I remember hearing a female author on Clifton Duncan's podcast make the off-hand comment, "...Because everyone in [trad] publishing is a woman." After spending five years between 2012-2017 trying to find an agent, I think this is mostly true. Google any random ten literary agencies and look at their staff. If there's a male agent, he's probably repping non-fiction or media rights. Most of the female agents will be in their twenties or early thirties and their wish lists will have some variation of "I want the next Twilight series or Hunger Games series or Game of Thrones, but with fierce female warriors, etc." I even got a newsletter from an agency telling prospective authors that publishing houses were not looking for new SF or Fantasy manuscripts unless they were authored by "underrepresented authors", ie, not someone of my demographic. When these are the gatekeepers, you get bookshelves like the ones in your video.
This is a 100% true 👍 I'm an older female (40s) and nothing appeals to me either, there is a growing segment of female population that also don't like these books, everything targeted at women is "spice" books now (read: just corn fantasy wish fullfillment for what young women now value), that includes all fantasy, these new "romantasy" books, and finding nice clean romance is almost impossible, and now even the mystery/thriller books aimed at women are starting to have "spice" in them!! I HATE this, all women fiction is slowly turning into erotica and is being dumbed down to levels I never imagined possible, all because as you say it is run by young 20-30 year old girls who are just catering to themselves and their cohorts... a silver lining is that a lot of this same demographic of female readers are starting to complain online themselves that "all books seem so alike" ... I feel like any indie authors writing quietly behind the scenes will one day have a chance with a wider audience when this "house of cards" falls as it is very unsustainable what these traditional publishers are doing... 😊😊 GO INDIE Publishing for the win!!! 🏆💪🏆💪
If you recall in 2022, James Patterson made a comment about white guys being gatekept in publishing and they called him "racist", ridiculously claiming something like 90% of current authors are white men. Naturally, like all betas, he "bent the knee" and promptly walked back his comments fearing he might lose a few millions of his hundreds of millions.
I live in France and we're having the same issues here. our biggest fantasy editor made a U-turn toward romantasy. Bookshelves are filled with books that feel boring just reading the synopsis... As a male author trying to get published, I feel my goal drifting away more and more.
Damn, is this every hobby now. I sold my comics, quit movies, quit all video games by major publishers, board games have this, and I just searched this because I thought I could give books a try. It's here too!
I even had this at work (at a banking office of all things) a couple of weeks ago. I was asked by a female superior what I'm currently reading, and if I had any recommendations as a travel read for a long flight. Since I'm a huge Hemingway-fan I recommend The Sun Also Rises and something by Kurt Vonnegut. She immediately scoffed in my face and mumbled something about - You guessed it! - old white men. I mean... Come on, it's friggin Hemingway!! That interaction broke me a little, ffs. 😢
I'm a 40s female, don't get down, these are just indoctrinated people, they are to be pitied because they will miss out on great wisdom and writings of the ages. My personal favourite writers are Dickens and Dostoevsky, these indoctrinated types sadly won't enjoy their genius because they were just "old white dudes" haha 😅😅 Can you imagine calling the collossal genius of "War and Peace" and Tolstoy just an "old white dude", the joke is on them... I will stick with my classics and great minds from the last 2,000 years that feed the soul 😊😊 so don't feel bad ever again! At worst, feel sad for them, and what this indoctrination has taken from them. God bless you 🙏 🙌 😊
I have quit listening to several bookish podcasts because the hosts spouted something about “dead white dudes have nothing to teach you!” And just like that I was permanently done with their podcast. They are shallow, brainwashed cultists.
The anti-man discriminatory stance of many publishers results in a cyclical result. They don't print books for men therefore we men don't read as many books, etc. Submission requirements should NOT include anything about a person's race or sex. Applying this illogic across society, such as sports, doesn't work. And it fails in publishing also.
I was stunned by how small the dark fantasy section was last time i was in a BAM. Only a handful of warhammer, no legend of Drizzt, no dragon lance, no pulp fiction. I was genuinely depressed
It strikes me as comical when society hammers on endlessly about diversity in all things but then you look at content of nearly all mediums being a bland concoction of sameness.
diversity does offer varying perspectives and diversity in art but that doesnt mean there won't still exist the "popular" or mainstream that makes the publishers the MOST money.
This comment just made me think of sports and how more men watch and play sports and so men make the money and buy the merch and watch the men play the sport. Anyways women buy more books. Young women who are into fantasy romance are the main economic force behind publishing industry. That’s just the fact at the moment. I’m starting to get annoyed that people are missing the point.
@@202cardline AGREED. even if it was a legit issue, lets not pretend we dont live in in an age where you can get a book to your house within 2 days on Amazon or get it instantly on your ereader.
I am keeping my eyes open for Great Books of the Western World series by Britanica. I would absoultely take a set of the Harvard classics instead...or in addition to! Aurelias is good, but I love me some Eptictetus. Real no nonsense sort of figure.
I haven't read much published after 2000. Brad Thor and the Jack Reacher series and a couple of others, but not much. I'm always wondering if I will get a novel or a sermon.
If I want to read western contemporary sci-fi or fantasy, I end up having to read amateur stuff on forums or western equivalents of sites like webnovel.
@@mabusestestamentI agree. But what would be in those books for men? Trans bullshit? Female dominance? Cleverly making the title character really a costar always being rescued by sensible, quick on their feet women with answers to every problem and no background as to how she got there.
I've definitely noticed a big shift in fantasy AND SciFi. It seems as though EVERYTHING is going the way of twilight and reads like fanfic stories rather than serious novels.
