoteric pursuit whereby a newcomer is just told that if they don't enjoy the mainstream product, it's their fault for not having found something they would enjoy.
@@edspace. Thank you for your economic outline. I think it can be applied quite well to the situation in publishing and book selling at the moment. Right now the largest group of readers are women and increasingly they are women who want to read books that seem to appeal most to women. Son that’s what publishers produce and promote. This is fed by a grassroots/social media phenomenon in which youngish women create free social media promotion for these types of books. So to me the best way to counter that (for those who think it needs to be countered) is for men to follow suit and promote the kinds of books they like via social media.
@@yurisei6732 I see what you mean, I had wondered where the 10% till 1820 idea came from, given increasing volume of writing in the eighteenth century thanks for the correction, I wonder if reading back then was more of a middle class activity. Its sad that role-playing games have this problem as well since the lack of direction not only reinforces the "basement dweller" stereotype which gamers have struggled with but also makes smaller games starved out of the market when there are others than D&D, Cyberpunk 2020 and Call of Cathulu and hopefully with social media there are more ways to highlight smaller RPGs.
@@BookishTexan Thanks, its interesting how some of these things work. Quite often I find people insistent on the separation of Politics, Economics and Culture and while the genre of fiction where big powerful men beat up evil people doesn't appeal to me I did read a lot of 19th century histories and so Conan feels a bit like a busman's holiday when you were reading of Fredrick the Great (albeit I don't believe Conan had a gay subplot or social reform arc the traditional writers left out). Hopefully with more promotion of more kinds of fiction more people will be able to find more books which appeal to them.
@ I hope that is true as well which is why I encouraged men who want fantasy fiction written by men to be more prominently displayed and more widely known to take advantage of the grassroots promotion of books that platforms like TikTok make possible.
Female authors like Robin Hobb who seem more read by men than other female fantasy authors, tend to have unisex names, and I'm guessing their first edition bookcovers are equally unisex in design. If not a unisex name there's the 2 initials in place of a first name that's common. Megan Lindholm chose to be Robin Hobb when she first wrote as a first-person male narrator. Enjoyed the discussion, bookmarked Johanna's video from your community tab to watch later.
I noticed this too. A few months ago I was in Barnes and Noble and looked at several thrillers ( a genre marketed to men many times) and every author that had initials and a last name was a female : R F Kwang, T. Kingfisher, B.A. Paris, M L Rio, J K Rowling, E Lockhart, C j Tudor, many more Is this because men don’t want to read thrillers written by women? Ps I did find a few men with initials and last name but overwhelmingly women authors
I had heard that about Hobb and the same is true about JK Rowling I believe. I see it as a good sign than women like Sara J Maas and Suzanne Collins use (what I assume) are their own names. Thanks for the comment.
Interesting video. I am not a man but I checked the last 41 books I read. 21 were written by male authors and 20 by women so very even split. My 17 year old son is a reader but he definitely seems to gravitate towards male authors and predominantly Sci fi and fantasy Dune Lord of the rings Game of Thrones 1984 War of the worlds
I'm old and never had a problem finding books for men. In crime fiction there's John Sanford's Lucas Davenport novels and Andrew Vachss Burke books, then there are Ian Rankin's John Rebus novels. There's Mickey Spillane, Ian Fleming and John LeCarre. You have Elmore Leonard and Ross McDonald. In sci-fi you have Heinlein, Zelazny, Card, Iain M Banks, John Brunner, Ken McLeod, Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Norman Spinrad, and John Crowley. There is H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley, Hermann Hesse, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stanislaw Lem, Ambrose Bierce. In westerns you have Zane Grey and all of Louise L' Amore, not to mention all of Cormac McCarthy. In fantasy you have Tolkien, Moorcock, Mieville, and Gaiman. Then you have the classics Joyce, Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Odessy, The Trojan War, Caesar's Gallic Wars, and Joseph Conrad. There's Joseph Heller, Kurt Vogennut, and Chester Himes.
Timely discussion Bookish! A co-worker of mine came up to me last week talking about this exact issue. He went into a Barnes & Noble for the first time in years looking for a good adventure-fantasy novel. He's a Glen Cook fan. And couldn't find any male oriented fantasy. Douglas is not imagining the lack of shelf space. It's real. And there seems to be a bit of a backlash brewing that's contributing towards a change in how literature is distributed. I'd compare it to (and in some ways they're related) the decline in main stream and legacy media. While they're being replaced by streaming and independent sources. (I steered my co-worker towards the Hanuvar Chronicles on Amazon)
I’ll have to go the fantasy section the next time I’m in a B&N. I do think self publishing is growing into a more viable option for both writers and readers.
@@hypatia4754 Some how it seems that many of the men complaining don’t seem to see that. This year’s National Book Award for fiction went to Percival Everett for example. The person whose video I was responding to was talking specifically about books in the fantasy genre.
@ No one is stopping you from reading what you want. Just don’t expect that you have the right to see it on display shelves or getting equal shelf space with books that more people want to read.
Over the last six months, I decided to reengage with reading fantasy after bingeing history over the past years. I found that women writers do dominate fantasy with female heroes, and most of the male writers are all old-time writers, with no young male writers in the fantasy sections of Barnes and Noble. Yes, women may have been locked out of the fantasy section in the past that was wrong then, and it's wrong now to do it to young men.
I admit I was initially dismissive of this topic because as you mentioned, it seemed too reactionary (the topic in general, not your video just to be clear) but you made very fair points with a balanced perspective. I agree with your points.
@@thatsci-firogue Thank you. One of the reasons I wanted to react to the video I mentioned is because it is the least reactionary of this type of video that I have seen. All the others make it impossible to see their side.
As u may know by now I almost never read fantasy and I certainly would never read any of the books whose covers u showed especially after seeing other reviewers talk about them. Stories about people riding around on dragons has never been my thing! Anyway most of the guys I know don’t actually read books except for things like how to fix toilets or how to make money in the stock market. But there are still plenty of very successful male authors of fantasy and just about every other genre so I’m not sure what this Douglas guy is getting at. Be well.⚛❤
There are still plenty of successful male authors and I think the guy who made the video acknowledges that eventually. A few months ago I saw an interesting video from According to Alina where she shared data that suggested that there are far more women who are avid readers (20+ books in 3 months) the gender break down for more average readers (1-8 books in 3 months) was almost equal.
6:53 - general speaking i would agree with that top 10 best fantasy books Hobb and Leguin make it on their Lists. Others are not so well known in Epic fantasy or dismissed to easily to be recognised. I would not expect an Epic fantasy reader to enjoy The Starless Sea. Not a fantasy romance, but it is a lyrical portal fantasy that is written by a female author. I would however encourage them to try A Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons as it is incredibly Epic - the style and convuluted plot might not work, but world building and twisty storytelling is absolutely epic.
I am a high school administrator. I also taught high school students. High school libraries now are mostly filled with YA fantasy. From my observations, these appeal more to girls than boys. Not to mention the decline in reading overall…..another issue in itself!
@@Drewsmodels I taught HS history for 31 years and I rarely saw a boy carrying a non school assigned book. I don’t think the rise of YA fantasy is to blame for the decline in male readership. I think for many video games provide a more engaging form of storytelling. I had hoped that it might funnel them into reading but that doesn’t seem to have happened.
@ I agree that gaming has overtaken reading! I definitely see more high school girls than boys walking around with a book that was not assigned in class. And it’s usually YA fantasy.
I very strongly recommend the essay collection Appropriately Aggressive by Krista D Ball. Its a smattering of things, but dominantly work she's done on gender and SFF publishing, actually bringing numbers to the table, one of them is an amazing current day update on a historic essay Joanna Russ did on the same back in the SF new wave " How to Suppress Women's Writing".
Agreed, publishers and most bookstores are just pushing/featuring titles they judge as likely to make them more money. Small bookstores may have varied criteria. The books on the tables and other prominent spots in larger stores are typically given to publishers that kick in a designated percentage of their total yearly sales for such benefits, through cooperative advertising agreements. The actual titles from those publishers to reside on the tables is the choice of the bookstore barring some special agreement. But to the underlying problem, I guess, that a male fantasy reader may not have a chance to stumble across that many male-authored books of interest on the shelf. All I can suggest is to go to the library and read Booklist, Kirkus, or Publisher's Weekly, which keep up with all the books coming up from gatekeeper publishers in the different genres. Maybe this info is even on their websites, not sure.
@@marianryan2991 Great suggestions Marian. It seems that some feel a bit entitled to have books they like easy to find. I had forgotten the thing about publishers paying for space on those tables.
Please tell me you're not seriously suggesting a market for male fantasy authors writing about male characters has to be created in order to "earn" shelf space. One the subject of the ineptitude of big corporations, look at Scholastic's stock price since 2001. What book series do they own? 'nuff said.
I am not a big fantasy reader but I do wonder what is the percentage of women who read vs. men? Not scientific, but most of my male friends read. And those that do are more likely to pick up a non-fiction
@@JonStallings I think the number of avid women readers - more that 8 books in three months - is higher, but the number of regular readers 1-8 books in that same time from is close to even between men and women.
Hey. I'm Herman P. Hunter. I know John, am also an author, and I'd like to do a response video to this, or maybe discuss this on a Livestream if you're willing.
@@hermanphunter_theloreforge Hello Herman! I’m afraid my knowledge of current fantasy books, authors, etc is too limited to make me a very good guest for a show on this topic. But thank you.
I notice that more and more authors' gender cannot be determined by looking at the name (as it is often a pseudonym in my country) or by reading the content. There's no point in being particular about gender any more.
@@BookishTexan I was once surprised to find out that a writer I thought was a woman was actually a man. I then learnt that a surprisingly large number of people write under pen names of unknown gender, and I got the impression that most of them are young people under the age of 60, and that they are writers of popular works. This does not seem to be a phenomenon in the USA. What about other countries, I wonder?
seems to me, since 2020, when publishing for the first time in history hit 50/50 male/female published authors, a lot of men have been whining that theyre no longer the exclusive majority. oh how equality feels unfair, when women have had to use pen names because theyre not taken seriously as women - even Rowling had to do that with Harry Potter, and again w her Galbraith so pardon me if im not too sympathetic 🙄 if men want manly books written by men, they have a few thousand years of backlog to catch up. let women read and write in peace ffs
@@BookishTexan more to the point of your video, i enjoyed listening to you talk and the way you think about things. im just getting tired of the whole subject where anything women and girl like gets shit on and blamed for the degradation of society 🙃 it used to be The Beatles, and maths and coding, then they figured out those were cool, and so now those are boy-things.....so the topic gets me in my annoyed feels
@ Again, I agree with you. I have offer videos in which I take men who whine about this topic to task for the exact things you mention. I thought the video that I was reacting to here was just more honest and less whiney than most. This guy acknowledges that capitalism is the driver of the “problem” he is describing instead of suggesting there is some kind of woman led conspiracy to keep men out of publishing. I appreciate your comments very much.
I grew up reading the contents of my male relatives bookshelves in the 80s. Probably as a result I prefer to read about male characters. I do seem to struggle to find fantasy books with male main characters who don't either feel masculine dialled up to 11 or entirely skewed towards being a love interest or otherwise secondary. I've been noticing it a while now. It does feel like there's this gulf and less that's more neutral.
Men seem like poor sports. For hundreds of years, the majority of books available for women readers were written by men. Didn't stop women from reading or writing, though.
There’s a market trend going on in tv, movies, and video games where the product must be an absolute blockbuster. The margins of failure has just kept expanding so anything short of blockbuster is a financial failure. I wonder if it’s similar in the publishing industry. That’s why the publishing industry & bookstores would be super serving their core reading base; women. It could be too financially unviable to proportionally serve reader bases. Idk, I’m speculating and I’ve never had difficulty finding books I’m interested in. It’s just in a corner at B&N and not at Target
@@brandon8667 I’m not sure if publishing is quite at the blockbuster or bust point like movies, but I have no doubt that their marketing department push the books they know are selling hardest.
@@BookishTexanIt’s definitely not at the point of movies & TV; but I imagine it’s trending that way but idk to what degree. If there’s smaller margins, to what degree does it affect decision making across the market. Again, just sorta speculating. Just something to consider in the discussion
@ I definitely think you are right about the way things are trending. Ironically I suspect it is the brick and mortar bookstores that are driving it that way. It’s the stores that have to maximize the profit they can make with the physical space they have. In a sense they have to have those books that trend upfront where customers can find them easily and in great quantities.
