There is in the publishing industry a definite bias towards women. Jason Pinter’s excellent article in the 25 May 2011 HuffPost, “Why Men Don’t Read: How Publishing is Alienating Half the Population”, explains the reason for and critiques this bias. I think he is right on target.
What’s worse is when publishers grudgingly admit that maybe men do read, but then immediately add — they don’t read fiction!
I think that’s about as true as the fact horses have feathers.
Men do read fiction. I won’t believe anyone who tries to tell me men don’t read Clive Cussler, or Lee Child, or Tom Clancy, or William W Johnstone. Or when they were boys didn’t read Sherlock Holmes, or Tarzan, or Doc Savage. I just won’t believe it.
Porter Anderson, in a 26 December 2013 post on Jane Friedman’s blog, “Men Don’t Read Fiction? BULL! — Writing on the Ether”, explodes the publishing myth that men don’t read fiction. Do take a read. It’s an excellent post.
I think part of the problem is the ever increasing focus on women in our society, as a way to right their previous inequality. We’ve seen an explosion of genres and categories that target women. Starting with the very explicit Women’s Fiction.
There’s nothing wrong with marketing books to a particular demographic. Nothing. In fact, it’s good business. But if it’s good business to market to women, why isn’t it also good business to market to men?
I’m a man, and I read. I even read fiction. In fact, I mostly read fiction. I certainly can’t be the only guy who does. And I know for a fact, I’m not.
In an exceedingly insightful paper written by Kate Summers and published in the Spring 2013 (Vo. 52, No. 3) issue of RUSA, Ms. Summers provides us with information that supports what we already know but fail to act on: men and women are different — and have very different reading interests and habits.
For example, Summers points out that the culprit in fostering this bias against the male reader may in fact be the public school system.
She notes:
“boys’ under achievement in reading is a result of a school curriculum that is ‘biased towards girls’ reading interests’ or a product of the predominance of female teachers versus male teachers, which contributes to boys’ perception of reading as being a feminine pursuit.”
Young boys, who certainly don’t want girl germs, aren’t going to be interested in fiction geared towards girls. Why? Because boys have very different interests vis-a-vis girls. And if we try to force boys to read what they don’t want to read, they are just going to tune us out and play with their X-Box.
Summers cites a classroom study of 6 boys, which just so happens to coincide with my own experience: namely, that boys will read fiction that ties in with their interests.
Early on, I was fascinated with dinosaurs. Consequently, I liked stories that featured dinosaurs; such as, Danny and the Dinosaur and The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek. As my interests developed, so did my interest in fiction on those topics.
If you want boys to read fiction, find out what they’re interested in and give them fiction to read on those subjects.
Girls will read Betsy, Tacy, and Tib; and the boys will read Star Rangers. And all will be well with the world.
So if we were to have a new BISAC fiction code for Men’s Fiction (one doesn’t exist now, while women have FIC044000 FICTION/Women) what would be the characteristics of this category, or genre? What would make it different from Women’s Fiction?
Based on the information cited in Ms. Summer’s article, I put forward the following as a starting point.
Men’s Fiction would in general
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- Be written by men (perhaps women using a male pen name)
- Have a male protagonist
- Contain elements of the genres preferred by men, such as adventure, humor, horror, and science fiction
- Have believable characters with whom they can identify
- Be realistic fiction that deals with contemporary problems of people
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Which means if male authors want to attract male readers they need to re-think their reliance on the kick-ass heroine as the protagonist. While the kick-ass heroine may attract some male readers, as a whole men don’t like female main characters. This is because men have a greater need to identify with the protagonist than do women. Something to think about.
Erle Stanley Gardner noted that one of the reasons for the popularity of Sherlock Holmes was due to “the extreme masculine atmosphere and the yearning for freedom.”
After a time, even the most happily married man begins to feel squeezed by his responsibilities to his family. He may be tied to a job he doesn’t like. He may have doctor bills. Chores like cutting the grass, or painting the house. There are dirty diapers, lack of sleep, and the Terrible Twos.
