Are men no longer writing mainstream fiiction as much as in the past?

[AG31]

I am always reading a book. Almost always fiction. I have a spread sheet of hundreds of go-to authors that I cycle through. But in the last few months I've had the practice of picking up a book by a, to-me. unknown author from the new books shelf. Lately I've been struck by how many females are in that category. If I had to guess I'd say only 10% of the authors unknown to me are men. Is that true?? Or just an accident of the moment?

 

[SimonDoom]

I had not thought about this. Maybe. When I think about so-called "good" fiction that I've read recently, I'd say a higher proportion of it is by women authors than before. But I haven't done a systematic count of it.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Being an enthusiast of Fantasy and Sci-fi books, it is my impression that about 70% of authors in that genre are women nowadays. There are so many of them. The themes and tropes they write are also quite distinctive from what male authors generally write. It's good and refreshing from one side but I also find the market overcrowded as fuck. There are dozens and dozens of new fantasy and sci-fi books coming out every month. Most of them are not very good, to put it mildly.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I don't think it is a function of men not writing as much, it's a function of men not getting published as much.

If you are buying a book in a bookstore you are dealing with traditional publishing, which hasn't been male friendly in quite some time.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I don't think it is a function of men not writing as much, it's a function of men not getting published as much.

If you are buying a book in a bookstore you are dealing with traditional publishing, which hasn't been male friendly in quite some time.

Any specific reason for that? As I said, I do see way more women than men in the fantasy and sci-fi genres but I simply thought it was a matter of preference.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Any specific reason for that? As I said, I do see way more women than men in the fantasy and sci-fi genres but I simply thought it was a matter of preference.

It's a zero-sum game. There has been a big push for women authors in those fields, and there is only so much shelf space.

 

[PennameWombat]

Any specific reason for that? As I said, I do see way more women than men in the fantasy and sci-fi genres but I simply thought it was a matter of preference.

I'm not an insider, but it seems to be a feedback loop of traditional publishers having made intentional efforts to broaden their author stables, partially in response to lagging sales and partially in response to pressure, which has helped to bring in different readers to certain niches. 'Romantasy,' I'm looking at you. That then causes publishers to chase more of 'those' kinds of books, because the market "demands" them.

It's a zero-sum game. There has been a big push for women authors in those fields, and there is only so much shelf space.

And yes, this.

If you look at self-publishing stats, this disparity doesn't seem to exist where it's simply up to the authors to push through KDP or other sites at their own behest. But the books in bookstores aren't coming from self-publishers, they're coming from the trad publishers.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I'm not an insider, but it seems to be a feedback loop of traditional publishers having made intentional efforts to broaden their author stables, partially in response to lagging sales and partially in response to pressure, which has helped to bring in different readers to certain niches. 'Romantasy,' I'm looking at you. That then causes publishers to chase more of 'those' kinds of books, because the market "demands" them.


And yes, this.

If you look at self-publishing stats, this disparity doesn't seem to exist where it's simply up to the authors to push through KDP or other sites at their own behest. But the books in bookstores aren't coming from self-publishers, they're coming from the trad publishers.

Well said.

 

[CockSparrow]

A friend of mine, who is managing editor of a fiction publisher, suggests that book groups may have contributed to the current preponderance of female authors.. She suggests that, over the past few years, book groups (that tend to be made up of more women than men) have tended to favour books by female authors. And one book leads to another, which leads to another. So guess what the bookseller stocks.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Romance is the most popular genre of books sold in the US, with over 32 million print copies sold in 2022.
More women and older consumers are buying books.
Men make up 22% of book buyers
Women account for 32% of book purchases
A 2018 survey showed that 11 percent of U.S. women read 31 or more books that year, compared to five percent of male respondents.
Looking at the data, it’s evident that women are generally more inclined to read and buy books compared to men in the United States.

When it comes to fiction, there's some big differences in reading tastes between men and women. The romance market is a prime example. Biggest segment of the market, readers are almost all women, and some publishers won't take male authors of romances for women. Very different emphasis to male-oriented fiction, and publishers like Harlequin work to quite stringent guidelines for their different categories.

Add to that, that trad publishing is hard to break into and most books aren't profitable for the publishers and you get a business that tends to stick with tried and proven authors and subjects and where they do experiment, they aren't that good at it.

What you sometimes see is an established author co-writing a book with someone with no previous published work as a trial run - newbie gets asked to co-write a novel, established author, established niche publisher with a solid market - it's their way of bringing new writers in an minimal risk - the established authors name sells the book, the newbie does the hardcore writing and if its successful, there's a new author to add to the stable, and if not, no big downside.

 

[Britva415]

Maybe women aren't using male pen names as much as they used to.

Maybe men are using female pen names more than they used to.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Romance is the most popular genre of books sold in the US, with over 32 million print copies sold in 2022.
More women and older consumers are buying books.
Men make up 22% of book buyers
Women account for 32% of book purchases
A 2018 survey showed that 11 percent of U.S. women read 31 or more books that year, compared to five percent of male respondents.
Looking at the data, it’s evident that women are generally more inclined to read and buy books compared to men in the United States.