It's hard not to notice the influence of BookTok on publishing as it relates to the gender bias issue. Young women dominate BookTok both as readers and authors. As a result, publishers have put a lot of focus on reaching that audience by publishing more romance/fantasy/romantasy--genres dominated by women. With publishers putting more investment toward female-oriented genre fiction, there seems to be fewer titles on display at bookstores that cater to men's tastes, especially on trendy "As Seen on BookTok" shelves that are given prime real estate in places like Barnes & Noble. This is probably dispiriting to male readers who aren't interested in those books. While male genre readers may feel somewhat alienated by this trend, imagine how male authors feel. I wrote a male-oriented thriller and pitched it to 50+ literary agents. I targeted mostly male agents, the few I could find, as they seem outnumbered 5-to-1 or worse on agency websites. Almost uniformly, they responded that the book "doesn't meet their needs at this time." Now, that can mean many different things, but what it tells me is that male-oriented thrillers aren't what publishers are prioritizing. So, that means I'll probably self-publish. I'm curious if anyone else has had an experience like this.
id recon they felt a little bit like JK Rowling when she couldnt use her name - Joanne , bc no one would take her seeiously as a woman writer.... and after the success of Harry Potter, her crime book under Joanne Rowling tanked and was ripped apart, while Robert Galbraith was praised and became an instant best seller - for context, Galbraith is Rowlings male penname..... women given any space in society is men with immediate dramatic male anger. not here for it.
@@thekeywitness What you describe regarding the impact of Book Tok on publishing is capitalism and Book Tok is available for men to use to promote books as well. I watch a lot of authortube videos. Most are the channels of women who write fantasy/romantasy/romance and almost all of them (probably 99%) have been querying agents unsuccessfully and several self publish as a result.
While I don't share the same viewpoints entirely or not at least all of them in the same way as Douglas on the particulars, I do think that American culture and other cultures such as the UK and most of Europe are more feminine now than ever on many levels. And the effects are seen on the bookshelves.
Unless you are successful, you are going to feel that you are at a disadvantage. If you are successful, you are going to feel that you are at a disadvantage when compared with those who are more successful. While publishers do distort the market, and try to manipulate the market, the responses of people purchasing books will determine who is successful. Are the best selling books the highest quality books? No. Then, should there be something done to provide an advantage to some authors in order to disadvantage those not seen as politically correct? .
Excellent points. I don't think all of us blame our lack of or lower measures of success on disadvantage, but that certainly seems to be true of the men who seem to complain most loudly about the loss of their past privilege.
As a constant reader, as a boy the books that got me interested are sports stories, light horror (goosebumps) and coming of age stories. Maybe because I haven’t looked too deep but I don’t see books like these in YA or younger. Then when it comes to women authors there is a difference on things that are looked at. I don’t have to see the name to know it’s a female because most of the time ( not all) emphasize emotional perspectives. Boys and young men are not interested in that. Perhaps I’m wrong but that’s how I see it .
@@modernscholar02 Perhaps I was an unusual boy. I didn’t read books by women very often, but often found the emotional content of books to be the most meaningful to me.
@BookishTexan most of the boys in my friend group (so hardly a science based take) would run fast and hard from books that even slightly talked or inspected feelings. We want action adventure and lessons on what it takes to do good in the world.
No books for old men 😂 “That space is earned” - in some cases I wonder if that space might be purchased, along the lines of some grocery models to my understanding.
@@BookishTexan lol wow did I misunderstand what was being said the first time through - I blame my lack of coffee at the time. That being said, it's strange and a little weirdly reversed, I have written a psychological thriller, a supernatural thriller, a dystopian sci-fi trilogy, a 5 part n/a hybrid fantasy series under a pen name so at initial glance, people don't know I'm a woman, because "women don't write those kinds of books" .... is what I heard for the first 15 years of trying to get trad published. Obviously I'm also independent. Now.... my trilogy, the lead character is a woman BUT, without the team that has her back, she couldn't do what she does. my Heroes of the Line series centers on two young brothers with a destiny to help save 2 engtangled universes. Oddly enough i've never read an action fantasy, story written by a woman, Madeline L'Engle aside. I tend to prefer male authors except for a few "soft" books that do mostly center on the romance part of things. Strange how it works like that sometimes.... Anyway, my apologies for setting my fingers loose before really getting what he was saying. The covers thing, and the gender bias is wholly valid. I hate to say it, but seems Mr Douglas has a valid point, but as you indicated... the space does have to be earned... i'm working on it myself, as a struggling female author who's largely ignored because i don't fit in a niche. Ahh well... time will tell. Thanks for calling me out on the vid. i'm not a fan of making myself sound as "knee jerk" as I did above. :D See ya later alligator.
@@ladyjatheist2763 No worries. Thanks for your follow up comment. It highlights something that I think many male authors conveniently overlook or misrepresent about publishing. Many seem to think that a woman can just write a romantasy book, get an agent, get published, and make millions when that is far from the truth. As you point out it’s not that easy and there are genre’s where being woman is still seen by publishers as a detriment because most of that genre’s readers are men. Getting published or having success self publishing is hard for everyone.
As a librarian i know there is a crying NEED for books for adolescent male readers. In my day, most of my peers progressed to SF and fantasy. It seemed like everyone went through a Conan phase. There were writers that appealed to men. Zelazny, Ellison, Clarke, Hienlein, Asimov, etc. But those books are now hideously out of date scientifically and socially and no one has taken their place. Additionally, an unfortunate number of current male authors that DO appeal to men are rather right wing or right wing adjacent. This is also problematic. I write erotica that appeals to males, but market forces compel me to write under a female pseudonym and take on a female persona when interacting with my readers. I'd love to step out behind the curtain but it would kill my career. I'm not sure of the causes but I have heard critics and book industry people decry ANY novel by straight white men no matter the quality or the political or social outlook of said author. I grew up hoping i would step into the shoes of my idol, Arthur C. Clarke. I've published nonfiction under my own name . I've won awards but made NO money at it. My kindle erotica books have brought me much more money than my "real" books have. There is a HUGE market that is going untapped. It is unusual for the book industry to not fill every niche. This tells me that either there are no writers or the industry does not know how to market these writers.
Thank you for the fascinating and informative comment. You are the second author who writes under an assumed gender who has commented. I hear the claim that white men can’t get books published but every year there are books by white men that are published though certainly their share of the book contracts has diminished as other writers prospects have improved.
That's been a huge problem for me, as a politically progressive, well-educated male reader who enjoys as a guilty pleasure the romanticised fiction that women tend not to write because if we're being honest it's basically sexist. It's very rare to find that without also getting right wing lunacy. If it's not nonsense worldbuilding, it's relegating female characters to cheerleader status, or it's self-insert male protagonists who are transparently aimed at making incel-type readers feel masculine, all with an undertone of real world projection and snowflakeism. I just want escapism in a world where it feels like almost every writer seems to be obsessed with commenting on the culture war.
@ I don’t see this culture war commenting that you see or maybe I don’t see it in the same way. Can you give me a general example of what you mean? Ideally we should all have access to the kinds of books we want to read, but capitalism is unlikely to produce that ideal.
@@yurisei6732 I hear what you are saying. It's no secret men like their books sexy. But it seems beyond the reach of most authors to make their female characters not only sexy but well-rounded. I don't get it. If you think about your own wife or girlfriend she's more to you than just a great pair of tits or killer legs. Giving her a personaliity as well takes work but it is worth it. A literary three dimensional relationship would be nice while leaving in male favorites like getting the girl or saving the day in a way that doesn't make him come across as a Neanderthal. I don't think it quite worked but I liked what the producers tried to do with James Bond in the later pictures. The world HAS moved on from Ian Fleming's era. If some guy could crack the code and write a politically and socially astute James Bond type while preserving all the bells and whistles that make him attractive in the first place they will make millions!
@@BookishTexan It's not in grand speeches or anything, it's more death by a thousand cuts. It's stretching worldbuilding to hide an implication that's inconvenient to the author, it's giving a character a line of dialogue that makes it feel like they're turning to the camera to deliver a PSA as the characters they're supposedly talking to momentarily turn into perfect listeners, it's writing in antagonistic characters whose actions are an obvious strawman of a real world caricature just for the protagonist to either educate or embarrass. Although there was one book, and one day I'll remember it's name, which actually had footnotes providing references to bogus sociology studies that supposedly proved that the bigotries of the writer were objective fact. When he described a female character struggling to lift a heavy barrel, he put in a little 1 and an explanation along the lines of "Average women are not able to lift more than Xlbs of weight".
Warched Olly and both J A douglas videos. Keen for your thoughts. This has been very much framed in a Male v Female discussion. However for me it is the problem of Fantasy areas used to have more of the subgenre Epic fantasy (dominated by men) and now the subgenre fantasy romance is pulling in the money. These books are not being put as a sub category of romance and housed there but in fantasy so there is less shelf space for other genres within that. Having always had to search for Epic fantasy, which appeals to me this is not new, in my experience, so I am not frustrated. The link between less men reading is interesting, but it does feel sad that it is framed in a men books v women books which i really find gendering divicive and leads to belittling and looking down on the gender of women. But epic fantasy giving space to fantasy romance is i think more of a point of the argument, although maleness is brought into it as that is his perspective. It is an interesting one in that there has been trends to get boys reading more, but not followed up with teenagers and young adult men. But this predominantly about less epic fantasy specifically being made available and promoted in book stores. Now keen for yiur take 💜📚
@@ChattieTheMadChatter I do think it is sad that it is framed as a male v female take. For the most part I think that framing is embraced by men so they can blame women for their lower reading frequency and for the lack of shelf space for the kind of books they like.
Men reading non-fiction is a misconception. Men who only read self help books don't do it for a hobby, it is more like a crash course for productivity. Hence they are not readers. When you read as a hobby, you are not dependent on newly published titles when there are millions of backlist titles available which are popular today. Eg, Lee Child books after Reacher series. As for bias in the publishing industry, it is to be expected since there was a long time when female authors had use male pen names but we never discuss history I suppose. Which in itself is proof that men don't read non-fiction or they would know the history of publishing. Anyways, the point is that this is a phase that will eventually pass as it always has. P.S. Arguably most of men and women of Millennial generation got into reading because of a Female Author i.e. Harry Potter.
@@vicdelta31415 I agree that the trend in fantasy is a phase driven in part by social media. Publishers are going to try to cash in on it while it lasts and when it’s over the industry will return to a new equilibrium.
@BookishTexan Exactly! Every entertainment industry moves according to buying trends and the only people who actually get affected are creators who don't fit that trend in that period.
While it might seem romantasy has taken over bookshelf space--especially if the store doesnt give that genre much space to begin with (ahem--my local BAM)‐-there are still many, many bestselling male authors creating and releasing new works all the time. I should know. I'm reading them. Recent years, new works: Brandon Sanderson, Tad Williams is still in the game, Steven Erikson, James Butcher. Nicholas Eames, Evan Winter, John Gwynne, James Islington, Christopher Rucchio, Pierce Brown, Joe Abercrombie, Ryan Cahill, James S.A. Corey, Blake Crouch, Michael J. Sullivan, Stephen King. I do read some fantasy female authors, but from what I've seen, male writers still mostly dominate. Male authors are alive and well. Trends come and go and right now romantasybis having a moment. Romance in most genres usually does sell quite well. I have read that it is basically the bread and butter of a lot of publishers and helps support the industry as a whole. It IS a legitimate genre or subgenre and has its place and can be extremely well-written and doesn't even have to be smutty to be so.
Interesting discussion. I haven’t really thought about this issue specifically with fantasy before, but I can say there aren’t many modern fantasy books I have read by men. I would always be open to reading fantasy books by male authors with male characters, but I have avoided a lot of recent stuff because it falls more into the grimdark sub genre and that just doesn’t appeal to me at all. I definitely blame publishing for any problems here haha
I think the whole idea of there being no books for boys/men and no space for men to get published in fantasy just isn't true. My feeling is that one reason some men feel there are no books for them is because men reject books by and about women. While women buy books by men and women equally, men buy far fewer books by women. So, because men chose not to read those books that get hype on social media when they're by women they of course feel left out. I also think a contributor is the old "I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me". Book marketing has definitely changed, particularly in fantasy and sci-fi. Those genres have traditionally been targeted at men, to the point where some of the most well known names in the fantasy and sci-fi space used male or gender neutral pen names because men wouldn't buy their books otherwise. J K Rowling, Andre Norton, CJ Cherryh and Robin Hobb for example. So now that the focus of sci-fi and fantasy marketing has widened to bring in another group, the previous target group feels like they're being pushed out, when all that's happening is that an exclusive space isn't exclusive anymore.
@@kevin_uk Your comment is great and I agree with all of it. It is telling that men don’t feel as comfortable reading books by and about women as women feel reading books by and about men.
I mean guys need to be reading first before they can have a larger slice of the market. Everything is YA and romantasy mostly because that's the audience that's got the lock on the market. So even getting them to read instead of watching MMA or whatever is the first hurdle. But to do that you need something that appeals to them at least. ... with that in mind, there should be a concerted effort to have bro-types read Snow Crash or something therabout age 18. If that can't instill a lifelong appreciation for more 'complicated' themes and genre fiction in a red-blooded American male, nothing will.