Holmes and Watson were blissfully free from all those things. Their extremely masculine world is something every guy dreams of — no matter how much he may love his wife and kids.
Gardner also wrote:
Every story, or rather, every type of story that has succeeded has the common point of a single man, unaided, overcoming difficulties by the inherent power that is within him and attached to him.
I’m not sure this applies to women’s fiction, but it sure as heck applies to men’s fiction. That is every man’s dream: To conquer the impossible without any help or aid. It is the essence of the adventure story, a genre much preferred by men — not women.
Michael-Scott Earle is building an audience by marketing to men. And I’d guess young men in particular.
That his approach is working can be seen in the fact that in 2 Kickstarter campaigns he conducted this year, he pulled in over $228,000 in pledges. Men do read fiction folks.
Earle’s books hit on all the main features of Men’s Fiction:
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- They have a male protagonist
- They have a main character with whom men can identify.
- They have plenty of action and adventure
- They contain humor preferred by men
- They are in the fantasy and science fiction genres
- They deal with contemporary issues
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What I was delighted to see in Earle’s writing is how the male hero gains self-confidence with the help of strong and intelligent women. The women want “their man” to be strong and confident and reward that strength and confidence by becoming his companions and sexual partners.
Male confidence, particularly white male confidence, has taken a beating at the hands of extreme feminism. I’m glad to see Earle giving men back that confidence through his fiction.
Earle has shown us that books marketed to men will sell. Maybe it’s time we start to cater to the needs of the male reader.
There is #MensFiction on Twitter. Maybe we should start using that hashtag.
Men do read fiction. They aren’t as social about their reading as women, which may account for all those surveys which say men don’t read. But they do read and they do tell other men about the books they’ve read.
With the advent of ereaders, there is a new privacy when reading in public. No longer can the world see your book cover. This may work to the advantage of men. They can read their guilty pleasures, Conan the Barbarian, Doc Savage, and Longarm, and not get questioning looks. Something to think about.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
CW Hawes is a playwright, award-winning poet, and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.
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This is a topic close to my heart – for many reasons. I followed Jack here, and have signed up. Great conversation.
Some of the best reviews for the first volume in my mainstream trilogy are from older men. When they read, they also write well – and their reviews are gold.
But almost all of them have some version of “I don’t normally read…” and I had to persuade them, based on their reviews and reading histories, that they might like it.
It starts with a person whose writing and opinions I respect – from the various online places writers and readers meet.
Then I look at a specific set of books – readers who like a significant fraction of these, men and women, also tend to think as I do, to see life and fiction in the same way.
What I’ve mentioned, and no one has dug into that I can see except me, is that you can PLAN this engagement – appealing to men and women – quantify it and justify it. Hint: I plot with Dramatica. This appeal is buried deep until you learn the intricacies of the, uh, INTERESTING program meant for screenwriters.
So I have the method and have learned to plot and write to enhance what I’ve learned, and then I have to find targets (victims?) and point out that they might like it.
It doesn’t hurt at all to have had John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee as mentors – JDM leaves all his secrets on the pages if you know what you’re looking for.
It doesn’t hurt that I’m the oldest of a family of five girls – I’m the one my dad could talk to about his work (he designed and built cooling towers), and that I earned a PhD in Nuclear Engineering in an almost entirely male environment, and then have worked only in labs where those qualifications are required.
Lots of bits and pieces – and the effort to make them work together.
And after all these years, I can say: It isn’t all that hard.
I don’t think I’d try to write ‘men’s fiction’ any more than I am pleased when forced to choose ‘women’s fiction’ as one of my categories/key words and phrases.
Of course men read fiction, and not all of it is thrillers and SF and murder mysteries and action/adventure. And the men who read other stuff are just as manly as the ones who have marked Jane Eyre high.
