reading fiction | CW Hawes

#IndieApril

Today’s the last day of April. A third of the year is over. Wasn’t yesterday New Year’s? At least while time’s flying, I’m having fun! Hope you are too!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I’m a reader. I prefer reading to TV, movies, video games, boardgames, you name it. Reading takes you to a million different worlds without leaving the comfort of your own home. Reading’s my favorite way to travel. Reading also stimulates the imagination like nothing else. And that’s a good thing.

Earlier this month, on Twitter, someone started the hashtag #IndieApril. The goal was to get people to buy, read, and review books written by independent author/publishers.

Being an independent author/publisher and reader, I was excited to jump on the bandwagon. After all, reading is a good wagon to jump on.

I ended up buying 7 books. Here they are:

The Tainted Dollar by Chris Derrick

Hotel Obscure by Lisette Brodey

Voyager by Carl Rackman

The Monkey Idol by KD McNiven

A Brother’s Secret by Andy Graham

Connor’s Gambit by Z Gottlieb

Into Armageddon by Jeff DeMarco

As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is a good book in the eye of the reader. And just as there is a lot of beauty out there, there are a heck of a lot of good books that just don’t get the press.

The editors who work for publishers are mere mortals. They put their shoes on the same way you and I do. They are biased and opinionated individuals whose job is to make money for the publisher, the businessman, they work for.

The stories are legion of editors who passed on the eventual bestseller. The stories are legion of editors who thought book X was the next Gone With the Wind — and it didn’t even sell 10 copies.

Why is this? It’s because publishers aren’t interested in art. They’re interested in money. How many bucks will they make on Book X versus Book Y? This makes sense if we understand that publishing is a business. The publishing house’s sole purpose is to make money for the owners.

Businesses exist to make money. It’s why Jeff Bezos started Amazon — to make money. To get rich if possible. It’s why Random House exists — to make money for their German and British owners. Publishers only see books as dollar signs.

For the last 50 plus years I’ve read in writing magazines and now on the internet, that bestsellers keep publishers afloat. On virtually all of their other books they lose money. The likes of Patterson and Rowling and King, enable publishers to publish the likes of you and me — if we can get past the gatekeepers (editors). And there were other bestsellers who allowed the publishers to gamble on Patterson, Rowling, and King.

As much as I don’t like the monopolistic mindset of Amazon, I’m forced to say that it was the Kindle that changed publishing forever.

Suddenly, overnight, not a single writer needed an agent or a publisher. Writers were free at last. There were no more gatekeepers to prevent our voices from being heard.

Publishing had suddenly become a true democracy. Publishing became as easy as buttering a slice of toast.

Of course, people have this proclivity to make easy things difficult. And so now we see indies themselves setting up all manner of roadblocks to prevent the newbies from entering the ranks of the august.

I hear constantly that one has to have an editor, maybe several! I was told by one nobody author that if I didn’t have money to hire an editor, I should hold a garage sale to raise the money to hire one. What idiocy! As if I have enough stuff I don’t want to make even $10.

Here are more must haves. One has to have a professionally made book cover. That one has to pay a formatter for a professionally formatted book. And one has to pay for lots of marketing.

What’s going on is simple. In the first place, all those editors that publishers have let go in the last 30 years are seeking to feed off of the indie revolution. Quite honestly, indies don’t need professional editors. We are our own publishing house of our own books. We don’t need someone who doesn’t know us to tell us what our books should or shouldn’t be.

In the second place, indies themselves — to eliminate competition — set up barriers to new writers. Of course there are no barriers to publishing today, so these people play the traditional publishing mind game and make gullible newbies think they need all the above mentioned crap.

The indie publishing waters are filled with sharks and piranha — let the newbie beware. I say ignore those naysayers and shysters. Just write and publish your book. Then learn how to market it.

Every day I’m amazed at the good indie writers I discover. Writers who’s books languish at the 500,000 or one million rank in the paid Kindle Store. Writers who are usually better than the indie bestsellers — most of whom are of no better quality than the traditionally published crowd.

On this last day of #IndieApril, I encourage you to pick up a book or two written by an independent author/publisher. Here are 10 suggestions:

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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The Mars-Venus Thing, Part 2

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, so it’s said. Mark Gungor’s “Tale of Two Brains” humorously describes this difference.

Last week, I began taking a look at these differences and how they affect fiction writers. I concluded with the idea that men who read fiction are the collateral damage of the contemporary fiction scene.

This week, I want to look deeper into the notion men don’t read fiction. Before I do, I’d like you to read two articles. They are excellent and describe the problem eloquently. The first is by Jason Pinter and the second is by Porter Anderson.