I think that is the solution to the problem, if it’s even a real problem. Publishing reacts to what sells. To get more attention to male authored centered books men should be reading and actively promoting those books, not demanding to be given more shelf space.
Readers have always predominantly been female. If you go back to the invention of the novel back in the 18th century, you will see that they may be written by men, but treat "female" subject matter (with the exeption of Robinson Crusoe, of course). If you want to read a decidedly male classic then I would recommend Radetzky March by Joseph Roth.
I don’t have any desire to read a decidedly male classic and I do t think 19th century novels exclusively covered female subjects. There is nothing particularly feminine about Dickens, Trollope, Collins, Gissing, Flaubert, Stendahl, Balzac, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Checkov.
@@BookishTexan Radetzky March is from 1934. I meant to restate the point you made that readers are predominantly female and that this has an effect on how books are written and which ones are published. And since we were on the topic of books that decidedly are for a male audience I thought to recommend one that wouldn't be to well known to an American audience. I do not mean that Redetzky March is male in a way Charles Bukowski would have wanted it (thank god). But it is about being a man. And that theme is much more pronounced than it was in the great social novels of the 19th century. They had a way of writing societal panoramas that covered a whole palette of characters and of course than meant that they weren't as focused. I think that Madamme Bovary would also be in that category of required reading for men so that they do not become husbands so boring that their wives have to drink poison.
I think the marketing aspect is what most men are missing. Like you said, we just don’t see a lot of guys promoting specific books and authors online, not like the women are doing. I feel like if it mattered to folks they’d do more work than complaining.
I feel that ignores the core of the problem. If more women read fantasy and more women are given the spotlight by traditional publishers, then of course more women fans will have the platform and desire to promote. The “just try harder “ mindset is always reductive to any conversation of this type, and it absolves institutions and corporations of responsibility and self reflection
@ If more women read fantasy then why *would* the publishers cater to men? Again, in business it’s all about the marketing. For centuries, publishing was run by men and for men. Women’s interests were not centered in the industry. Women flipped that (though not until 2020, so what’s all the griping about anyway) by working hard and promoting works by other women. (Date Source: World Economic Forum)
When we have authors who are more like activists than writers with any sort of moral integrity it's no wonder people (not just men) aren't reading. People want things with substance, whether they realize it themselves or not, and what we got here in our lovely little book-world are geeks masquarading as artists. There's no integrity amongst their likes - poke at them a little and they'll start running. We'll need an actual tragedy to inspire artists with any sorta fiber. Maybe this Trump election will be just that. Writers want their cake and to eat it too: now they'll be eating chaff.
Does it make you happy to be so obviously resentful? Have you actually convinced yourself that you are some kind of righteous victim? Or is just a pose? Do you think there was no activist message in Hemingway’s a Farewell to Arms or For Whom the Bell Tolls, Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, or Morrison’s The Bluest Eye? No agenda in The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia? Do you think Dostoevsky or Bulgakov didn’t have activists messages? Or is it maybe that you just don’t like the message or the messengers?
@@BookishTexan That's the thing. Not even the so called "greats" do it for me that much either. Lol. You have me pegged for some resentful asshat, and you couldn't be further from the truth. I wanna see something real, wanna be something I could call my own, and it's definitely not pegged upon some blank slate victimhood. I dunno if you're sincere in your beliefs or not, but if you are then all's the more and I respect you for that. But it's whatever and however you wanna take it. And I personally just want my coffee in the morning and the occasional glimpse at the sky without having to feel what you call resentment.
@@BookishTexanIt seems my righteousness is an insult to yours. It takes only an educated man with a sturdily built house away from all danger to make a statement about another's disposition; and that seems like a rather sweet treat to our well adjusted liberal compadres, especially those lightly dusted and pristine in Europe. You and I both know that booktube isn't about books.
@@scoutdarpy4465 Let’s reset this conversation. I want to understand your position instead of just reacting to it with snark. Rereading my comments here(which I will leave) I realize how reactionary and dismissive. Clearly I don’t understand your position or your experiences. Try to explain it if you’d like. You can email me if you prefer (bbbookish@gmail.com)
The reason I stopped watching BookTube videos was because social issues started taking the place of discussions about authors and writing. One male BookTuber made the comment that all American male authors should be placed on an iceberg and towed out to sea. That was the straw that broke this camel's back. It is now several years later and I see that the topic of authors and writing is still being shunted aside for social issues. BookTube has lost its way. What was once fun and exciting has turned into a platform for people to vent about their displeasure over social issues. Very sad.
@@southernbiscuits1275 Hey biscuits! It’s been a while. Other than my own channel I don’t see a lot of the kinds of content you are talking about. Or maybe I notice it less than you.
This reaction that bookselling is unfair to male authors brings to mind the research showing that when teachers scrupulously balance calling on male & female students equally, the males complain that s/he's "only" or "always" calling on the girls. We live in such a male-centered world that equality feels like (and may be) a loss to men. Losing unlearned privilege isn't fun - but it's fair.
The funny thing is boktok books are already maketed by women on tiktok. Man should start doing the same and you get the result men want. Funny how no one picked up on that stright fact.
I think you would go a long way towards increasing both male readership and representation of male authors by eliminating distinguishing information (theoretically speaking of course). Imagine if you have a website where books were listed only by name and blurb, no images, and where authors were identified only by a number, such that you can search for books by an author number you've seen before, but get no information from the author number about who the author is. As a male reader, if I'm being honest, yes seeing a female author name does make me less likely to pick up a book, within fictional genres. A female author is more likely to include romance subplots, more likely to include social commentary, and more likely to depict complications of reality that I prefer to see fiction sand off. That's absolutely a bias I have, but frankly, I have no reason to change that bias for myself, so if it's going to change, it's going to be the result of external forces. What I have noticed though is that the genders of authors amongst the Japanese books I consider good is much closer to an even split, and I think the second most prominent influence there is that because I'm mostly reading them via unofficial translation aggregator sites, where they're just presented as titles in a long list of books, I'm not even noticing who the author is until I'm potentially hours into reading.
@@yurisei6732 That is an interesting idea and I think it would certainly eliminate a lot of gendered reading. Not sure you’d ever get authors and publishers to go along with it and I’m pretty sure author identities would be posted on line a few minutes after the system was put in place, but it is an interesting thought.
@@BookishTexan Yeah they would, but if a consumer has such a strong need to know the identity of an author before reading, that system probably wouldn't do anything for them anyway. Most people wouldn't be googling every author number. As for getting authors and publishers to go along with it... I personally believe in informational democracy so not really a problem for me.
I think confirmation bias rules the day. People see largely what they want to see despite abundance of contrary evidence, and the mental machinery deducing their conclusions is similarly skewed toward a faulty logic that serves and fuels their agenda. Three cheers for the person who shops for and reads a book because “Hey, this looks good to ME,” without further ado.
The most interesting thing about this topic I find is that the article that sparked this discussion linked to statistics about reading habits on literary fiction not genre fiction. But every reaction from the sincere to the flammatory keep talking about genre fiction or non fiction. Men still read more sci-fi and fantasy than women. We seem to just really really don’t want to leave that comfort zone.
@@Johanna_reads If you do watch it I hope you will avoid the comment section. The video is, I think, better than many of its viewers. I just saw that you posted a video about this exact topic. Headed over to watch now!
@ I just saw Pat’s comment about it here, and I don’t think I could handle seeing that right now. All that said, I posted a discussion on gendered fantasy reading today. I hope my viewers will be respectful!
It's not so much the gender of the author that makes me return a book to the book store shelf, it's a series of keywords in my head that I've learned to trust. If the word Romance appears in the synopsis then it's going to be a major plot device. I do enjoy a bit of romance in a story but romance tends to waste a lot of words on the page getting to the point. Anything with the word Witch in it (HP exception allowed). Any combination of the words 'Powers' & ' Sixteenth birthday'. ...and a personal one of mine is the word Dragon. I am so sick and tired of &%%$%^*&^&^ dragons !
Most of the issues you've touched on have to do with the West's culture of political correctness. What we are seeing is a quota system in so-called free market bookshops and stores. Of course, the book industry is notoriously political and out of touch with most Americans and working-class men specifically.
I disagree almost completely. What we are seeing is capitalism with publishers and bookstores publishing, stocking, and promoting the books that sell best to their most reliable group of customers.
@@BookishTexan: That's the same argument dying networks like CNN & MSNBC are making. 'Just what the customers ordered.' There's a reason many bookshops have been dying for decades and we can't blame the internet alone.
@@yurisei6732: I'll be happy when more people admit that the book industry is corrupt, from top to bottom. It's common knowledge that even the New York Times bestseller list is politically biased.
Target and B&N using TikTok as their weather vanes... I'm thinking about how this is the most guerilla tactic of the age, and that is the space that women are scrabbling for, with much competition... and the cynical part of me immediately goes to the tiniest portion shifting being felt as a grievous loss by the traditionally privileged party... I've just gotten to the part in No Logo by Naomi Klein where she says Freedom of Speech is somewhat curtailed in our media age by the Inability to be Heard (bc money talks). Very interesting discussion, Brian, thank you.
I definitely feel like there is a lot of whining by the traditionally privileged about the loss of that unearned privilege. No one seems to whine louder than those who are just now dealing with their traditional position of dominance.
I find this topic endlessly interesting. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I love thinking about this because my brain goes one way (all the points you made about publishing, women reading fiction by all genders and many men seeming to be unwilling to, etc). But my heart goes in the opposite direction when I walk into a bookstore with my husband and son - both sensitive and open-minded gentlemen - and watch them struggle to find something that they REALLY want to read and that excites them! (Meanwhile, I'm walking out with a stack of 10 books!) But I also cringe at the thought of either of them getting on TikTok....
My knowledge of what is out there in modern SciFi and Fantasy is very limited so I have to admit it’s not a problem that I had thought about much. The popularity of YA fantasy and non YA fantasy aimed at girls and women has definitely had a crowding out effect on both genres, but that seems so recent to me that I assume it is a trend that will diminish as quickly as it came. My son who reads those genes seems to have gotten lucky timing wise because he had the Rick Riordan books, the Eragon series, Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter etc.
@@BookishTexan I should say its mostly a struggle to find the adult SF and fantasy for the older gentleman...we've found great fantasy for the kiddo, the VAST majority written by women. It's just getting a wee bit harder to finds things as he gets older. Or maybe we've just read through them too quickly and have run out of series in general! 😳
Wouldn't the world be a better place if men just read more books by women? And stopped getting annoyed and slighted everytime a marketing scheme is not specifically targeted to their machismo? For ages women have been left out of marketing and design and research for just about everything, including medicine, you know stuff to keep us alive, so if a few tables or shelves in some brick and mortar stores that hardly any humans enter nowadays anyway regardless of gender want to target mom's who come in to shop, which is probably the demographic of people who mostly enter these physical stores, then can we just all not cry about that? It's seems pretty silly to me. Men you've got man books. Centuries upon centuries of man books. We all know they exist. I've been reading them since I learned how to read and will continue to do so but I also have to actively make an effort to include more women authors, more non white authors, more trans authors, more LGBTQ authors, more diverse authors, more authors from impoverished parts of the world. I have to do that effort. I have to auto correct. I just can't. There is no conspiracy to hurt young men
@@jennyjaybles I agree with every word that you wrote. Women have and still do read books by authors of all genders. It’s not up to the market place to make them (us) feel included particularly if we are the least likely group to buy books.
@BookishTexan oh my gosh thank you. I sincerely regretted typing all that and thought I was going to get told to shut up and get attacked. Thank you for replying kindly and letting me speak. That means a lot.
Oh please! I think its a fact that women read and buy more books. So the market Finally reflects that. Do young men know how many years, no matter the genre, that women have been buying books predominantly published by straight white men, written by the same, and marketed toward the same because those were our choices? So another case of men having to scoot over and share the spotlight and they are finding it unpleasant. I'm struggling to sympathize.
I certainly agree with the sentiment you expressed here and have addressed that whining in other places. I thought this creator was more honest and open than most and addressing his concerns gave me the chance to emphasize that the reason for the rise of women authored books isn’t a conspiracy but the reader driven market for books.
Sorry, I was being reactive. I think women are just kinda tired in general and ready to fight back. I went back and watched two of his videos on the subject and the only thing I got from him was men do read but because books veered toward men are not being displayed as prominently as those by and for women or ' boktok slop' as he referred to them, they can't find them as readily on shelves in stores. Ok, I guess but whether it was his intent or not, by using the term, boktok slop, he's making a judgement in quality, simply because he thinks they are not written for him or men.
@ That was one of the things he said that gave me pause as well. I certainly hope it is clear that I am not endorsing his view, but quite the opposite.
I don't think it's so much of a problem of not wanting to read books by the opposite sex. It may be more about books catered towards men not being picked up but publishers as often and not being as heavily marketed. While this probably is a reflection on market trends, does it really mean they need stop marketing books for men? Does this have to be a zero sum game? Another thing, isn't it possible that the reason for men not reading as much as women is because of a feedback loop of publishers putting out more books for women, meaning that women read more, which means publishers put more books out for them, which just continues on indefinitely?