I'm not sure that there's a loss of serious novels -- I think there's always been a lot of "popcorn" books. I do think there's a shift in targeting those "popcorn" books at women (so fanfic stories rather than cheap action novels) , and in trad publishing being dominated by women. But I feel like when you're reading in contemporary fiction you always have to sift through the haystack to find the needle, no matter what era you're born in, because you're looking at literature before time has had a chance to wash away the cheap stuff. Older books seem better because we don't remember the bad ones. (This is an argument for reading older fiction, to be clear, but not a denigration of "popcorn" books.)
This is why I self-published my first book in the last couple weeks. With the exception of Baen, the publishers have been very open about not wanting manuscripts by men for men. I have zero interest in sending a manuscript to a publishing house that has a history of using their blog to spew vitriol at my demographic. And, contrary to a couple posters below, women were not the major book consumers outside of certain genres. Historically, the primary consumers of scifi and fantasy were men. Go to any bookstore in the 90s on a weekend, and here's what you saw for fiction: men gravitated to scifi and fantasy while women gravitated to romance and other fiction. There were even differences in non-fiction consumption. While there were absolutely exceptions, women were never the dominant customer base for bookstores. The change has been recent and driven by the pipeline between publishers and retailers. Men started checking out of bookstores for the same reason we've checked out of so many other aspects of life: exhaustion due to a combination of blatant pandering and being told it's not for us.
@TBDubbs absolutely. I still remember when they tried to label enjoying Tolkien as a sign of rightwing extremism and crap. That lasted about until they decided to milk more money from the franchise.
Eeeeeee John thank you for the shoutout 💖IronAge and Indie Creators are working hard to write what men want - and men want ACTION and heart - not lectures!
Yes, men enjoy action. Men also enjoy philosophy, theology, intrigue, mystery, thriller, detective stories, romance, stories of family and legacy. Men are not one or two dimensional characters. Like women complain about how female characters are portrayed, men are sick of how we are portrayed in this hyper-feminist/Marxist/Fanon literature age. The scales require a drastic balancing.
I'm with you on most of this, but good grief, where are the Marxists?? Pointing to some critical ideology, absorbed two or three degrees away from the actual sources by these people, that vaguely rhymes with Marxism without any of the actual rigor of Marxism doesn't count.
Excellent video. I create books for readers (obviously), but I do want my main audience to be men. I’m trying to help solve this problem, and I’ve already dedicated years of my life to it. Thank you for making this video.
This is the reason why so many people, rightfully, hate DEI. It's not about diversity or inclusion when you intentionally exclude people. And these people thing they are absolutely correct in their racism, sexism, and heterophobia even as they claim everyone else are the bigots. DEI is defended for, among other reasons, going after ignored audiences. YET the publishers are not ignoring one of the most lucrative audiences of all times: white men. And the powers that be are perfectly fine with that.
Funny enough, Raz0rfist has authored a fun pulp fantasy that I loved. Appreciate your take on this, outside of Joe Ambercrombe, I can't think of anything new that Wowed me as a series. I'll happily look at your series. For the most part, I've been finishing classics/authors I missed, re-reading my R.E. Howard, filling in the holes on my John Carter books and so on.
@@delcarsdungeon if you go back in my channel you’ll l find my reviews of Razorfist’s Nightvale novels as well as my interview with him on my Author’s Outpost livestream
I've noticed that Amazon's categories have become "soup categories," by which I mean that Action & Adventure Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, etc., now include everything from Romantasy for women (this is usually the dominant element) to Haremlit for men, cozy fantasy... and some actual, older-style fantasy mixed in. To be clear, I'm not objecting to any of the above existing and being successful. The only real problem I see here is that the categories are not as useful as they could, and perhaps (arguably) should. So, my question: why can't Amazon redo its categories? They could have an entire category just for Romantasy, and another for Progression and LitRPG, another for old-school Epic Fantasy, and so on. *Everyone could still get what they want,* and books could still be in more than one category (within reason), but the categories would make more sense than they do at present.
Sellers are incentivised to maximise their genre labels to maximise their discoverability. If I label my book a sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance then that's four categories I'm showing up versus just one. Amazon and other sellers are indifferent to what you buy so long as you buy something so don't expect this to change. Steam tried to solve this problem by having users tag products instead, but end users are just as prone to be overly broad and inaccurate as sellers albeit for different reasons. Perhaps the ideal is some kind of weighted tagging system.
There are indeed separate categories for romantasy ("romantic fantasy") as well as gamelit & litrpg. The problem is that authors and publishers may put their books in up to 3 categories, and they often go for categories that are not the best fit because they're chasing the coveted "best seller in x" label. That said, it used to be worse. In the old days a book could be listed in as many as ten categories.
Half the reason I got into writing was because I couldn't find any appealing fantasy this side of the 1990s. I'll do it myself! Of course after I started marketing my work on social media I found a sizeable number of excellent indies. The shelf space issue is a tough nut, but the mainstream advantage is slipping year by year.
Indie author here - based on your comment I think you already know trad publishing doesn't do marketing anyway. You'd still be learning this skill either way. Give it time and literature will go back to the artists control since trad publishing mainly helps cover things like and editor and cover artist. Just my personal opinion, since I keep bumping across indie authors and have only met two traditionally published.