Okay, now that you’ve gotten the background material, let’s look at what those two men have to say about men and fiction and what the ramifications are for indies.

Big corporate publishers believe the maxim “Men Don’t Read”. Consequently they don’t publish for men or market towards men. As Pinter points out, when there aren’t many books on the market for men to read, they’re going to do something else with their time.

While Pinter excoriates Big Publishing concerning men and reading in general, Anderson focuses on fiction. Where the bias is even greater. In fact, Anderson’s statements regarding his own and men’s attitudes in general are supported by Kate Summers in her study. (Here’s a pdf version where the tables are visible.)

As Mark Gungor would say, men have a drawer labelled “fiction”. As writers, I think we need to fill it.

Since men prefer men authors (prefer is the operative word here), it seems only logical men should write for men; at least some of the time. But do they?

Hugh Howey’s protagonist in Wool is female.

Felix Savage’s protagonist in the first three books of his Sol System Renegades series is female, and a lesbian to boot.

Michael Anderle’s protagonist is female.

TS Paul’s protagonists are female.

The list can go on and on. If men readers say they prefer men writers and men main characters (as Summers notes in her article), why aren’t we men indie writers writing for them? That is the question we need to be asking ourselves.

Mark Dawson’s survey of his mailing list (some 60,000 persons at present), revealed that readers of his John Milton series are evenly split amongst men and women. Proving Summers’s survey to be spot on: while men favor men, women are much more eclectic in their reading preferences. As Mark Gungor notes: men are not as flexible as women; it has to do with how our brains work. And we all know men are lousy at multi-tasking.

Today’s cozy mystery field is, like romance, dominated by women. Women writers and women protagonists, with the requisite love story.

However, once upon a time men wrote cozies and with men as the protagonists. A few examples:

David Crossman with his Winston Crisp series.
William L DeAndrea’s Matt Cobb series.
Edmund Crispin and his Gervase Fen mysteries.

And there are others. Today, however, men have abandoned the field to women. Or perhaps the big corporate giants pushed the men out and indies followed suit.

Mark Coker’s Smashwords is heavily biased towards romance. From his own survey, half of his catalog consists of romance novels and 73% of the top 200 bestsellers on Smashwords are romance. It is well-known that Coker is cozy with romance writer organizations. Why? Perhaps he, too, believes men don’t read fiction. And wants to go where he thinks the money is.

It’s my desire to see us indies get out from under the publishing bias of the corporate giants and start catering to both sexes. After all, if half your potential market is men and the other half women, why not write for both? I mean, seriously, who wants just half a pie?

One way to do that is to have a man and woman as a dual protagonist. Men will go for the combo and so will women. Certainly a win-win to my thinking.

For cozy mysteries, the female amateur sleuth can hook up with a guy in the first book. And then in subsequent books, the two solve the crimes together. That would satisfy the romance part and would provide a strong draw for men readers.

The problem this attitude of everything for females in the fiction world causes for young men and boys is that they are turned off to reading. “It’s for girls.” “It’s for sissies.” And the drawer marked “Reading” remains closed. And perhaps never opens.

As Anderson points out in his article, ebooks just might be the best thing that could happen to men. We can read anonymously. Which is really what most of us men want. Yet, indie authors, who primarily publish ebooks, seem to be mainly writing for women. ‘Tis a pity.

Or perhaps indie men authors genuinely think men want to read about kick-ass hot women main characters. There might be some truth to that.

The pulp market of the 20s, 30s, and 40s certainly understood the power of a scantily-clad heroine being rescued by the hero. However, today’s writers seem to forget the hero. Adolescent boys and young men are into wish fulfillment. As Kate Summers notes, almost half of the men surveyed need to identify with the main character. If there is only the heroine, where is the wish fulfillment? If there isn’t any, the guys go elsewhere. Once again, reading is for the female of the species.

Independent authors are independent. We are the ones to buck the corporate giants and their preconceived notions. Unfortunately, the “get rich quick” crowd has flooded the indie field and lost somewhere in the quagmire is the male reader. Because we all know men don’t read fiction. BULL.

I have a friend who says he prefers non-fiction. Then he’ll go on and list novel after novel he’s read and asks if I’ve read it. He prefers non-fiction. Yeah, right.

The male reading public awaits. From grade school readers to us old guys. Give us books men can relate to.

One more example. Of the nine cozy mysteries I’ve recently read, all of the protagonists were women and three of the four writers were women. I enjoyed most of the books. They were light entertainment. Disposable reading.