His argument is about stores displaying/storing books for tiktok girlies, not how many books are published. How is everyone missing the point when he literally spelled it out for everyone?
What do you expect, my friend? It’s called being “deliberately obtuse”. Or, in short, it’s a tactic to muddy the issue by feigning ignorance or misunderstanding, in order to dissuade further addressing of the topic.
Interesting observations and perspective, enjoyed your thoughts on this issue. I do think men are reading and reading more than women, but that is a different topic perhaps. My take on the point of your post, corporate publishing entities have extreme bias against men (and other things they deem as negative). They are Woke. I have tried to read contemporary women writers and usually by page 5 to 10 the gender issue appears (along with its Woke talking points), and I am out. Interesting as older women writers this gender issue is normally not present.
@@maceain I just fundamentally disagree that wokism is driving publishing. But if it is it’s because it is profitable, not because of a bias against men.
I tried watching this video on 1.25 speed, and it still feels super slow. I stopped at 2:14 because I got so sick of you repeating the same things over and over. This feels like a video which you stretched out just to get an extra ad break in, and while I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that this isn't the case, it doesn't change the fact that it certainly feels this way.
@@BookishTexan I believe you, and I don't think the way that this video feels to me was your intention. Just please, try not to say the same thing over and over in a video, it makes them feel extremely repetitive.
Effectively conveying information requires stating it more than once. The standard is "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them". If you want a video game format of constant motion / newness, that may be entertaining but it's not a format for engaging with thoughtful content.
Really interesting discussion. I found a Deloitte report that suggests men are far less likely to read books by women than women are to read books by men. I might do a response
Would love to see your response. I got my info about readership from a video by According to Alina.
Hence why so many women still write under a male pen name.
@@SoulsJourney Indeed. Though I think that should be changing by now.
I’d never not consider reading an author because of gender. If it’s a good story it’s a good story.
I have no idea why so many young men hate reading liberal propaganda books assigned by their they/them teachers. Oh, wait. Maybe propaganda puts them off.
Your point on corporations is what I think is the main point on this topic. Simply put publishers are going to push what sells and what they think will sell.
As a Dad with teens, my girls read and my son doesn’t. My friends sons don’t read, of the guys in my board gaming group only a couple read, and they don’t read a lot. I don’t think this is due to the current selection of books but that other forms of entertainment are preferred, videogames being number one.
As a wannabe male author, I have noticed that the stories I write are not in line with current market trends, which makes it less likely for them to get picked up or sell well. What publisher wants to sink in the costs if the sales is maybe 500 copies?
I think the real issue is one that has been going on forever and not limited to books, and it’s marketing. If someone writes a great trad sword and sorcery, unless it’s brightly displayed at the stores front or picked up by Netflix and made into a movie, it’ll languish and disappear into a dusty corner of your used bookstore.
As for book covers, I miss the days of Michael Whelan and co. And I think that’s a different story.
Thank you. That is the central point I was hoping to make. What people who complain about the overrepresentation of female author's seem to miss or conveniently ignore is that publishers and bookstores are responding to the market for books.
As for your own writing, I hope you will keep writing what you feel compelled to write and keep submitting.
Totally agree about young male readers not reading anymore. I saw a video by an education expert who says that schools have basically failed to teach students to read books anymore. They literally lack the stamina to read a book cover to cover. This is objectively a terrible state of affairs -- not only for the publishing industry but also for society.
Also, I really miss the good old days of interesting illustrated cover art. Whelan, Frazetta, Vallejo, Foss, Pepper, etc. Those covers really sucked you in. That's why I spend most of my money in used bookstores, buying books from the last century.
@ I don’t think schools have failed. I think society has devalued reading especially men reading fiction.
Thanks for the respectful discourse. Much appreciated. It’s definitely a discussion that’s touched quite a nerve, as it’s become my most viewed video ever.
Thank you. I enjoyed your take on the subject and your open minded sincerity. That is uncommon, I think, in books on this subject.
@@BookishTexanIt’s easy for many to skirt to one side of the cultural divide or the other in search of clicks, but nuance has always been trickier than the internet allows.
I did a follow up video to this as well addressing several of the most common comments that were fired at me over this. Based on some of them, it seems a lot of people assumed I was saying there were no books for men, which isn’t true at all.
@ I can see that. Even with the additional question mark in my title I’ve had a few comments like that, I thought you were very clear about not saying there were no books for men and in all of your points.
I haven’t watched Mr. Douglas’ video yet, but I will. I just wanted to mention that female fantasy authors are frequently targeted by those who would ban books. I am not normally a fantasy or romantasy reader, but I have joined in on the reading of at least the first two volumes of Sarah J. Maas’ ACOTAR books because she is being targeted everywhere where books are frequently attacked. The entire state of Utah has banned her whole series, for example, and six of the seven authors banned by that state are women. Interesting, no?
I will watch Mr. Douglas’ video, but having encountered few female authors in my two degree programs in literature AND having worked for my 40-year-career as a teacher of literature to bring into the curriculum some female voices, I will tell you that I’m not feeling a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Douglas’ argument, as you have presented it here. Discussion to be continued….
I don’t think I would describe my reaction to his video as sympathetic, but I did think it was worthwhile because he avoided (for the most part) misogynist statements and was very specific. I do think there is a fair amount of misogyny in the book banning movement.
@ I didn’t say you were sympathetic. I thought you were very balanced in your response. I just watched his video. I was filled with despair at most of the comments in response to his video all about how “woke” the world has come and how white men are so discriminated against. I was just filled with despair at the thought of even trying to enter into this discussion on his channel.
@ I did not read more than the first comment for the exact reason you cited. It is depressing. What frustrates me the most is that the very men who are whining about being discriminated against in publishing are likely the same men who have been telling women and others that if they wrote something “the market” liked they would get published and sell books. The hypocrisy of their current stance doesn’t seem to occur to them.
@@BookishTexan You are exactly right. I think, as a rule, I need to limit my reading of comments, especially in the news. They do a real number on me.
By "banned" you mean "banned in public schools." A significant omission.
"There are two kinds of people: people and women." -Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
@@markwrede8878 I wonder what your interpretation of that quote is?
@@BookishTexan When the text sez "people." it really means "men."
@@markwrede8878 Or more explicitly, "Women are not people. Women are merely property." Simone de Beauvoir was not commenting on the video, but on the attitudes of the public at the time, which may not have changed much. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the quote.
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@@roguemedic Events of the Mahabharata are set in motion by a marriage tournament.
I really wonder about whether the author has to be male for it to appeal. Would Mr. Douglas ignore The Green Bone Saga, which has more male perspectives than female and is very combat heavy but is written by a woman, but pick up Book of the Ancestor, which is entirely female PoV and also very combat heavy, because the name on the cover is male?
@@jojobookish9529 That is a good question I think for other make readers. I think based on statements in his video that Mr Douglas doesn’t have a problem reading books from either sex.
I’ve always assumed that women read more books by male authors (in all genres) than men read female authors. Do you happen to know if there are any statistics on that?
@@HannahsBooks The channel According to Alina shared some information about this in a video from a few months ago titled How Women Took Over Literature.
@ Thanks!
Coincidentally reading Assassin's Apprentice at the moment. She chose Robin Hobb as a pen name I believe to be neutral-sounding, just as many female fantasy authors used initials for years, because fantasy was such a male-led genre and this was felt to help sales to men. I grew up thinking fantasy was largely for my brother and his friends, rarely for me - Twilight was the first "fantasy" that mostly girls were reading for my generation. I think what we see today did be seen as simply the pendulum swinging in the other direction. High profile female fantasy authors can now dominate sales under their own names. There's intelligent and engaging fantasy available to every gender, and many series with male and female central characters. If men choose not to read new works largely by women, there is a huge back catalogue of male fantasy authors - but that may not help a new male fantasy author!
@@tillysshelf Thanks for the information about Robin Hobb. That doesn’t surprise me. I agree that, maybe since Twilight, things have been moving the other way. Most of the negative reactions to this that I see from men are resentful of this change for reasons that have little to do with the books themselves and everything to do with having to compete.
Oh Tilly, you mentioned Robin Hobb neutral pen name 🤩. She was successful as Megan Lindholm but not as successful as she became as RH. I only discovered her through The Elderling Realm books, but would be interested to try her books as ML.
@@PageTurnersWithKatja I didn't know she published anything as Megan Lindholm - I'd be interested to try one of those but there are so many Fraser books to read first!
Tilly I am so delighted you are reading Hobb!!!! Hope you enjoy your journey with Fitz!
My response to this it is Epic fantasy having little shelf space that is more sterytypically appealing to men and fantasy romance which has a big boom and is not taking over the romance shelves, but the fantasy ones, which steryotypically appeals to women.
So there is less Epic fantasy shelfspace. It is a publisher thing for sure. I always felt to have to seatch more for Epic fantasy and within Epic fahtasy the amount of women given shelf space or stories with queer normative narratives and from global majority authors is much slimmer. But i guess you would be frustrated if books used to have more epic fantasy (be it dominated by white male authors) than previously.
@ChattieTheMadChatter I'm enjoying it so much. I think there has always been romance in fantasy (Aragorn and Arwen!) but it's a more modern theme for romance to be made more central to the plots, and romance sells so naturally gets more shelf space. Personally, I don't mind how big of a role romance plays if the world, magic, characters etc are good.
You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the book publishers' motivation. While literature is art, selling books is business. It's sort of a vicious circle, if men don't show up as a target audience the way a specific group of female readers did, men-targeted books won't get the same treatment. And I, as a woman, am not thrilled about CoHo and SJM being the most popular ones either. Anyway, I'm listening to Blue Graffiti by Calahan Skogman rn and it's pretty slow and uneventful, but it feels like a very 'written by a man for men', 'inspired by Hemingway' type of deal. I'm enjoying it plenty, I'm sure I'd love it more if I were a guy. But yeah, I only found out about it because the author was in a show I watched, so there's that.
@@justwonder1404 I’m a Hemingway fan, so I might have to check out Blue Graffiti. The business end of this discussion is what I think carries the weight. Booksellers want to sell books and so they provide books to their biggest group of customers.
Oh Please. Two of my men friends write fantasy. The late Raven Bond wrote Steampunk, and John Michael-Greer writes Lovecraftian fiction. My dad's army Paratrooper and drinking buddy, Patrick Andrews, writes historically accurate 19th Century Oklahoma Western fiction. All three of them are well regarded. Women historically buy and read more books, especially fantasy. The entire genre of fantasy (aside from Dunsany, Tolkien and a few others) was regarded as one beneath men or not falling into the category of serious literature for a really long time. Robert E. Howard was not well regarded for decades after his death, nor was Lovecraft.
Has he looked at the Star Trek novels or the monthly Western series? Has he heard of David Gerrold or Charles de Lint or Allan Dean Foster and their younger contemporaries? Has he spent any time at conventions on an author's panel?
Does he understand that publishers (aside from the major top ten or twenty authors) require authors to do their own promotion? I know several women who are published and well regarded fantasy authors. All of them have to promote their own works. They don't get to choose their covers. Almost no one does.
@@Kitsaplorax I think you misunderstand his point. He wasn’t arguing that there were no books for men but that books that he think would be more interesting to men are not given as much shelf or display spsce.
as a female, i actually am not too keen on the romantasy genre, but i think the "spotlight" on this is due to booktok (which i also don't really follow). i guess there aren't many male authors promoting on booktok ? 🤔 it seems that the audience of booktok do buy the trending books and that's why publishers and booksellers are currently selling out on romantasy titles. i highly doubt that there is an intentional gatekeeping based on gender. they mostly care about the sales at the end of the day, and if male authors find that platform to amass a following, i don't see why publishers and booksellers won't give them the so-called "spotlight" as well
@@maggyfrog I don’t think there is any gatekeeping either. Like you I think TikTok has created a market for the kind of books the maker of the video I referenced is talking about which is just how capitalism works. Thanks for the great comment.
@@BookishTexan
i wonder if the guy who made that video is aware of the stigma on "chick-lit" before romantasy was cool. on that note, i can sort of understand the idea that some male readers just wouldn't pick up female authors or books centered on a female protagonist.
i can't say that there ever was a stigma on books written by men for men. he's definitely looking at this the wrong way.
side note: in my real life observation, gen z and alpha readers tend to lean towards manga and graphic novels, and the authors of popular titles are still mostly men
@ I definitely think he is reacting negatively to a recent trend in publishing that is, in my opinion, long over due. The broader movement that I think his video is a part of is that of men, particularly white men, to cast themselves as victims because for the first time they don’t dominate the publishing field.