7:24 For me the travesty is all of the male authors getting turned away. Most fiction books written are mediocre, but those mediocre ones have to exist as an arena for the truly great works of fiction to first, exist, and then rise above the rest. If men aren't writing books because they aren't getting published, then that third novel of some obscure author that blows and up and one day becomes a high school curriculum novel will never even be written let alone published. I think a prime example is Stephen King. I cannot conceive of him having the career he had today. He's baked into the culture enough right now that his books are still sold on shelves, but if he was an up and coming author in 2018, I don't think he would have made it. I think many other authors would have the same experience. Chuck Palahniuk is another example. The Chuck Palahniuk of our day will not write let alone get their Fight Club published, and there will be no David Fincher to adapt it into a great psychological thriller, as this generation's David Fincher was passed up by the studio for another director to make a crappy Marvel-clone movie. Just as it was a tragedy that many great female writers were never published due to sexism back in the day, the same is beginning to happen to men. When are we going to learn that judging work based on superficial crap like people's race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is a waste of everyone's talent and time? Someone might say it's positive discrimination, publishing a book because the author is a gay black woman. But if she writes like shit, and it's a competitive market, that's shelf space, printing press time, media coverage, etc. that is being taken away from a different author who would get published on merit. And it's demeaning her, preventing her from striving to write the best work she can. And if she does go the extra mile and writes something amazing, she'll never be able to be sure if she actually earned it or if it's because of her identity categories. Anything other than meritocracy erodes, hollows out, rots, suffocates the creative genius of humanity.
I've started writing so many stories, but have never been able to finish any of them. Prohibition-era detective story following a WWI vet detective with PTSD, a Van Helsing/Solomon Kane-esk character in the late 1880's American Southwest, WWII Allied paratroopers on a mission to stop an SS colonel obsessed with the occult, as well as a typical fantasy and a sci-fi story. I wish I could finish at least one of these.
All that sounds promising based on your idea descriptions. Maybe you just need to travel or get some new experiences to give you that push to complete something.
I’ll be honest I probably wouldn’t read if it wasn’t for Amazon, even with major book stores like Barnes n Noble there selection sucks and they ask for premium prices for crappy mass paperback books it’s insane
I just witnessed this recently at B&N a MM edition of any of Tolkien’s works we’re going for $25 a piece. For MM?! I couldn’t believe it, I’ve adored MM for my entire reading life, pocketable, abusable, and CHEAP
There is a cause and effect questions. Are there mostly romantasy in libraries because men don't read or do men not read because there is mostly romantasy? If they aren't catering to men anymore, then wow. This is a great video.
Given the previous literature by men I'd be incline to think it was more the latter. Though one could make the argument that video games and other more immersive story appeal more to men in this digital age in a way they don't tend to draw women in. It's and interesting question.
@@ehdrake I suspect so as well. I know that recently there has been a push to feminize stories in general in story telling and such stories might not be appealing to men. I should make a video about this on my channel.
I turn to non fiction because I no longer enjoy the fantasy we have in the market. It’s fine people like Romantasy and it’s rampant. But I hope those publishers don’t gate keep any form of fantasy. It’s frustrating.
I read a lot of classic literature so I’ve never noticed, but you’re right. There isn’t much in the way of male genre authors at book stores these days.
I haven't read modern fantasy books since high school (2010 grad). I've noticed that most fiction books are geared to women with female protagonists, special powers, and a love triangle. Even sci-fi is not as interesting aside from the odd WH40K book since Star Wars is a damaged brand and most other sci-fi feels generic. You can thank Twilight's success and the general success of the YA dystopian novel genre that came out of the 2010s for this. They're easy to crank out that even an chatgpt can do it at this point. Now I read nonfiction (philosophy and academic biblical works), so maybe it's a net good. But I do miss the old days when I'd be stuck in the fiction aisles for hours in Barnes and Noble after school.
Now that I think about it, how much I read dropped off pretty sharply after high school too. (2002 grad). It's not that I lost interest. I still check for books any time I'm out shopping, but I rarely find anything that sparks my interest anymore. I usually end up ordering 30+ year old publications from Amazon instead.
This is LITERALLY the reason I have up being an Author. Id be writing for an audience that doesn't exist, in a world that would condemn my work for something as simple as my Gender. Yeah Im black, but most of these publishers wouldnt like the fact im Black with more conservative leaning views and old fashioned sensibilities. I wanted to write for men but men in my generation dont read.
Us men need a Conan, or pulp in general. The closest books that target men now these days are just warhammer 40k novels, and those too are slowly having female lead stories.
I've seen people complain that Conan is misogynistic, but at the same time the people complaining about Conan read books where unattractive women are surrounded by a harem of hopelessly gorgeous men whose author describes in detail their physical appearance. But okay, is wrong when a male author describes the appearance of a female character in less objectivist and vulgar terms.
As a male author who has self published two books that I make pretty much nothing off of (I’m bad at self promoting) it’s pretty disheartening to know almost for certain that if I ever tried to go for trad publishing I would definitely be passed over because I’m a man who writes sordid, gore-laden, darkly comic horror. But make no mistake, this isn’t about money. Otherwise these people would be doing a lot more to capitalise on this market. This is ideological. Many - although not all - have a pathological hatred of men and male archetypes instilled through education and media. Men by and large do not have this kind of resentment against women. If publishing were primarily run by men then you’d undoubtedly see female authors and genres promoted as well as male authors and genres, because it would make money. Men would hire women specifically to read female authors and determine if it was worth publishing. The fact is that this isn’t going to change any time soon. I think the focus should be on trying promote self-publishing as the future and on helping new authors - whether they be male or female - in promoting themselves. It’s about time these trad publishing cartels were brought down.
I recently went to my local Books A Million after watching one of your videos. As a small time author myself, I have to agree, traditional book publishing is focused on women. Overly focused on women in my opinion. There are full display tables dedicated to Book-Tok while you have to trek to the back of the store to find the Sci-fi and fantasy sections. Non-fiction is even smaller unfortunately. I also understand that business is business, and if that's what brings them money, they have to keep the lights on somehow.