When it comes to fiction, there's some big differences in reading tastes between men and women. The romance market is a prime example. Biggest segment of the market, readers are almost all women, and some publishers won't take male authors of romances for women.

Makes sense. I was gonna counter you by saying "Why doesn't that apply in fantasy and sci-fi where clearly men make the majority of readers?" But after doing some internet search, it seems that women are now dominating even in that part of readership. I see that "romantasy" is the prevalent genre. Fuck.

 

[AG31]

Being an enthusiast of Fantasy and Sci-fi books, it is my impression that about 70% of authors in that genre are women nowadays. There are so many of them. The themes and tropes they write are also quite distinctive from what male authors generally write. It's good and refreshing from one side but I also find the market overcrowded as fuck. There are dozens and dozens of new fantasy and sci-fi books coming out every month. Most of them are not very good, to put it mildly.

Interesting. If there's one genre that I think of as male dominated (apart from westerns), it's sci fi and fantasy. With the clear exception of Ursula Le Guin.

 

[AG31]

I don't think it is a function of men not writing as much, it's a function of men not getting published as much.

If you are buying a book in a bookstore you are dealing with traditional publishing, which hasn't been male friendly in quite some time.

Wo! That's interesting. Any idea why?

 

[AG31]

If you look at self-publishing stats, this disparity doesn't seem to exist where it's simply up to the authors to push through KDP or other sites at their own behest. But the books in bookstores aren't coming from self-publishers, they're coming from the trad publishers.

Now that's an interesting insight.

 

[AG31]

A friend of mine, who is managing editor of a fiction publisher, suggests that book groups may have contributed to the current preponderance of female authors.. She suggests that, over the past few years, book groups (that tend to be made up of more women than men) have tended to favour books by female authors. And one book leads to another, which leads to another. So guess what the bookseller stocks.

Now that's interesting. What I didn't mention in my OP is that I'm female, but I noticed this trend because, all things being equal, I will choose a male author over female when I know nothing else about them. I just prefer the tone.

 

[AG31]

Maybe women aren't using male pen names as much as they used to.

Maybe men are using female pen names more than they used to.

Well, now. There's an idea. Could be... could be...

 

[SyleusSnow]

Maybe women aren't using male pen names as much as they used to.

Maybe men are using female pen names more than they used to.

Just so. Except presumably for their publisher, who knows whether an author really is male, female or other? Plenty of men write romance under female pen names.

There's the trend of ambiguous pen names... most famous recent example I suppose being "E. L. James."

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Wo! That's interesting. Any idea why?

Publishing houses are female dominated, have been for quite some time. The push has been for "equity" which means they want more female authors.
The economics of publishing suck. Most books they publish lose money, they rely on a few home runs to pay for all the money losers. They really don't know what the market wants either, they are just playing hunches.
They aren't going to fire a bunch of male authors who make money. Stephen King and Dean Koontz aren't getting kicked to the curb, so they keep selling as established authors and all the "new author" chances go to female authors to try and balance things out.

 

[AllenWoody]

Oprah

 

[SyleusSnow]

Oprah

OMFG does her "book club" still have sway?

 

[Areala-chan]

OMFG does her "book club" still have sway?

Indeed, her stamp or Reese's book club's stamp of approval will absolutely push sales.

Something else I've noticed: the "Book of the Month" club picks overwhelmingly trend towards female authors. Right now, sixteen of the twenty BotM 'popular right now' picks are by women. All five of the December picks are by women. All five of the November picks are by women. All five of the October picks are by women. Five of the six September picks are by women. Obviously, I don't know the specific breakdown of gender for BotM subscribers, but I'd guess it skews very heavily towards women making up a majority, if not a super-majority.

As Chloe pointed out in her post, women (and specifically female romance readers) are far and away the largest driver behind physical book sales within the traditional publishing sphere: the average woman reads more, and she reads more regularly, than the average guy. So with that in mind, it would be foolish for the market to focus the bulk of its attention on anyone but the bulk of their readers.

It would appear to be simple capitalism driving the skew in the trad pub world. Women are spending the cash, and the companies are falling all over themselves trying to deliver what they want. Now, if we could just get the garment industry to do the same with pockets in our pants...

 

[OffNSFW]

People who don't read, don't write.

 

[ChloeTzang]

There are exceptions, like Baen Books, which caters to harder sci-fi and a lot of "military" sci-fi but even that seems to be changing a bit. And then you get the "action" type novels which are geared to male readers by, again, "brand" authors - like all the old W.E.B Griffin books - my husband has a shelf or two of those.

 

[THBGato]

Now, if we could just get the garment industry to do the same with pockets in our pants...

OMFG yes!

Some really insightful comments above.

I would add this hypoyhesis: having a book published earns you very little in 90% of cases, if not more. Therefore, in trad families (Man, woman, 2.4 children) the income writing brings will not be enough by itself. Thus, I suspect, men wishing to support a family and play that traditonal breadwinning role aren't attracted to it. Women, however, who don't get socially shamed for earning less or being financially supported by their spouse, can explore this. If you are staying home with the kids, the intellectual challenge of writing may help keep you sane!