@@BookishTexan What an absurd comment. Race has nothing to do with the disdain many men, and some women, have for the current state of the book industry. I don't know about the bureaucracy of the publishing industry and that aspect of things, but neither do the majority of people. The average everyday-man searches for book, reads book, and discovers a problem therein; they are not making videos online or watching videos online. They are normal people who If they are alienated is due to the subject matter and quality of what they are reading, not because of some flippant idea about race. If the market is not providing for them, they will inevitably check out. And moving outside of the mere realm of entertainment, this is terrible for developing boys who suffer in reading, writing, and general English ability, who advance into college unable to string sentences together beyond the ability of a fifth grader. To dismiss these underlying issues as a matter of petty race whining or victim self-casting is snobbish at best.
@@sodacan1415 So your solution is to somehow force publishers and booksellers to publish and provide space for books written by men, for men, even if the market for such books is either non-existent or at best unproven? How would that work?
Just because race has nothing to do with it for you doesn’t mean race isn’t a factor in the complaints of others. In this country dismissing any statement about race as absurd shows a lack of understanding of this nations past and present.
You make an interesting point about book covers. "What is attractive to a reader" is a topic that has been discussed a lot, especially by readers who have been around for a while. We usually don't need to be "attracted" to a book in the same way someone who is less likely to pick up a book needs to be.
On the female-side of reading, I know I often complain about cover redesigns, as they often look bad, but then a lot more people pick up the book. A Court of Thorns and Roses got the cover redesign that a lot of the fans disliked, but it compelled more people to pick up the book than before. Same with movie covers; those who have experience with the TV/Movie adaption would see it and be more compelled to pick it up. So it a marketing strategy targeted at book collectors and new eyes.
I would love to see what types of book covers do end up attracting male readers. If they need compelling, then that isn't a bad thing to market to them a little. There are certainly plenty of books that exist and are published now that men would like. Maybe a topic to bring up to book sellers or librarians, to see if they can make a space to match interest.
@@silversolar7181 I’ve never been a cover buyer. When I go to a bookstore I usually know what I am looking for, but I have to admit the covers I showed in the video don’t make me want to buy those books. I hope though they aren’t keeping me away from them subconsciously.
As a man, I love to read. As I look through my library and the books I've borrowed, easily 90% of the authors are female. I do feel kind of awkward going to Target & being the only male hanging out in the book aisles. That felling fades. I love thrillers & women just do it better 🤷♂️
Glad to hear the issue raised in the video I responded to isn’t a problem for you.
6:27 - Really good questions - what factors consitute a book for men? Or is Epic Fantasy as a genre he feels appeals to men?
Would men consider The Sky on Fire (for example) or The Sheepfarmers daughter epic fantasy. Both written by women with a female protagonist but a fully fleshed out imaginative world, strong plot, adventure and battles. To me the epic fantasy needs a world, layers of lore and history exploring themes such as friendship, oppression, identity, revenge etc.
The reason men don't read has far more to do with socialisation than marketing. A lot of male bonding is based on sports and occasionally trending tv shows or movies. The men I've talked to about the subject don't see the value of reading fiction and perceive more complicated literature as pretentious.
That seems likely true. Unfortunately.
Granted I'm dyslexic and so books are quite tiring for me and live in a country where neither Target nor Barnes & Noble operate (according to their websites they have no branches in Great Britain) and while I'm not a good judge of what makes a book good to read I write books myself (often shorter than expected lengths for novels but hopefully still fun).
I plan to unpack some of these ideas in a future video on Autism and Public Life but for now I might be able to help with some of the wisdom I learned from the Austrians (School of Economics, not an adherent myself but I take a syncretic approach to ideology) namely that incentives will play a large role in shaping the actions of corporations unless the economy is 100% Centrally Planned (and even then the Central Planners also respond to incentives as well).
They see a situation where women are the main consumer of fiction books (a situation which is largely unchanged since the mid 1800s and may have been true before then but since European literacy rates had been at most 10% of the adult population before the 1820s comparisons are not so useful, and other regions of the world have less data to work with) and regardless of the reasons for why this is the case a corporation will likely focus on gaining the biggest market share and so focus on the largest audience especially as they utilize investment capital (referred to in Austrian texts as "expansionary credit") to gain revenue which puts a back end incentive to provide the largest returns to their investors and thus pursue the largest share of the book publishing market as this maximizes the return on investment.
Smaller publishers are more able to focus on the more niche concerns as their only source of incentives is the revenue drawn from consumer demand but traditionally they have lacked the reach of major publishers who can use their capital to buy advertising slots and all manner of media reminding you of their presence (all those posters at railway stations and supermarket promotion bins come at a cost) which lowers competitive advantage since consumers also have imperfect knowledge of what's in front of them and with limited time and resources will (most of the time) take the path of least resistance which is to see the main advertising as the landscape of the book world when smaller voices are submerged.
There are ways around this;
Some like to blame people as lazy for not using their limited time and resources to get past the mainstream of literature but personally I feel this approach doesn't achieve very much at best and makes fiction an esoteric pursuit at worst which exacerbates the problem further by alienating new comers.
Another solution are for government intervention to promote books that provide for non-mainstream customers; Education Campaigns, Grants, Regulation of Corporate Interests so that they can't keep others from getting exposure in the market usw.
Another solution is for a more grass-roots approach which involves communities promoting books which don't follow the mainstream, similar to government intervention only consumer led and without the means to change competition laws directly.
Another solution being to try and adjust or even break down the mainstream although this would require institutions and in-groups since adjusting the politics and culture of a population is difficult but not impossible and neither are unperceptive to the economics of their population either.
While this is only a brief outline I hope it can be at least somewhat useful.
Literacy rate was way higher than 10%. That's why there had to be standardisations of spellings in the first place - people *were* writing and reading, just not in the same ways as the people from the next town over. Literacy rates in Europe have historically been measures of ability to read and write Latin, not one's native language.
Otherwise though, you make good points. I've seen the same thing in tabletop roleplaying spaces - everyone is quick to jump on people who don't enjoy D&D, saying "well then go play something else", but no one is ever making good suggestions of what people would like to play, so it turns roleplaying into, as you say, an esoteric pursuit whereby a newcomer is just told that if they don't enjoy the mainstream product, it's their fault for not having found something they would enjoy.
@@edspace. Thank you for your economic outline. I think it can be applied quite well to the situation in publishing and book selling at the moment.
Right now the largest group of readers are women and increasingly they are women who want to read books that seem to appeal most to women. Son that’s what publishers produce and promote. This is fed by a grassroots/social media phenomenon in which youngish women create free social media promotion for these types of books. So to me the best way to counter that (for those who think it needs to be countered) is for men to follow suit and promote the kinds of books they like via social media.
@@yurisei6732 I see what you mean, I had wondered where the 10% till 1820 idea came from, given increasing volume of writing in the eighteenth century thanks for the correction, I wonder if reading back then was more of a middle class activity.
Its sad that role-playing games have this problem as well since the lack of direction not only reinforces the "basement dweller" stereotype which gamers have struggled with but also makes smaller games starved out of the market when there are others than D&D, Cyberpunk 2020 and Call of Cathulu and hopefully with social media there are more ways to highlight smaller RPGs.
@@BookishTexan Thanks, its interesting how some of these things work. Quite often I find people insistent on the separation of Politics, Economics and Culture and while the genre of fiction where big powerful men beat up evil people doesn't appeal to me I did read a lot of 19th century histories and so Conan feels a bit like a busman's holiday when you were reading of Fredrick the Great (albeit I don't believe Conan had a gay subplot or social reform arc the traditional writers left out).
Hopefully with more promotion of more kinds of fiction more people will be able to find more books which appeal to them.
@ I hope that is true as well which is why I encouraged men who want fantasy fiction written by men to be more prominently displayed and more widely known to take advantage of the grassroots promotion of books that platforms like TikTok make possible.
Female authors like Robin Hobb who seem more read by men than other female fantasy authors, tend to have unisex names, and I'm guessing their first edition bookcovers are equally unisex in design. If not a unisex name there's the 2 initials in place of a first name that's common. Megan Lindholm chose to be Robin Hobb when she first wrote as a first-person male narrator. Enjoyed the discussion, bookmarked Johanna's video from your community tab to watch later.
I noticed this too. A few months ago I was in Barnes and Noble and looked at several thrillers ( a genre marketed to men many times) and every author that had initials and a last name was a female : R F Kwang, T. Kingfisher, B.A. Paris, M L Rio, J K Rowling, E Lockhart, C j Tudor, many more
Is this because men don’t want to read thrillers written by women?
Ps I did find a few men with initials and last name but overwhelmingly women authors
I had heard that about Hobb and the same is true about JK Rowling I believe. I see it as a good sign than women like Sara J Maas and Suzanne Collins use (what I assume) are their own names. Thanks for the comment.
I think it might be, but I hope that changes.
Interesting video. I am not a man but I checked the last 41 books I read. 21 were written by male authors and 20 by women so very even split. My 17 year old son is a reader but he definitely seems to gravitate towards male authors and predominantly Sci fi and fantasy Dune Lord of the rings Game of Thrones 1984 War of the worlds
@@karenbrouard697 I don’t keep stats on what I read (too lazy) but I think I come out pretty even. When I was young I read pretty much like your son.
I'm old and never had a problem finding books for men. In crime fiction there's John Sanford's Lucas Davenport novels and Andrew Vachss Burke books, then there are Ian Rankin's John Rebus novels. There's Mickey Spillane, Ian Fleming and John LeCarre. You have Elmore Leonard and Ross McDonald.
In sci-fi you have Heinlein, Zelazny, Card, Iain M Banks, John Brunner, Ken McLeod, Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Norman Spinrad, and John Crowley. There is H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley, Hermann Hesse, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stanislaw Lem, Ambrose Bierce.
In westerns you have Zane Grey and all of Louise L' Amore, not to mention all of Cormac McCarthy.
In fantasy you have Tolkien, Moorcock, Mieville, and Gaiman.
Then you have the classics Joyce, Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Odessy, The Trojan War, Caesar's Gallic Wars, and Joseph Conrad. There's Joseph Heller, Kurt Vogennut, and Chester Himes.
Obviously people mean current authors and books.
@@summerkagan6049 Yes. There is no shortage of books for men.
almost all from the last century
I’m old too and remember when you could find most of those authors at any library.
Not anymore.
That’s part of the problem.
Timely discussion Bookish! A co-worker of mine came up to me last week talking about this exact issue. He went into a Barnes & Noble for the first time in years looking for a good adventure-fantasy novel. He's a Glen Cook fan. And couldn't find any male oriented fantasy. Douglas is not imagining the lack of shelf space. It's real. And there seems to be a bit of a backlash brewing that's contributing towards a change in how literature is distributed. I'd compare it to (and in some ways they're related) the decline in main stream and legacy media. While they're being replaced by streaming and independent sources. (I steered my co-worker towards the Hanuvar Chronicles on Amazon)
I’ll have to go the fantasy section the next time I’m in a B&N. I do think self publishing is growing into a more viable option for both writers and readers.
No men are reading. No men are writing. And yet they still win all the awards. Funny that.
@@hypatia4754 Some how it seems that many of the men complaining don’t seem to see that. This year’s National Book Award for fiction went to Percival Everett for example.
The person whose video I was responding to was talking specifically about books in the fantasy genre.
Bro is literal woke books . I want Conan the barbarian not preaching about much blackness
@ No one is stopping you from reading what you want. Just don’t expect that you have the right to see it on display shelves or getting equal shelf space with books that more people want to read.
Over the last six months, I decided to reengage with reading fantasy after bingeing history over the past years. I found that women writers do dominate fantasy with female heroes, and most of the male writers are all old-time writers, with no young male writers in the fantasy sections of Barnes and Noble. Yes, women may have been locked out of the fantasy section in the past that was wrong then, and it's wrong now to do it to young men.
I think market forces are to blame. Both publishers and booksellers want to make money and publish, stock, and promote what sells best.
I admit I was initially dismissive of this topic because as you mentioned, it seemed too reactionary (the topic in general, not your video just to be clear) but you made very fair points with a balanced perspective. I agree with your points.
@@thatsci-firogue Thank you. One of the reasons I wanted to react to the video I mentioned is because it is the least reactionary of this type of video that I have seen. All the others make it impossible to see their side.
As u may know by now I almost never read fantasy and I certainly would never read any of the books whose covers u showed especially after seeing other reviewers talk about them. Stories about people riding around on dragons has never been my thing! Anyway most of the guys I know don’t actually read books except for things like how to fix toilets or how to make money in the stock market. But there are still plenty of very successful male authors of fantasy and just about every other genre so I’m not sure what this Douglas guy is getting at. Be well.⚛❤
There are still plenty of successful male authors and I think the guy who made the video acknowledges that eventually. A few months ago I saw an interesting video from According to Alina where she shared data that suggested that there are far more women who are avid readers (20+ books in 3 months) the gender break down for more average readers (1-8 books in 3 months) was almost equal.