I grew up reading Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Tolkien, the Narnia books, the Hardy Boys, Shakespeare - all (presumably) straight white men, which I am not. That was how I learned that the author of the story doesn't have to be someone like me, and the main character doesn't have to be someone like me, for me to get something out of it, to appreciate and learn from the themes and character development. Seeing ourselves in the "other" is one of the most powerful things that literature - and art in general - can accomplish. It's something that most BIPOC folks have had to learn - we had no choice because there weren't stories "for us." And now, after generations, people other than white men are seeing themselves in literature and it's such an issue. It seems like "a thing" in the scope of our lifetimes, but in the scope of the history of published stories - this moment in time is a blip. It's too bad that everyone in the comments complaining about DEI and feminism and whatnot haven't learned the same lesson that the rest of us have had to learn since the dawn of published stories. Some of the most profound lessons can be learned from someone else's story. From someone else's life - someone not like you. You're missing out on a lot if you don't get that. That being said I'm also not a fan of Romantasy. I don't care that it exists, and I personally know authors who write it, but it's not my jam. I also know there's a lot of resentment of it taking over - and we agree that it's taking over - not only from straight white male readers such as yourself. As an author, I wish I wanted to write it because I'd probably sell more books but it's really not for me as a writer or as a reader. And we probably share reasons why we don't like it even though we are different types of people. But I don't know that the books you find at Target or Walmart are really representative of the market as a whole. They will stock what the biggest/most likely sellers are. And right now it's what you're seeing on the shelves. And that's Capitalism more than any "woke" agenda. Maybe if more men started making TikToks (I hate what that platform has done to literature and publishing and wish it would go away) about the books they enjoy things could shift? That won't be me though - I'm not young and pretty enough for TikToks. Anyway, this is a complex issue and I think there's more to it than wokeness has ruined everything - not that you said that, but the tenor of some comments lean in that direction. I do appreciate your video. Lots to think about.
It is such a weird phenomenon. It wasn’t long ago that Michael Crichton, John Grisham and Dan Brown crushed all others. Would they even be considered for publishing if they were starting out right now?
In defense of your point, back in the nineties I can remember going to a Shopko and looking for a book just randomly with a few dollars in my pocket. I found the second book of the Belgariad. It got me started on reading Eddings. And these days, even if I had the money, I could not do it
The industry has always had a narrow focus on what is considered profitable and has always stacked the entrance and windows with it. I'm pretty sure people weren't too happy with the Crime Fiction boom in the 90s/00s, but there just wasn't social media to document it.
Target has marketing people to analyze what to put on the shelves. Marketing people have "data" that tells them what should go on the shelves. Nobody stops to aske themselves whether or not it's worth taking a risk or two on male readers. Having said that, it's up to male readers to band together and drive the market. Unfortunately, publishers are now part of huge conglomerates, and they must--at least to an extent--submit to that mentality. It's been said that publishing is now a female-dominated industry. That may be the case, so it's especially important for male readers to make their voices heard. Finally, men should read with joy and gusto. Be a real man and seek out good books. Don't accept what bloody Target tries to sell--or what anyone tries to sell you for that matter. Develop the antiquated yet lovely quality known as "taste."
Razorfist received pushback because he assumed that book was originally published by a corporation when it wasn't and he couldn't admit he was wrong, thus making a fool of himself.
WE know that, but cast majority of the general public walking into the bookstore seeing it doesn’t. If you think he’s bothered by your opinion of him, you’d be sorely mistaken
Randomly stumbled upon your Twitter. This is a great point. It starts in school as well. Most English books we read are geared to girls and women. Unless it's the classics. Anything modern, at least when I was in school, which was a while back, was more female oriented. I just had a son. Will definitely be following your content to see what your recommendation for boys are.
@@AlbieTom that’s another video for another day. They hit you early with trauma dumps that resonate more with girl readerships. Thank goodness my library had good stuff
@@AuthorJohnADouglas "They hit you early with trauma dumps that resonate more with girl readerships." "Male" fiction like the kind you cited in the video ('80s action, etc.) is all about events that are massively traumatic, if they actually happened to someone - often far more so than stories that "resonate more with girl readerships" (which I don't think is true). The only difference is that the "male" fiction you seem to like tends to ignore it and play into dangerous BS that trauma doesn't exist or shouldn't affect "real men" or only affects men who are "weak" or "bad at being men," which is a terrible message for boys.
@@wasd____ female oriented lit encourages a feminine and overly sensitive reactionary state of being that is utterly destructive for young boys soon to be men to live by. Functioning men can experience horrible pain and trauma and horror and keep moving anyway it isn't bullshit to condition young men to act in the manner in which all their ancestors did. You simply don't understand.
@@wasd____People like you miss the point entirely. It's not about hailing those experiences characters go through as laudable but something to overcome and come out the other side stronger for it.
While I have not finished writing my own book(yet!), I have paid close attention to the market. A common saying is book publishing is on average 20-30 years behind the market. Up until the early 2000's boys read comic's and girls read novels on average. (Now the why that was the normal for so long is another story.) Even outside the Romance and it's many sub-genres women were the majority of readers by a 70-30 split on average. (these were from articles I read a decade ago, so grain of salt but it was fairly contestant) Then in the 90's Wheel of Time, a Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter and the Dresden Files came out. This closed the split to 60-40 split which remained until the rise of the kindle and e-books. We are a decade past the e-book boom, but most of the big name publishers are still stuck in the 90's. Hell back in the early 20-teens they were still taking 60-80% of sales before amazon bent them over a barrel and claim a 90% market share. So yeah, they're boned.