Thanks for stopping by Alicia!
You make some poignant observations. I certainly agree we writers need to find those folk who will resonate best with what we write.
I also agree that men who read fiction may also read outside of their usual genres. Much less so, it seems with young boys, though.
Good to see you here, and thanks for commenting!
Well, good day to ye, laddie, an’ what all this Blarney yer spoutin’? I’ve seen this discussed before, and I’ve a strange feeling that it might have been here. So, I’m a male, I read, and I’ve moved away from fantasy and sci fi over the past few years to dig into cerebral horror and detective stories. I don’t generally feel the need for a male protagonist in my reading. I’m not consciously aware of any feeling of anticipated disappointment when I see that the lead detective is a woman; a good story is a good story.
But what about my writing? My background is that I was raised by three generations of women with nary a man in sight. G-Grandma kept the house ship-shape by the time I came along, but she had been a model at the tail end of the Victorian Era. Grandma was one of the legions of “Rosie the Riveters” that helped beat Hitler and Tojo. Mom was a professional gambler before it was cool, so I had a close, intimate look at how strong, determined women overcome adversity. These are the women who appear in my fiction, tough, capable, and innovative whether heroes or villains. They do what needs to be done. They aren’t always the protagonists, but they are at least confidants who play major roles in the success of a male lead.
So, am I to change my entire writing style in order to fit it into a formula? You know my history. I’m an indie like yourself, struggling for recognition in a sea of indies, and there are two ways, to my mind, of assessing success. One is monetary, and on that score, I’m a dismal failure. I could make more money by walking around town with my eyes on the ground looking for dropped change to pick up. The other is through reviews and comments, and in that arena, counting Amazon, Goodreads, posting for free reading on the now-defunct Steampunk Empire, and of course Writing-dot-com, I probably have received a hundred reviews; that sounds low, but I don’t want to exaggerate. Out of all those, I have received two reviews with less than a 4 out of 5 rating.
My experience says my formula works, whether the woman is the protagonist or the one that hands him the saw, yet you cite a great deal of empirical data that says it shouldn’t. Is it possible that we’re all individuals that don’t fit neatly into the boxes of a survey? Or is it that men will read the kick-ass heroine for free, but won’t pay money for her? Sounds like the guy who deciphers that code will gain instant access to an audience of billions!
So, thank you once again for getting me out of my little clockwork routine and making me think. It’s always a treat to find one of your “things that make me go hmmm,” and I hope to be hounding you as the devil’s advocate for many years to come, so keep your arguing hat nearby!
Hey Jack!
Thanks for stopping by.
Yeah, I’m going on again about this notion that men don’t read fiction. Personally, I think they do and that the stats are skewed by the multitude of voracious romance readers. Take out the romance reader, and I bet the numbers are pretty even between male and female readers.
I agree with you that a good story is a good story. Doesn’t matter who wrote it or what gender the MC is.
The post, of course, speaks to generalities. The picture is painted with a broad brush. Exceptions abound. The focus is on reading preferences. Although writers are free to write whatever they want. But if we writers want readers, then we need to consider writing for the male demographic — which is being ignored by the Big 5 publishers. And even many Indies.
As a reader, I generally prefer male authors and male main characters. But not exclusively.
I think RH Hale’s Church Mouse is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. Female author. Female main character, with a strong male second.
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman is another excellent novel that was very funny, very poignant, and thoroughly enjoyable.
As a writer, I have no problem including strong female characters in my stories; as leads or secondaries. And, like you, that’s probably due to the strong women that have been in my life.
The post simply outlines what male readers prefer to read. Which is especially true for boys. I know, when I was young, I did not want to read girlie books. That I had plenty of books I liked to read, certainly helped me to become an avid reader.
If we want to make sure boys like to read, and that men will buy and read books — then it behooves us writers to give them what they want to read. And in general, it isn’t want girls and women want to read.
Thanks for stopping by and letting me give you a think. 🙂