@ yes I like Alina too but think female readers have always outnumbered the male ones⚛️❤️
Written like someone who has never had toilet problems.
😉
6:53 - general speaking i would agree with that top 10 best fantasy books Hobb and Leguin make it on their
Lists. Others are not so well known in Epic fantasy or dismissed to easily to be recognised.
I would not expect an Epic fantasy reader to enjoy The Starless Sea. Not a fantasy romance, but it is a lyrical portal fantasy that is written by a female author.
I would however encourage them to try A Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons as it is incredibly Epic - the style and convuluted plot might not work, but world building and twisty storytelling is absolutely epic.
I am a high school administrator. I also taught high school students. High school libraries now are mostly filled with YA fantasy. From my observations, these appeal more to girls than boys. Not to mention the decline in reading overall…..another issue in itself!
@@Drewsmodels I taught HS history for 31 years and I rarely saw a boy carrying a non school assigned book. I don’t think the rise of YA fantasy is to blame for the decline in male readership. I think for many video games provide a more engaging form of storytelling. I had hoped that it might funnel them into reading but that doesn’t seem to have happened.
@ I agree that gaming has overtaken reading! I definitely see more high school girls than boys walking around with a book that was not assigned in class. And it’s usually YA fantasy.
I very strongly recommend the essay collection Appropriately Aggressive by Krista D Ball. Its a smattering of things, but dominantly work she's done on gender and SFF publishing, actually bringing numbers to the table, one of them is an amazing current day update on a historic essay Joanna Russ did on the same back in the SF new wave " How to Suppress Women's Writing".
Thank you very much for the recommendation
Agreed, publishers and most bookstores are just pushing/featuring titles they judge as likely to make them more money. Small bookstores may have varied criteria. The books on the tables and other prominent spots in larger stores are typically given to publishers that kick in a designated percentage of their total yearly sales for such benefits, through cooperative advertising agreements. The actual titles from those publishers to reside on the tables is the choice of the bookstore barring some special agreement. But to the underlying problem, I guess, that a male fantasy reader may not have a chance to stumble across that many male-authored books of interest on the shelf. All I can suggest is to go to the library and read Booklist, Kirkus, or Publisher's Weekly, which keep up with all the books coming up from gatekeeper publishers in the different genres. Maybe this info is even on their websites, not sure.
@@marianryan2991 Great suggestions Marian. It seems that some feel a bit entitled to have books they like easy to find. I had forgotten the thing about publishers paying for space on those tables.
9:24 - i do think that is a great point💜📚
Please tell me you're not seriously suggesting a market for male fantasy authors writing about male characters has to be created in order to "earn" shelf space. One the subject of the ineptitude of big corporations, look at Scholastic's stock price since 2001. What book series do they own? 'nuff said.
I can't tell if your comment is satire or sincere.
I've got my first book out next year. I'm up on several YT channels...probably most of my readers/listeners are other guys.
@@StephenSinclair-d6n Congratulations. I hope your book is successful.
@BookishTexan thank you. Some of my stuff is up on a few YT channels.
I am not a big fantasy reader but I do wonder what is the percentage of women who read vs. men? Not scientific, but most of my male friends read. And those that do are more likely to pick up a non-fiction
@@JonStallings I think the number of avid women readers - more that 8 books in three months - is higher, but the number of regular readers 1-8 books in that same time from is close to even between men and women.
Women spend more money on books. The publishing industry wants to make money. It’s as simple as that.
Its amazing how many men don't seem to understand capitalism unless it works to their benefit.
6:38 - which is one of the only 2 female voices you see in Epic fantasy that is discussed on a regular basis - the other being Ursula K Leguine.
your point about this being earned and not given is 100 % correct
Thanks.
Your intro tickled me. ❤
Thanks
Hey. I'm Herman P. Hunter. I know John, am also an author, and I'd like to do a response video to this, or maybe discuss this on a Livestream if you're willing.
@@hermanphunter_theloreforge Hello Herman! I’m afraid my knowledge of current fantasy books, authors, etc is too limited to make me a very good guest for a show on this topic. But thank you.
I notice that more and more authors' gender cannot be determined by looking at the name (as it is often a pseudonym in my country) or by reading the content. There's no point in being particular about gender any more.
Interesting. I hadn’t thought about this.
@@BookishTexan I was once surprised to find out that a writer I thought was a woman was actually a man. I then learnt that a surprisingly large number of people write under pen names of unknown gender, and I got the impression that most of them are young people under the age of 60, and that they are writers of popular works.
This does not seem to be a phenomenon in the USA. What about other countries, I wonder?
seems to me, since 2020, when publishing for the first time in history hit 50/50 male/female published authors, a lot of men have been whining that theyre no longer the exclusive majority. oh how equality feels unfair, when women have had to use pen names because theyre not taken seriously as women - even Rowling had to do that with Harry Potter, and again w her Galbraith so pardon me if im not too sympathetic 🙄 if men want manly books written by men, they have a few thousand years of backlog to catch up. let women read and write in peace ffs
@@blah914 I agree with you.
@@BookishTexan more to the point of your video, i enjoyed listening to you talk and the way you think about things. im just getting tired of the whole subject where anything women and girl like gets shit on and blamed for the degradation of society 🙃 it used to be The Beatles, and maths and coding, then they figured out those were cool, and so now those are boy-things.....so the topic gets me in my annoyed feels
@ Again, I agree with you. I have offer videos in which I take men who whine about this topic to task for the exact things you mention. I thought the video that I was reacting to here was just more honest and less whiney than most. This guy acknowledges that capitalism is the driver of the “problem” he is describing instead of suggesting there is some kind of woman led conspiracy to keep men out of publishing. I appreciate your comments very much.
I grew up reading the contents of my male relatives bookshelves in the 80s. Probably as a result I prefer to read about male characters. I do seem to struggle to find fantasy books with male main characters who don't either feel masculine dialled up to 11 or entirely skewed towards being a love interest or otherwise secondary. I've been noticing it a while now. It does feel like there's this gulf and less that's more neutral.
@@tammygreen4275 That is interesting. I don’t read the genre often, but I can see where that division could be getting worse.
Men seem like poor sports.
For hundreds of years, the majority of books available for women readers were written by men.
Didn't stop women from reading or writing, though.
@@Janus10001 I agree with your sentiments.
I don’t read much fantasy so I had no idea that the gender disparity existed, thanks for the information!
@@ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged Thank you for watching.
There’s a market trend going on in tv, movies, and video games where the product must be an absolute blockbuster. The margins of failure has just kept expanding so anything short of blockbuster is a financial failure. I wonder if it’s similar in the publishing industry.
That’s why the publishing industry & bookstores would be super serving their core reading base; women. It could be too financially unviable to proportionally serve reader bases. Idk, I’m speculating and I’ve never had difficulty finding books I’m interested in. It’s just in a corner at B&N and not at Target
@@brandon8667 I’m not sure if publishing is quite at the blockbuster or bust point like movies, but I have no doubt that their marketing department push the books they know are selling hardest.
@@BookishTexanIt’s definitely not at the point of movies & TV; but I imagine it’s trending that way but idk to what degree. If there’s smaller margins, to what degree does it affect decision making across the market.
Again, just sorta speculating. Just something to consider in the discussion
@ I definitely think you are right about the way things are trending. Ironically I suspect it is the brick and mortar bookstores that are driving it that way. It’s the stores that have to maximize the profit they can make with the physical space they have. In a sense they have to have those books that trend upfront where customers can find them easily and in great quantities.
@ Makes sense.
There’s an entire “science” based on shelf space & profit
It's hard not to notice the influence of BookTok on publishing as it relates to the gender bias issue. Young women dominate BookTok both as readers and authors. As a result, publishers have put a lot of focus on reaching that audience by publishing more romance/fantasy/romantasy--genres dominated by women. With publishers putting more investment toward female-oriented genre fiction, there seems to be fewer titles on display at bookstores that cater to men's tastes, especially on trendy "As Seen on BookTok" shelves that are given prime real estate in places like Barnes & Noble. This is probably dispiriting to male readers who aren't interested in those books. While male genre readers may feel somewhat alienated by this trend, imagine how male authors feel. I wrote a male-oriented thriller and pitched it to 50+ literary agents. I targeted mostly male agents, the few I could find, as they seem outnumbered 5-to-1 or worse on agency websites. Almost uniformly, they responded that the book "doesn't meet their needs at this time." Now, that can mean many different things, but what it tells me is that male-oriented thrillers aren't what publishers are prioritizing. So, that means I'll probably self-publish.
I'm curious if anyone else has had an experience like this.
id recon they felt a little bit like JK Rowling when she couldnt use her name - Joanne , bc no one would take her seeiously as a woman writer.... and after the success of Harry Potter, her crime book under Joanne Rowling tanked and was ripped apart, while Robert Galbraith was praised and became an instant best seller - for context, Galbraith is Rowlings male penname..... women given any space in society is men with immediate dramatic male anger. not here for it.
@@thekeywitness What you describe regarding the impact of Book Tok on publishing is capitalism and Book Tok is available for men to use to promote books as well. I watch a lot of authortube videos. Most are the channels of women who write fantasy/romantasy/romance and almost all of them (probably 99%) have been querying agents unsuccessfully and several self publish as a result.
While I don't share the same viewpoints entirely or not at least all of them in the same way as Douglas on the particulars, I do think that American culture and other cultures such as the UK and most of Europe are more feminine now than ever on many levels. And the effects are seen on the bookshelves.
That’s interesting. More feminine how?(other than books)
Unless you are successful, you are going to feel that you are at a disadvantage. If you are successful, you are going to feel that you are at a disadvantage when compared with those who are more successful. While publishers do distort the market, and try to manipulate the market, the responses of people purchasing books will determine who is successful. Are the best selling books the highest quality books? No. Then, should there be something done to provide an advantage to some authors in order to disadvantage those not seen as politically correct?
.
Excellent points. I don't think all of us blame our lack of or lower measures of success on disadvantage, but that certainly seems to be true of the men who seem to complain most loudly about the loss of their past privilege.
As a constant reader, as a boy the books that got me interested are sports stories, light horror (goosebumps) and coming of age stories. Maybe because I haven’t looked too deep but I don’t see books like these in YA or younger. Then when it comes to women authors there is a difference on things that are looked at. I don’t have to see the name to know it’s a female because most of the time ( not all) emphasize emotional perspectives. Boys and young men are not interested in that. Perhaps I’m wrong but that’s how I see it .
@@modernscholar02 Perhaps I was an unusual boy. I didn’t read books by women very often, but often found the emotional content of books to be the most meaningful to me.
@BookishTexan most of the boys in my friend group (so hardly a science based take) would run fast and hard from books that even slightly talked or inspected feelings. We want action adventure and lessons on what it takes to do good in the world.
No books for old men 😂
“That space is earned” - in some cases I wonder if that space might be purchased, along the lines of some grocery models to my understanding.
@@davidnovakreadspoetry I had heard that B&N sold display table space to publishers.
It's just absurd. Most of the most successful fantasy authors are men like Brandon Sanderson or Joe Abercrombie or George R.R. Martin, etc.
@@Dunybrook Yes. There are definitely books written by men.
no books for men huh? you're not looking very hard if that's how you feel.
@@ladyjatheist2763 You didn’t watch the video did you?
@@BookishTexan lol wow did I misunderstand what was being said the first time through - I blame my lack of coffee at the time. That being said, it's strange and a little weirdly reversed, I have written a psychological thriller, a supernatural thriller, a dystopian sci-fi trilogy, a 5 part n/a hybrid fantasy series under a pen name so at initial glance, people don't know I'm a woman, because "women don't write those kinds of books" .... is what I heard for the first 15 years of trying to get trad published. Obviously I'm also independent. Now.... my trilogy, the lead character is a woman BUT, without the team that has her back, she couldn't do what she does. my Heroes of the Line series centers on two young brothers with a destiny to help save 2 engtangled universes. Oddly enough i've never read an action fantasy, story written by a woman, Madeline L'Engle aside. I tend to prefer male authors except for a few "soft" books that do mostly center on the romance part of things. Strange how it works like that sometimes.... Anyway, my apologies for setting my fingers loose before really getting what he was saying. The covers thing, and the gender bias is wholly valid. I hate to say it, but seems Mr Douglas has a valid point, but as you indicated... the space does have to be earned... i'm working on it myself, as a struggling female author who's largely ignored because i don't fit in a niche. Ahh well... time will tell. Thanks for calling me out on the vid. i'm not a fan of making myself sound as "knee jerk" as I did above. :D See ya later alligator.
@@ladyjatheist2763 No worries. Thanks for your follow up comment. It highlights something that I think many male authors conveniently overlook or misrepresent about publishing. Many seem to think that a woman can just write a romantasy book, get an agent, get published, and make millions when that is far from the truth. As you point out it’s not that easy and there are genre’s where being woman is still seen by publishers as a detriment because most of that genre’s readers are men. Getting published or having success self publishing is hard for everyone.