I got excited that after 28 years my sister finally got into reading fantasy. I wanted to read her favorite series to have something in common with her, so I looked into Sara J Maas… damn.
As a reader I have 100% noticed this trend and it kills me. I have read some of these female authors and some are good, but as a male reader of fantasy and horror I am finding it harder and harder to find books with characters I can relate to and I can get invested in.
Read older books. Everything about the world right now should point men to the past for inspiration. The problem isn’t just entertainment, it’s the entire culture.
Coming in with my agreement that the publishing industry isn't really thinking outside young women 20s-30s with the romantasy , cozy romance. booktok marketing is constantly pushing it now as a book lover and female in their 40s I'm sick at seeing romantasy everywhere . Personally I'm a horror reader , I like dark things I also am fine at reading gore when I go into a big named book store your choice is even more limited . The book industry needs an overhaul , celebrity biographies seem to inundate non fiction aisles and celebs really don't interest me either . It's not looking great for variety .
I continue to be a big fan of your work. I feel like you've really hit the nail on the head with this video. Thank you so desperately much for your contribution to this topic. As a man, it's easy to feel my voice drowned out.
The thing is that males are more likely to go for non-fiction in an idiosyncratic field of interest/study or go for classics published way before their time. Furthermore, tabletop RPGs and video games tend to cater more towards them recreationally.
Thank you for the video. I'm on bookstagram and booktube mainly reading poetry and trying to be active in that space as a man. I personally think a lack of marketing modern books for men is partly what is leading to men not going to college as much and having lower grades in school. People can point to stuff like Tolkien or Frank Herbert or C.S. Lewis, but there is something to being a part of the modern zeitgeist that is just not nearly as available to men by male authors. Like you said, absolutely nothing wrong with female authors, but when we talk specifically about this issue, I think a huge part of it is the lack of a zeitgeist for men.
@@james_library classics are great but they’re not what most folks look for when they’re reading unless they’re well read or prefer older writing. When you watch tv, what do you watch? What’s on now or what was on 60 years ago?
If you have the time and desire could you explore another sub culture along similar lines. How there are almost no actual mystery books anymore. That whole genre should be classified as crime/murder novels but they hide behind a nicer sounding genre, mystery. I wonder if there is a link, since women are lately in charge of what gets published and promoted through not only their positions, but also as influencers and at the same time women are more prone to be fans of true crime (murder) genres. There are countless memes that I've seen shared, through humor people admit things, how they like to get comfy and put on crime, murder shows, movies, documentaries. It's apparently a psychological phenomenon but it unfortunately seems to have ruined an entire genre. There was an article on "psychologytoday" website titled "Why the true crime audience is predominantly female.", and there are many articles in general in the last few years asking specifically that, why are women obsessed with it. Regardless of the reasons even though it's disturbing on its own, again, it's unfortunate that a whole genre has been tainted by it. You'll be hard pressed to find a mystery novel that's actually mysterious and not another murder crime plot...
WOKE is killing reading starting with children. My concern is not only the feminisation of titles but ridiculous’ sensitivities of WOKE readers. Even “Charlie and the chocolate factory” is now published in ‘original’ and ‘sensitive’ editions.
Sensitivity editing is covert book burning. They are burning ideas they don't like in the hopes that they can force or coerce others into thinking - or feeling - like they do.
Women are the largest segment of readers in general, and romance is the largest segment of those readers, AND women do the largest share of the shopping at Target. Therefore, Target is going to sell to their market.
I , as a woman, had no idea this was a problem. I usually read thrillers (if someone dies, I'll read it.) and just thought men also read them. But I guess if you indeed like fantasy books then right now it's all pretty much the same story with the same tropes (and indeed very with a female view on it.) I don't read a lot of fantasy (apart from Harry Potter back in the day) but the book reviews I watch online here do tend to all be the same book, somehow?! I hope for all the reading men out there it will get better soon.
1:25 Yeah, I am immediately disinterested in covers that look like pastel romance tripe and tween interspecies romance. There are a couple of used book stores I go to, sometimes just to look at the cover art from the '70s and '80s.
A lot of people have been discussing this and the problem is we need to identify which came first, the chicken or the egg? Basically, Did publishers and bookstores just abandon men/boys, or did men just stop reading and so bookstores don't want to cater to them anymore? Truthfully, I don't know the answer. Anecdotally, as a teacher, I know that it is impossible to get my boy students to get into reading and writing. If I offer a writing workshop, it's all girls and maybe one boy (forced to be there by parents). Whenever I ask about future plans, girls are all over the place, lawyer, doctor, writer, artist...all my male students want to be engineers/programmers or athletes, I have not had a single male student in my over 15 years of teaching say he wants to be a writer. Even the few that enjoy reading have no interest in writing. I have reduced myself to begging some of my male students to read and write and it simply goes nowhere. Furthermore, women love their cheap romance novels and romantasy. When I worked at a used bookstore as a student, women would come in and buy them in bulk; I've never seen men or boys do this (you can see why bookstores offer so much more for women/girls if this is how they read). Perhaps it's because there simply are no more simple stories for boys. The days of pulp adventure novels are long dead, superhero comics are largely soap operas now (even in the world of manga), and every year there seems to be fewer things for boys to read. If those things existed, would boys read more? Do adventure books need to be about engineering to get boys' attention? As I said, I'm not a publishing expert, and so I have no answers, but it does make me sad. Men and boys seem to have abandoned the intellectual sphere. Not only do they read and write less, they go to college less, too. Somehow this must be rectified, but I have no idea how. But this goes back to the chicken/egg thing. Do we need to get boys to read more first, or does there need to be more for them to read? I tend to think, at least economically, it's the former. Because bookstores and publishers aren't going to start mass publishing for a population that isn't there. Somehow, we need to get boys away from coding and back into reading and writing.