I recently read a short story with a male protagonist, “01134” by Crispian Thurlborn. The story was profound. It was profound because mano a mano I saw something of myself in the main character and Thurlborn’s powerful writing made the experience alive. The story was “entertainment” in a philosophical, thought-provoking, and emotional manner. Definitely not disposable reading.

Indie writers, please don’t forget us men who love to read fiction. And there are a lot more of us than you think.

Comments are always welcome. Until next time, happy reading!

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Do Men Read Fiction?

Do men read fiction? This is a question traditional publishers have asked and decided in the negative. No. Men do not read fiction. The conclusion is based on numerous surveys that have been conducted concerning adult reading.

Now I find this to be a rather disturbing conclusion, because I’m a man and I read fiction. As of today, I’ve read 19 novels and 11 short stories this year. In fact, I just finished a novel yesterday. I also write novels. So how on earth did traditional publishers arrive at such a bizarre conclusion? Am I an odd ball? Or are traditional publishers mistaken?

Traditional publishing tends to be dominated by women and that may influence what ends up getting published. (cf, Where The Boys Are Not.) After all women do tend to read differently than men. And if women are functioning as agents and editors then their interests can’t but help have some influence as to what gets represented and what eventually gets published.

Porter Anderson, writing on Jane Friedman’s blog, disputes the notion that men don’t read fiction. And indie author Mark Dawson has statistical evidence that his John Milton thrillers are read about equally by men and women.

Nevertheless, there is a deluge of novels with strong female leads coming out of traditional publishing and indie publishing. Both men and women authors are cranking out novels where the protagonist is a strong woman. Myself included. I can’t help but think that this deluge is due to the notion that men don’t read fiction.

As a reader, a male reader, I don’t mind reading books where there is a strong female lead. One of my favorite characters is Robert E Howard’s Dark Agnes. Better known as Sword Woman. But quite honestly, I’m getting tired of reading books that only feature a strong female lead. After all, I am a guy and I’d like a little guy fantasy every now and then.

So I ask myself, why? Why all the strong female leads even from the pens of male authors? It’s not that I don’t like women, because I do. So what is the reason?

I think the reason, in part, is because there is a very strong trend, which has been going on for years, to have the main character — whether male or female — to be very touchy-feely. Perhaps this trend is due to a female dominated publishing industry. Because women tend to like their protagonists to be touchy-feely.

Lee Child made note of this in his introduction to a new addition of his first Jack reacher novel. What had started out to be a good thing, pretty soon became a bad thing because so many people were copying it and not doing it so well. In other words it was no longer innovative. The sensitive and troubled main character had become hack. A stock character. So Child made Jack Reacher not quite the opposite. Reacher is something of a man’s man and yet there is enough sensitivity to him that a woman reader could find him attractive.

I think the other reason, in part, is the perception that men don’t read fiction. If men don’t read fiction then why have a male lead in the first place? However this perception may not be true. The popularity of Jack Reacher and Mark Dawson’s John Milton would seem to indicate that both men and women like a male protagonist and one who is something of a man’s man.

In doing a bit of online research concerning the question, I ran across a wonderful article which indicates men do read fiction. However, they’re reading habits tend to be less flexible than those of women. The article is by Kate Summers and is on the Reference and User Services Association website.

In addition to being less flexible readers than women, men tend to be far less social concerning their reading habits. In other words, men tend not to talk about what they read. Something Anderson alludes to in his post which I referenced above. Consequently, surveys indicating men are less likely to buy and read fiction may be skewed in favor of women simply because men don’t answer them! Women are much more likely than men to be in bookclubs, tweet what they’re reading, or share book recommendations on Facebook, Goodreads, and Google Plus. All of which gives the impression men don’t read fiction.

Additionally, young men may not be as attracted to a touchy-feely main character as are young women. And if young men get the impression that novels are only for “girls and sissies”, then we are going to lose male readers of fiction. Which argues for the need to have — especially in YA books — strong male protagonists, written by male authors. Because young men tend to read male authors over female authors. Think about comic books here. Comic book heroes by and large are not touchy-feely and boys love comic books.

As a writer, this is an important question to me — because it impacts both what I write and how I market what I write. However, I’m glad to say I’m no longer overly concerned. I think it’s clear men do read fiction. Even adolescent boys will read fiction if there’s a strong male protagonist and lots of adventure. What is also clear is that men and boys just don’t advertise what they read. For whatever reason. They are also more set as to what they will read, than are women and girls. As a writer, I need to keep this in mind.

Do men read fiction? Yes, they do. Perhaps writers need to include strong male leads in more of their novels. After all, men spend money too. Why not have them throw a little bit in the fiction writer’s path?

As always, comments are welcome! Until next time, happy reading!

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