As a librarian i know there is a crying NEED for books for adolescent male readers. In my day, most of my peers progressed to SF and fantasy. It seemed like everyone went through a Conan phase. There were writers that appealed to men. Zelazny, Ellison, Clarke, Hienlein, Asimov, etc. But those books are now hideously out of date scientifically and socially and no one has taken their place. Additionally, an unfortunate number of current male authors that DO appeal to men are rather right wing or right wing adjacent. This is also problematic. I write erotica that appeals to males, but market forces compel me to write under a female pseudonym and take on a female persona when interacting with my readers. I'd love to step out behind the curtain but it would kill my career. I'm not sure of the causes but I have heard critics and book industry people decry ANY novel by straight white men no matter the quality or the political or social outlook of said author. I grew up hoping i would step into the shoes of my idol, Arthur C. Clarke. I've published nonfiction under my own name . I've won awards but made NO money at it. My kindle erotica books have brought me much more money than my "real" books have. There is a HUGE market that is going untapped. It is unusual for the book industry to not fill every niche. This tells me that either there are no writers or the industry does not know how to market these writers.
Thank you for the fascinating and informative comment. You are the second author who writes under an assumed gender who has commented. I hear the claim that white men can’t get books published but every year there are books by white men that are published though certainly their share of the book contracts has diminished as other writers prospects have improved.
That's been a huge problem for me, as a politically progressive, well-educated male reader who enjoys as a guilty pleasure the romanticised fiction that women tend not to write because if we're being honest it's basically sexist. It's very rare to find that without also getting right wing lunacy. If it's not nonsense worldbuilding, it's relegating female characters to cheerleader status, or it's self-insert male protagonists who are transparently aimed at making incel-type readers feel masculine, all with an undertone of real world projection and snowflakeism. I just want escapism in a world where it feels like almost every writer seems to be obsessed with commenting on the culture war.
@ I don’t see this culture war commenting that you see or maybe I don’t see it in the same way. Can you give me a general example of what you mean?
Ideally we should all have access to the kinds of books we want to read, but capitalism is unlikely to produce that ideal.
@@yurisei6732 I hear what you are saying. It's no secret men like their books sexy. But it seems beyond the reach of most authors to make their female characters not only sexy but well-rounded. I don't get it. If you think about your own wife or girlfriend she's more to you than just a great pair of tits or killer legs. Giving her a personaliity as well takes work but it is worth it. A literary three dimensional relationship would be nice while leaving in male favorites like getting the girl or saving the day in a way that doesn't make him come across as a Neanderthal. I don't think it quite worked but I liked what the producers tried to do with James Bond in the later pictures. The world HAS moved on from Ian Fleming's era. If some guy could crack the code and write a politically and socially astute James Bond type while preserving all the bells and whistles that make him attractive in the first place they will make millions!
@@BookishTexan It's not in grand speeches or anything, it's more death by a thousand cuts. It's stretching worldbuilding to hide an implication that's inconvenient to the author, it's giving a character a line of dialogue that makes it feel like they're turning to the camera to deliver a PSA as the characters they're supposedly talking to momentarily turn into perfect listeners, it's writing in antagonistic characters whose actions are an obvious strawman of a real world caricature just for the protagonist to either educate or embarrass.
Although there was one book, and one day I'll remember it's name, which actually had footnotes providing references to bogus sociology studies that supposedly proved that the bigotries of the writer were objective fact. When he described a female character struggling to lift a heavy barrel, he put in a little 1 and an explanation along the lines of "Average women are not able to lift more than Xlbs of weight".
Warched Olly and both J A douglas videos. Keen for your thoughts.
This has been very much framed in a Male v Female discussion. However for me it is the problem of Fantasy areas used to have more of the subgenre Epic fantasy (dominated by men) and now the subgenre fantasy romance is pulling in the money. These books are not being put as a sub category of romance and housed there but in fantasy so there is less shelf space for other genres within that.
Having always had to search for Epic fantasy, which appeals to me this is not new, in my experience, so I am not frustrated.
The link between less men reading is interesting, but it does feel sad that it is framed in a men books v women books which i really find gendering divicive and leads to belittling and looking down on the gender of women. But epic fantasy giving space to fantasy romance is i think more of a point of the argument, although maleness is brought into it as that is his perspective.
It is an interesting one in that there has been trends to get boys reading more, but not followed up with teenagers and young adult men. But this predominantly about less epic fantasy specifically being made available and promoted in book stores.
Now keen for yiur take 💜📚
@@ChattieTheMadChatter I do think it is sad that it is framed as a male v female take. For the most part I think that framing is embraced by men so they can blame women for their lower reading frequency and for the lack of shelf space for the kind of books they like.
Men reading non-fiction is a misconception. Men who only read self help books don't do it for a hobby, it is more like a crash course for productivity. Hence they are not readers.
When you read as a hobby, you are not dependent on newly published titles when there are millions of backlist titles available which are popular today.
Eg, Lee Child books after Reacher series.
As for bias in the publishing industry, it is to be expected since there was a long time when female authors had use male pen names but we never discuss history I suppose. Which in itself is proof that men don't read non-fiction or they would know the history of publishing. Anyways, the point is that this is a phase that will eventually pass as it always has.
P.S. Arguably most of men and women of Millennial generation got into reading because of a Female Author i.e. Harry Potter.
@@vicdelta31415 I agree that the trend in fantasy is a phase driven in part by social media. Publishers are going to try to cash in on it while it lasts and when it’s over the industry will return to a new equilibrium.
@BookishTexan Exactly! Every entertainment industry moves according to buying trends and the only people who actually get affected are creators who don't fit that trend in that period.
While it might seem romantasy has taken over bookshelf space--especially if the store doesnt give that genre much space to begin with (ahem--my local BAM)‐-there are still many, many bestselling male authors creating and releasing new works all the time. I should know. I'm reading them. Recent years, new works: Brandon Sanderson, Tad Williams is still in the game, Steven Erikson, James Butcher. Nicholas Eames, Evan Winter, John Gwynne, James Islington, Christopher Rucchio, Pierce Brown, Joe Abercrombie, Ryan Cahill, James S.A. Corey, Blake Crouch, Michael J. Sullivan, Stephen King. I do read some fantasy female authors, but from what I've seen, male writers still mostly dominate. Male authors are alive and well.
Trends come and go and right now romantasybis having a moment. Romance in most genres usually does sell quite well. I have read that it is basically the bread and butter of a lot of publishers and helps support the industry as a whole. It IS a legitimate genre or subgenre and has its place and can be extremely well-written and doesn't even have to be smutty to be so.
Thank you for the very informative comment. I could think of a few of the authors you listed, but nowhere near as many.
I watched a video about this the other day. I’m commenting now to see if I like your take better. I feel like I will appreciate your view a lot more.
We’ll see .
@ I really appreciate your breakdown of everything. And I think it helped me to not be so reactionary to the first video.
Interesting discussion. I haven’t really thought about this issue specifically with fantasy before, but I can say there aren’t many modern fantasy books I have read by men. I would always be open to reading fantasy books by male authors with male characters, but I have avoided a lot of recent stuff because it falls more into the grimdark sub genre and that just doesn’t appeal to me at all. I definitely blame publishing for any problems here haha
It’s always a safe bet to blame a corporation on my channel.😂 can I ask what fantasy writers you like best, any gender
@ good question! I love JRR Tolkien, Philip Pullman, Rick Riordan, Jordan Ifueko, Katherine Arden, and Shelley Parker-Chan off the top of my head.
Women actually promote & buy each other's books. This has been going on for decades.
Yes, exactly. But they also buy and read books by men.
I think the whole idea of there being no books for boys/men and no space for men to get published in fantasy just isn't true.
My feeling is that one reason some men feel there are no books for them is because men reject books by and about women. While women buy books by men and women equally, men buy far fewer books by women. So, because men chose not to read those books that get hype on social media when they're by women they of course feel left out.
I also think a contributor is the old "I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me". Book marketing has definitely changed, particularly in fantasy and sci-fi. Those genres have traditionally been targeted at men, to the point where some of the most well known names in the fantasy and sci-fi space used male or gender neutral pen names because men wouldn't buy their books otherwise. J K Rowling, Andre Norton, CJ Cherryh and Robin Hobb for example. So now that the focus of sci-fi and fantasy marketing has widened to bring in another group, the previous target group feels like they're being pushed out, when all that's happening is that an exclusive space isn't exclusive anymore.
@@kevin_uk Your comment is great and I agree with all of it. It is telling that men don’t feel as comfortable reading books by and about women as women feel reading books by and about men.
I mean guys need to be reading first before they can have a larger slice of the market. Everything is YA and romantasy mostly because that's the audience that's got the lock on the market. So even getting them to read instead of watching MMA or whatever is the first hurdle. But to do that you need something that appeals to them at least.
... with that in mind, there should be a concerted effort to have bro-types read Snow Crash or something therabout age 18. If that can't instill a lifelong appreciation for more 'complicated' themes and genre fiction in a red-blooded American male, nothing will.
I think that is the solution to the problem, if it’s even a real problem. Publishing reacts to what sells. To get more attention to male authored centered books men should be reading and actively promoting those books, not demanding to be given more shelf space.
Readers have always predominantly been female. If you go back to the invention of the novel back in the 18th century, you will see that they may be written by men, but treat "female" subject matter (with the exeption of Robinson Crusoe, of course). If you want to read a decidedly male classic then I would recommend Radetzky March by Joseph Roth.
I don’t have any desire to read a decidedly male classic and I do t think 19th century novels exclusively covered female subjects. There is nothing particularly feminine about Dickens, Trollope, Collins, Gissing, Flaubert, Stendahl, Balzac, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Checkov.
@@BookishTexan Radetzky March is from 1934. I meant to restate the point you made that readers are predominantly female and that this has an effect on how books are written and which ones are published. And since we were on the topic of books that decidedly are for a male audience I thought to recommend one that wouldn't be to well known to an American audience.
I do not mean that Redetzky March is male in a way Charles Bukowski would have wanted it (thank god). But it is about being a man. And that theme is much more pronounced than it was in the great social novels of the 19th century. They had a way of writing societal panoramas that covered a whole palette of characters and of course than meant that they weren't as focused.
I think that Madamme Bovary would also be in that category of required reading for men so that they do not become husbands so boring that their wives have to drink poison.
I think the marketing aspect is what most men are missing. Like you said, we just don’t see a lot of guys promoting specific books and authors online, not like the women are doing. I feel like if it mattered to folks they’d do more work than complaining.
@@AlloftheGoodNamesAreTaken Exactly! Do more work than complaining.
I feel that ignores the core of the problem. If more women read fantasy and more women are given the spotlight by traditional publishers, then of course more women fans will have the platform and desire to promote. The “just try harder “ mindset is always reductive to any conversation of this type, and it absolves institutions and corporations of responsibility and self reflection
@ If more women read fantasy then why *would* the publishers cater to men? Again, in business it’s all about the marketing. For centuries, publishing was run by men and for men. Women’s interests were not centered in the industry. Women flipped that (though not until 2020, so what’s all the griping about anyway) by working hard and promoting works by other women. (Date Source: World Economic Forum)
@ Just try harder is what women did to get their position of power in the field. Why can’t men do the same?
When we have authors who are more like activists than writers with any sort of moral integrity it's no wonder people (not just men) aren't reading. People want things with substance, whether they realize it themselves or not, and what we got here in our lovely little book-world are geeks masquarading as artists. There's no integrity amongst their likes - poke at them a little and they'll start running. We'll need an actual tragedy to inspire artists with any sorta fiber. Maybe this Trump election will be just that. Writers want their cake and to eat it too: now they'll be eating chaff.
Does it make you happy to be so obviously resentful? Have you actually convinced yourself that you are some kind of righteous victim? Or is just a pose?
Do you think there was no activist message in Hemingway’s a Farewell to Arms or For Whom the Bell Tolls, Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, or Morrison’s The Bluest Eye? No agenda in The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia? Do you think Dostoevsky or Bulgakov didn’t have activists messages? Or is it maybe that you just don’t like the message or the messengers?
@@BookishTexan That's the thing. Not even the so called "greats" do it for me that much either. Lol. You have me pegged for some resentful asshat, and you couldn't be further from the truth. I wanna see something real, wanna be something I could call my own, and it's definitely not pegged upon some blank slate victimhood. I dunno if you're sincere in your beliefs or not, but if you are then all's the more and I respect you for that. But it's whatever and however you wanna take it. And I personally just want my coffee in the morning and the occasional glimpse at the sky without having to feel what you call resentment.
@@BookishTexanIt seems my righteousness is an insult to yours. It takes only an educated man with a sturdily built house away from all danger to make a statement about another's disposition; and that seems like a rather sweet treat to our well adjusted liberal compadres, especially those lightly dusted and pristine in Europe.
You and I both know that booktube isn't about books.