In my experience boys have moved primarily over to Shonen. Jijistu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, One Piece, My Hero. Any of these books tend to sell more copies in a month than the entire superhero comic book industry. Dragon Ball Z still remains one of the most popular IP ever among boys. The top superheroes heroes among boys to my understanding tend's to be Wolverine, Iron-Man, Batman, and Spiderman. My own personal view. Boys want books with action scenes and books with fantastical/fantasy machines that show how they work.
@@shadowspider9 I say this as a massive comics and manga geek, I used to read most of those you just listed, and I quit reading comics because they became focused on character relationships over story. Shonen manga gets a lot of readers to start, but they drag on so long that they almost always end up focusing on interpersonal drama over story. But even if all those you listed were perfect boys' stories, at the end of the day they are comics. I love comics, and am happy to chat about them with my students, but they are not reading material that teaches the beauty of the written word. They can be beautiful works of art with amazing stories, but they are not literature. And whenever I see a boy reading Naruto or One Piece, I am sad because he will "read" a thousand chapters of that, but no amount of encouragement on part will get him to pick up Treasure Island or The Hobbit.
My girlfriend kinda brought me into reading. I am very much into history and fantasy so thats the way to go for most men i suppose. Lord of the rings, witcher and empire of the vampire of jay kristoff, which is probably my most recommendation for non book readers to get in. I do more research until i read a book.. the average fantasy book mostly was not what i enjoyed
Under capitalism, you're basically guaranteed a decent life as a competent engineer, and you can suffer in poverty while being a brilliant writer. The choice is kinda obvious
@Dizerfullpower That was always true. Great writers dying impoverished was always a thing in virtually every culture around the world (although some made a lot)....and yet men still became writers, and at far higher rates than women. Furthermore, your explanation doesn't account for women diving into it. If economics alone accounted for writing, then 100+ years ago, it should have been flipped. Women, who had men largely supporting them, should have been writers while men were working and providing. But now that many women have to work to support themselves and/or help support families they should be diving into engineering and coding, instead they have taken over writing and publishing and men, who have more free time than at any point in history, only care about engineering. Your explanation just doesn't seem to hold water. I believe there is something cultural going on.
Men, I suggest you find local used bookstores and libraries for your reading pleasure. I am one of those who have read very little from 2000 onward. I have read Brad Thor, Robert Harris, Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, a couple of Harlan Coben, Stephen King, etc. But, I have an affinity for Cold War espionage action and some fantasy. I read Bill Granger, Jack Higgins, John le'Carre, Tolkien,Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc. All feature men being stoic, confident, brave, strong, and handsome because of it. Women are women, men are men and both like it that way. I go to my local B&N and the new fiction display has nothing appealing aside from a couple of authors I mentioned above. Support your local Indy bookstores because they will most likely have what you want.
@@Kite562reviews Different demographics have different interests. The manga industry has different genres for different demographics and it’s works successfully
This is something I've noticed at my local library. It seems as if seventy to eighty percent of the new arrivals they get are catered towards a female audience.
I wonder if men are more prone to buying ebooks, where women are more likely to buy physical books. I have no idea or not if that's true. Your observations about Target are true.
Romantasy. It has it's fans, given. And depending on the presentation/tone, may be worth a darn. But when it is the only option...? Nah. I'm good. I may check out that Sledge thing you mentioned. Sounds fun. Here's to the #Ironage
Thank you for this video. I was an avid reader about 15 years ago and have recently been wanting to restart. In my search for fiction books in mainstream bookstores, I have been utterly perplexed in how to find a book that is suitable for my interests. I do understand the economics of it from a publishing standpoint, but I have given up a couple of times because all I seem to find is romance books. Question for you John: can you do a video on how to find these Indie authors, perhaps naming them? I have no clue where to look!
@@jbdjbd8922 they’re very active on Twitter if you look, but my channel is a bit of a platform for indie authors. The playlists ‘Why You Should Read’ and ‘Author’s Outpost’ are all book recommendations and interviews with mostly indie authors
Ah yes. Diversity, But only in if it's in one direction. Which destroys the very meaning of the word. When I want fiction that has a target audience and appeal for men like me, I generally steer clear of modern book fiction. Even male writers have wised up and followed the over saturated trope of weak man - strong woman or male villain oppressor -female girlboss hero dynamic. Can't say I blame them. If I had to do this for a living as a man, I'd do it too. Can probably create more believable female protagonists than the current crop of writers too.
While an observation of manga, I think that the insight is transferable to the book media. I was watching a manga with a female MC, it was well written and I found myself immersed and invested in the MC until they introduced the romance triangle which then over took the story. It was so jarring to me personally that it threw me out of the story and never did get past that point. I have a feeling that a lot of the 'romantasy' books would do the same to most guys.
The problem with trying to go back to the past is that sometimes that isn't much easier than going to the indies. I recently decided to start reading the Lensman novels and neither my library nor my local Barnes and Noble that's so big it has an escalator inside had any of them, so I ended up having to buy them used online. It's unlikely that anybody is going to find a book that way unless they're already looking for it.
I got into reading as a hobby seriously back in 2021 and was lucky to have a list ready of books and series that I had hear or known of but have never gone out of my way to get and read until that year. Glen Cook's The Black Company, Jack Vance's Dying Earth among others and also end up discovering authors like Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch all throughout word of mouth or online discussions. I don't know if I would have keep up with reading as a hobby if I was dependant on what was available on my local bookstore.
