Since I posted last Friday regarding the Publishing House that only accepts 'series for girls', I've found a few other articles and blogs on the topic of Men, Boys and Books.
Here are a few interesting takes on the topic.
Publishers Weekly-Where-The-Boys-Are-Not
Pubrants, Kristin Nelson - Publishing Is Where Boys Are Not
Huffington Post, Jason Pinter - Why-Men-Dont-Read
NPR - Why Women Read More Than Men
So, basically, these all state that...
1.) There are more women working in publishing than men. Approximately 75% women to 25% men. (I have no issues with this at all.)
But some people are stating that generates more books for women which leads to...
2.). Women read more than men.
In his Huffington Post article, Jason Pinter states: Men read. Tons of them do. But they are not marketed to, not targeted, and often totally dismissed. Later on he says: Publish more books for men and boys. Trust editors who try to buy these books, and work on the marketing campaigns to hit those audiences. The readers are there, waiting, eager just under the surface. And I promise, if publishing makes an effort to tap it, they'll come out in droves.
I bolded that piece of text because that would surely help me in my quest for publication. Yeah... the bottomline is it's all about ME!!!
However, Ian McEwan wrote in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."
And, as a male author who writes YA fiction geared toward boys, this next statistic frightens me: When it comes to fiction, the gender gap is at its widest. Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain.
In the NPR article linked to above, there's a theory that men/boys can sit still long enough to read a book. I hope that's not true. Look at movies. I would suspect that just as many men/boys go to the movies as women. And they both can sit still the whole time. But think about this, and it's just my observation, there's an age where movies become gender specific. Look at the movies rated 'G'. Toy Story, Monsters Incorporated, the Disney movies, or movies like Cats and Dogs... these movies are almost unisex.
Now, look at movies rated PG-13, you have Meangirls and Transformers, or (and these are 'now showing') Easy A and Devil. I'm not saying that women didn't go to Transformers or Devil, but I'm guessing not many men went to Meangirls or Easy A.
Do today's bookshelves reflect the same choices for both genders?
So all of that to ask the question:
What Would It Take To Get More Boys To Read?
More books to choose from
More non-fiction and sports books
More male authors
Books with cars, blood and hot girls
Books with wild/inappropriate characters
More humorous books
Books without the 'Happily Ever After'
Books with non-stop action
Dumb-downed books
Intelligent books that reflect the real life of boys
Other (see my reply)
4 comments:
My feeling is that they should, of course, continue to target what sells the most, i.e. mainly to women, but also try to purposely pick out a few more books to publish each year aimed specifically at what males enjoy.
I did a post recently about walking through the fantasy section at a Barnes & Noble and seeing how much covers have changed. They now have so many that specifically target girls and leave boys cold. I am not saying get rid of those, but simply add some more male oriented books back into the mix.
Hi Ted,
I read your post about the book covers. I'll admit, when I go through the YA section, it almost feels like its female only as well as YA. But I read these books, 1.) because I write YA and 2.) because I enjoy them. 3.) They're GOOD!! Holly Black's latest WHITE CAT has a male POV and it was great!
I'm with you, have a few of those eye-level, face-out covers trying to attract the male reader.
It won't be easy getting them into the reading mix, but Harry Potter did it, it can happen again.
I think that guys do read. I live with three them. All three are a little more inclined to read non-fiction than fiction, but all of them *do* read fiction. The 17 year old is tearing through Agatha Christie--and he also likes poetry. The youngest (he's 9) prefers Calvin and Hobbes and the Wimpy Kid right now. Their dad reads short stories--he's very selective about novels.
But it isn't that they DON'T read.
I wonder if the romance-reader stats were extracted how much real difference there would be left. There is no denying their popularity, evidently.
I hope the cover problem is being remedied. There is a certain weary sameness to all the kisses/the torsos in corsets/magic necklaces. Lately, I've noticed a shift. Yay! says me.
Hi Blythe,
A 17 year old reading Agatha Christie? How'd that happen? That's great!
For some reason I don't consider my dad a reader, even though he reads three newspapers a day. That's just me skewing my perspective. I don't think my dad has ever read a book since I was born. But he IS a reader.
Good point about the romance stats. I've seen some pretty cool covers coming out that are more unisex than before. Let's hope that trend continues.
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