@ Are you in danger from activist authors oppressing you right now? What kind of opinions are they assaulting you with? Should I call 911 for you?
@@scoutdarpy4465 Let’s reset this conversation. I want to understand your position instead of just reacting to it with snark. Rereading my comments here(which I will leave) I realize how reactionary and dismissive.
Clearly I don’t understand your position or your experiences. Try to explain it if you’d like. You can email me if you prefer (bbbookish@gmail.com)
The reason I stopped watching BookTube videos was because social issues started taking the place of discussions about authors and writing. One male BookTuber made the comment that all American male authors should be placed on an iceberg and towed out to sea. That was the straw that broke this camel's back. It is now several years later and I see that the topic of authors and writing is still being shunted aside for social issues. BookTube has lost its way. What was once fun and exciting has turned into a platform for people to vent about their displeasure over social issues. Very sad.
@@southernbiscuits1275 Hey biscuits! It’s been a while. Other than my own channel I don’t see a lot of the kinds of content you are talking about. Or maybe I notice it less than you.
Maybe male readers should read older publications by men.
Indeed!🙂
This reaction that bookselling is unfair to male authors brings to mind the research showing that when teachers scrupulously balance calling on male & female students equally, the males complain that s/he's "only" or "always" calling on the girls. We live in such a male-centered world that equality feels like (and may be) a loss to men. Losing unlearned privilege isn't fun - but it's fair.
Love your comment. I have made other videos about male created book whining that say much the same thing.
The funny thing is boktok books are already maketed by women on tiktok.
Man should start doing the same and you get the result men want.
Funny how no one picked up on that stright fact.
@@alien777 I actually suggested that men should do exactly that near the end of my video.
@BookishTexan i write befor i fully watched the video, and then i just let it sit.
@ no worries.
I think you would go a long way towards increasing both male readership and representation of male authors by eliminating distinguishing information (theoretically speaking of course). Imagine if you have a website where books were listed only by name and blurb, no images, and where authors were identified only by a number, such that you can search for books by an author number you've seen before, but get no information from the author number about who the author is.
As a male reader, if I'm being honest, yes seeing a female author name does make me less likely to pick up a book, within fictional genres. A female author is more likely to include romance subplots, more likely to include social commentary, and more likely to depict complications of reality that I prefer to see fiction sand off. That's absolutely a bias I have, but frankly, I have no reason to change that bias for myself, so if it's going to change, it's going to be the result of external forces.
What I have noticed though is that the genders of authors amongst the Japanese books I consider good is much closer to an even split, and I think the second most prominent influence there is that because I'm mostly reading them via unofficial translation aggregator sites, where they're just presented as titles in a long list of books, I'm not even noticing who the author is until I'm potentially hours into reading.
@@yurisei6732 That is an interesting idea and I think it would certainly eliminate a lot of gendered reading. Not sure you’d ever get authors and publishers to go along with it and I’m pretty sure author identities would be posted on line a few minutes after the system was put in place, but it is an interesting thought.
@@BookishTexan Yeah they would, but if a consumer has such a strong need to know the identity of an author before reading, that system probably wouldn't do anything for them anyway. Most people wouldn't be googling every author number.
As for getting authors and publishers to go along with it... I personally believe in informational democracy so not really a problem for me.
I think confirmation bias rules the day. People see largely what they want to see despite abundance of contrary evidence, and the mental machinery deducing their conclusions is similarly skewed toward a faulty logic that serves and fuels their agenda.
Three cheers for the person who shops for and reads a book because “Hey, this looks good to ME,” without further ado.
@@BooksForever Cheers indeed.
The most interesting thing about this topic I find is that the article that sparked this discussion linked to statistics about reading habits on literary fiction not genre fiction. But every reaction from the sincere to the flammatory keep talking about genre fiction or non fiction.
Men still read more sci-fi and fantasy than women. We seem to just really really don’t want to leave that comfort zone.
Thanks for your comment. I hadn’t thought about that data disconnect
@ it all good the article ended with a fantasy novel too so it also forgot.
Everyone just really likes genre fiction it seems haha
I haven’t watched the video you’re responding to, but as a female fantasy reader, I agree with all your points!
@@Johanna_reads If you do watch it I hope you will avoid the comment section. The video is, I think, better than many of its viewers.
I just saw that you posted a video about this exact topic. Headed over to watch now!
@ I just saw Pat’s comment about it here, and I don’t think I could handle seeing that right now. All that said, I posted a discussion on gendered fantasy reading today. I hope my viewers will be respectful!
It's not so much the gender of the author that makes me return a book to the book store shelf, it's a series of keywords in my head that I've learned to trust. If the word Romance appears in the synopsis then it's going to be a major plot device. I do enjoy a bit of romance in a story but romance tends to waste a lot of words on the page getting to the point. Anything with the word Witch in it (HP exception allowed). Any combination of the words 'Powers' & ' Sixteenth birthday'. ...and a personal one of mine is the word Dragon. I am so sick and tired of &%%$%^*&^&^ dragons !
@@NaDa-kw2fu I can see having more than enough of dragons. They do seem to be everywhere.
@@BookishTexan An oversupply of dragons, and unfortunately an ever-diminishing supply of dungeons.
Why does a man have to write about a male character? I’ve got a fantasy novel coming out very soon, I’m a man, my main character is female.
@@alandavies3727 They don’t. Never said they did.
Most of the issues you've touched on have to do with the West's culture of political correctness. What we are seeing is a quota system in so-called free market bookshops and stores. Of course, the book industry is notoriously political and out of touch with most Americans and working-class men specifically.
I disagree almost completely. What we are seeing is capitalism with publishers and bookstores publishing, stocking, and promoting the books that sell best to their most reliable group of customers.
@@BookishTexan: That's the same argument dying networks like CNN & MSNBC are making. 'Just what the customers ordered.' There's a reason many bookshops have been dying for decades and we can't blame the internet alone.
@@b.t.3406 A company can be attempting to do what's most profitable, without any ideology restricting their decisions, and still just be wrong.
@@yurisei6732: I'll be happy when more people admit that the book industry is corrupt, from top to bottom. It's common knowledge that even the New York Times bestseller list is politically biased.
Target and B&N using TikTok as their weather vanes... I'm thinking about how this is the most guerilla tactic of the age, and that is the space that women are scrabbling for, with much competition... and the cynical part of me immediately goes to the tiniest portion shifting being felt as a grievous loss by the traditionally privileged party... I've just gotten to the part in No Logo by Naomi Klein where she says Freedom of Speech is somewhat curtailed in our media age by the Inability to be Heard (bc money talks). Very interesting discussion, Brian, thank you.
I definitely feel like there is a lot of whining by the traditionally privileged about the loss of that unearned privilege. No one seems to whine louder than those who are just now dealing with their traditional position of dominance.
nail? meet head 6:43
Douglas (somewhat) has a point, but makes it quite poorly...
@@ch1m1ch0nga I thought he communicated it well.
I find this topic endlessly interesting. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I love thinking about this because my brain goes one way (all the points you made about publishing, women reading fiction by all genders and many men seeming to be unwilling to, etc). But my heart goes in the opposite direction when I walk into a bookstore with my husband and son - both sensitive and open-minded gentlemen - and watch them struggle to find something that they REALLY want to read and that excites them! (Meanwhile, I'm walking out with a stack of 10 books!) But I also cringe at the thought of either of them getting on TikTok....
I should add - both are sensitive and open-minded gentlemen who like to read science fiction and fantasy!
My knowledge of what is out there in modern SciFi and Fantasy is very limited so I have to admit it’s not a problem that I had thought about much. The popularity of YA fantasy and non YA fantasy aimed at girls and women has definitely had a crowding out effect on both genres, but that seems so recent to me that I assume it is a trend that will diminish as quickly as it came. My son who reads those genes seems to have gotten lucky timing wise because he had the Rick Riordan books, the Eragon series, Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter etc.
@@BookishTexan I should say its mostly a struggle to find the adult SF and fantasy for the older gentleman...we've found great fantasy for the kiddo, the VAST majority written by women. It's just getting a wee bit harder to finds things as he gets older. Or maybe we've just read through them too quickly and have run out of series in general! 😳
Wouldn't the world be a better place if men just read more books by women? And stopped getting annoyed and slighted everytime a marketing scheme is not specifically targeted to their machismo? For ages women have been left out of marketing and design and research for just about everything, including medicine, you know stuff to keep us alive, so if a few tables or shelves in some brick and mortar stores that hardly any humans enter nowadays anyway regardless of gender want to target mom's who come in to shop, which is probably the demographic of people who mostly enter these physical stores, then can we just all not cry about that? It's seems pretty silly to me. Men you've got man books. Centuries upon centuries of man books. We all know they exist. I've been reading them since I learned how to read and will continue to do so but I also have to actively make an effort to include more women authors, more non white authors, more trans authors, more LGBTQ authors, more diverse authors, more authors from impoverished parts of the world. I have to do that effort. I have to auto correct. I just can't. There is no conspiracy to hurt young men
@@jennyjaybles I agree with every word that you wrote. Women have and still do read books by authors of all genders. It’s not up to the market place to make them (us) feel included particularly if we are the least likely group to buy books.
@BookishTexan oh my gosh thank you. I sincerely regretted typing all that and thought I was going to get told to shut up and get attacked. Thank you for replying kindly and letting me speak. That means a lot.
@@jennyjaybles We are definitely on the same side of this issue.
Oh please! I think its a fact that women read and buy more books. So the market Finally reflects that. Do young men know how many years, no matter the genre, that women have been buying books predominantly published by straight white men, written by the same, and marketed toward the same because those were our choices? So another case of men having to scoot over and share the spotlight and they are finding it unpleasant. I'm struggling to sympathize.
I certainly agree with the sentiment you expressed here and have addressed that whining in other places. I thought this creator was more honest and open than most and addressing his concerns gave me the chance to emphasize that the reason for the rise of women authored books isn’t a conspiracy but the reader driven market for books.
Sorry, I was being reactive. I think women are just kinda tired in general and ready to fight back. I went back and watched two of his videos on the subject and the only thing I got from him was men do read but because books veered toward men are not being displayed as prominently as those by and for women or ' boktok slop' as he referred to them, they can't find them as readily on shelves in stores. Ok, I guess but whether it was his intent or not, by using the term, boktok slop, he's making a judgement in quality, simply because he thinks they are not written for him or men.
@ That was one of the things he said that gave me pause as well. I certainly hope it is clear that I am not endorsing his view, but quite the opposite.
I don't think it's so much of a problem of not wanting to read books by the opposite sex. It may be more about books catered towards men not being picked up but publishers as often and not being as heavily marketed. While this probably is a reflection on market trends, does it really mean they need stop marketing books for men? Does this have to be a zero sum game?
Another thing, isn't it possible that the reason for men not reading as much as women is because of a feedback loop of publishers putting out more books for women, meaning that women read more, which means publishers put more books out for them, which just continues on indefinitely?
Definitely a woke woman’s response…..
His argument is about stores displaying/storing books for tiktok girlies, not how many books are published. How is everyone missing the point when he literally spelled it out for everyone?
What do you expect, my friend? It’s called being “deliberately obtuse”. Or, in short, it’s a tactic to muddy the issue by feigning ignorance or misunderstanding, in order to dissuade further addressing of the topic.
Are a lot of people missing the point.
Interesting observations and perspective, enjoyed your thoughts on this issue. I do think men are reading and reading more than women, but that is a different topic perhaps. My take on the point of your post, corporate publishing entities have extreme bias against men (and other things they deem as negative). They are Woke. I have tried to read contemporary women writers and usually by page 5 to 10 the gender issue appears (along with its Woke talking points), and I am out. Interesting as older women writers this gender issue is normally not present.
@@maceain I just fundamentally disagree that wokism is driving publishing. But if it is it’s because it is profitable, not because of a bias against men.
I tried watching this video on 1.25 speed, and it still feels super slow. I stopped at 2:14 because I got so sick of you repeating the same things over and over. This feels like a video which you stretched out just to get an extra ad break in, and while I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that this isn't the case, it doesn't change the fact that it certainly feels this way.
@@Fallout2Forever I don’t have mid-roll ad breaks.
@@BookishTexan I believe you, and I don't think the way that this video feels to me was your intention. Just please, try not to say the same thing over and over in a video, it makes them feel extremely repetitive.
@@Fallout2Forever Can you refer me to one of your videos so I can learn from your example?
Effectively conveying information requires stating it more than once. The standard is "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them". If you want a video game format of constant motion / newness, that may be entertaining but it's not a format for engaging with thoughtful content.
Are you kudding me? No books for men? Read Dostoyevski or Anatole France or Jonathan Swift or Raymond Chandler or Mario Puzo or Tolkien :)
@@arekkrolak6320 Did you actually watch the video? Or see the question mark?
6:38 - which is one of the only 2 female voices you see in Epic fantasy that is discussed on a regular basis - the other being Ursula K Leguine.