I used to wonder why I really hate modern fiction and love literary works by the looks of Dostojevsky, Erasmus and Antoon Coolen. You explain it really well!
Yes, been saying this about nearly all forms of entertainment, books, tv shows, movies. The vast majority is about women written by women edited by women. Not to say that I don’t like women authors, Lyndsey Davis, CJ Cherryth and others. But it seems no one writes for men.
That was hard to get through. I'm male and I've been a serious reader since graduating from high school in 1975. I lost interest in science fiction and fantasy in the '80s and I think you just pointed out why. In the past couple decades my interest in those genres has been reawakened because it's not just boys' action stories any more. Even though I've been reading about five books a week in recent years I'm not able to keep up with all the exciting stuff out there.…But as far as bookstores not stocking guys' action stories, they just don't sell. Then men stop looking. Then those books sell less. Around and around. Finding stuff on the edges of mainstream has been difficult and progressively harder because of how much money can be made with a few best sellers. Why stock ten of thousands of titles when only a few hundred will sell (mainly to women) and only a few dozen will really make money. Saying that you're being cut out of the market because you're a man seems off the mark.
@@FormerBiped the majority publishing industry for several years now has had an active bias against bringing in new male authors, but that was a different topic for a different day. Others have covered it and I know several indie authors who confused they had agents outright tell them they love their work but can’t sell them because they’re straight and male. There IS a bias in the current industry but I wanted to point out the result, not the cause for this video
The problem is that, in general (yes, I know there are exceptions), women authors tend only to write for other women and, not only that, they tend to write only for women of the same class, ethnicity, and background as them on themes that are of interest only to women of their particular background, while male authors tend to write for a wider audience and address more universal themes. This, of course, is just my observation, but one that I believe is backed up by lots of sociological data as to what happens when certain occupations or other spheres of cultural activity become "female coded."
This trend has been running for many years but few people except industry insiders who happen to be male noticed it- which is why I wrote my book '100 Must Read Books For Men' back in 2007 (published in 2008). I've worked in bookselling for 40 years and have seen an excessive and growing feminisation of the book industry- there are simply not enough men working in publishing and bookselling anymore, so everything is offbalanced. I've been exploring this on my channel for months.
I hear you mate! I've been struggling for years to get a sniff of the industry, so much so, I have had to resort to online publishing like wordpress and royal road just to get my stuff out there. It's tough man, especially as a male writer.
I selfpub because trad publication just cuts the heart out of the stuff they want to sell. They make the stories fairly bland so that it will appeal to a larger audience.
If romance can get its toe into any genre it will take over. When I was a kid the "historical" romance was what filled book stores. Twilight was a warning shot. Any time you can create a Beauty & the Beast type situation a book will be sold. I am seeing it now with elves & aliens. The thing is I remember my mother and all of my female relatives when I was growing up were always reading a book. My male relatives, not so much. It's purely capitalism. If books for men sold at Target their shelves would be filled with them. Notice how in most Targets the book section is right next to the electronics/gaming section. While women look for books, men look for games. Still a lot of good books for guys out there.
The thing is stuff like a court of thorns and roses is a good series, but its targeted audience is women and the only reason why guys read them is their lover recommended it. Its funny that booktok doesn't see that the best city in the series is a secluded city with a monarchy/capitalist system
I have two books published and a third to go, but it is male centred set in the Royal Navy and set in another century. Most agents are women. So no go.
In a merit based society and culture "minority" factions end up being unrepresented. I was there, as a reader in the 80's when the powers that be decided to try and sneak female authors in to the fantasy space, in particular "Julian May" springs to memory. I got most of the way through the first of the 'Saga of the Pliocene Exile' books, before putting it down as a not particularly engaging tome by a woman. In retrospect it seems that this had been going on for quite some time and even today amongst the #Booktube set there is plenty of over representing of unworthy authors, both past and present. You've quite a battle on your hands if you wish to combat the IMF and BIS.
To me, the bigger problem is what this does to authors--what it does to an entire industry, in fact--to have taken your *best* new writers and told them to go do something else. I believe this is going to destroy the novel as an art form. We'll see whether the indies are enough to preserve it, but I really doubt it.
That's why I started to write my own books. Just kidding. I've been writing since I was 7 and I just love to write. I didn't actually know this was a problem, but I'm not at all surprised. Though, I have noticed I usually only read my own stuff nowadays.
Show of hands who came here from *The Bald Book Geek* Also, going to admit I'm a woman. I honestly debated making my vampire buddy-cop mystery a romance because of this very trend. It just wasn't right for the story and I wouldn't smoosh that square peg through the round hole just to market it. So I went the reverse route, making my pen name generic so either men or women might consider the novel, because it's written from both perspectives and their both important. I had my husband read it and give me his perspective, especially on the male chapters. We need to invite men back into literature.
@@AuthorJohnADouglas He seems awesome. We're trying to work out an interview on my Podcast but the emails are not cooperating (freaking spam filters). The more I dig through your content, the more I'm thinking about begging you for perspective on inviting men back into the fiction space.
This is one of the reasons why I get most of my books from secondhand stores like Half Price Books. Half Price Books stores do sometimes carry some recent publications, but the majority of it is romantasy because that is what's popular. I love horror, war fiction, and science fiction especially, and the best of those are found either in used bookstores, indies, or online. A book is fine if it has romance, but jeez, not as the primary plot in every book and in every genre dominating the publishing industry.
@ I’m currently writing my first novel. A southern gothic in the vein of Cormac McCarthy. And I’m not even going to try to go tradpub. Seems like it’ll just be a waste of time.
I agree with you just one note. Light bringer is geared towards men With that said I did notice a good chunk of novels that are underrated or self published tend to be as good as back in the past. It’s a shame these books don’t get as much attention as they should.
As a woman, in my late 50s, I couldn't agree more. I can't stomach most of the stories I have tried to read and the way they are targeted towards women. I tend to enjoy the kind of books you are talking about, although I am a woman. The covers are usually enough to put me off and as soon as I see anything about romance in the blurb I just put it back. I went to Amazon and put a heart next to your book after reading the description. I've also signed up for your sample chapters. 💜
@AuthorJohnADouglas Thanks. I couldn't open the file on my tablet, but just emailed it to my Kindle, so hopefully that works. Will have to check later, though. 💜
Well, in my experience with professional writing circles and organizations, they are 90% female and the last 10% is dubious at best. So there is a filter there right from the start. Then the next level, agents. Which are, once again, predominantly female. And then you have publishing houses.....you get the idea. For a new male voice to break through traditional publishing in the spec fiction world their voice or story has to be undeniable. It took Steven Erikson 10 years to get 'Gardens of the Moon' published, and that was way back in 1999. And he is THE greatest fantasy author of the modern era. (I'd fight anyone in the face that disagrees.) But I digress. For a male voice to breakthrough in publishing, it's an uphill battle. Not impossible. Edit: as an example of "new" male writers: Richard Swan, has a great fantasy series. T.R Napper, won the highest literary award in Australia for his debut book 36 Streets. It's a cyberpunk action/thriller with a mystery and it's awesome.
As a man, I’m not interested in the extreme in one direction or the other. More Great Gatsby, Blood Meridian, Death of Ivan Ilyich, the Bluest Eye-type literature. But nowadays that’s asking too much.
I'm not saying the discrimination against men in publishing industry isn't real. It definitely is. They're even against white women; I can attest to that. But you don't have to start overexaggerating and whining about not "being allowed anything." If you live in a western country, even if you're not rich, you can do many things, my dude. Privilege is a good thing, so use it. You can easily self-publish. Do you think a Brazilian living in a slum could do the same as easily?
I have 3-4 series that I reread regularly. They are of solid length and great stories. If I need something else I go back to other rereads. It’s been at least a year since I read a new book.
I remember hearing a female author on Clifton Duncan's podcast make the off-hand comment, "...Because everyone in [trad] publishing is a woman." After spending five years between 2012-2017 trying to find an agent, I think this is mostly true. Google any random ten literary agencies and look at their staff. If there's a male agent, he's probably repping non-fiction or media rights. Most of the female agents will be in their twenties or early thirties and their wish lists will have some variation of "I want the next Twilight series or Hunger Games series or Game of Thrones, but with fierce female warriors, etc." I even got a newsletter from an agency telling prospective authors that publishing houses were not looking for new SF or Fantasy manuscripts unless they were authored by "underrepresented authors", ie, not someone of my demographic. When these are the gatekeepers, you get bookshelves like the ones in your video.
This is a 100% true 👍 I'm an older female (40s) and nothing appeals to me either, there is a growing segment of female population that also don't like these books, everything targeted at women is "spice" books now (read: just corn fantasy wish fullfillment for what young women now value), that includes all fantasy, these new "romantasy" books, and finding nice clean romance is almost impossible, and now even the mystery/thriller books aimed at women are starting to have "spice" in them!! I HATE this, all women fiction is slowly turning into erotica and is being dumbed down to levels I never imagined possible, all because as you say it is run by young 20-30 year old girls who are just catering to themselves and their cohorts... a silver lining is that a lot of this same demographic of female readers are starting to complain online themselves that "all books seem so alike" ... I feel like any indie authors writing quietly behind the scenes will one day have a chance with a wider audience when this "house of cards" falls as it is very unsustainable what these traditional publishers are doing... 😊😊 GO INDIE Publishing for the win!!! 🏆💪🏆💪
If you recall in 2022, James Patterson made a comment about white guys being gatekept in publishing and they called him "racist", ridiculously claiming something like 90% of current authors are white men. Naturally, like all betas, he "bent the knee" and promptly walked back his comments fearing he might lose a few millions of his hundreds of millions.
I live in France and we're having the same issues here. our biggest fantasy editor made a U-turn toward romantasy. Bookshelves are filled with books that feel boring just reading the synopsis...
As a male author trying to get published, I feel my goal drifting away more and more.
The first thing these pink haired female agents ask for is your preferred pronouns. How many traditional writers make it past that stage?
Echo Chamberlain made a video about this very subject.
I self publish on Amazon as a publisher told me I was Too White, Too Straight, and Too Male.
@@AlexDuggan68 many such cases
You should sued for decrimnastion
@@Geekdom-d8z Good luck finding an attorney who would take that case.
Damn, is this every hobby now. I sold my comics, quit movies, quit all video games by major publishers, board games have this, and I just searched this because I thought I could give books a try. It's here too!
@@Tolstoy111 any atterny take it
I even had this at work (at a banking office of all things) a couple of weeks ago. I was asked by a female superior what I'm currently reading, and if I had any recommendations as a travel read for a long flight. Since I'm a huge Hemingway-fan I recommend The Sun Also Rises and something by Kurt Vonnegut. She immediately scoffed in my face and mumbled something about - You guessed it! - old white men. I mean... Come on, it's friggin Hemingway!! That interaction broke me a little, ffs. 😢
Bruh time to leave that job. I couldn’t work for a woman. Sorry you have to suffer through it!
I'm a 40s female, don't get down, these are just indoctrinated people, they are to be pitied because they will miss out on great wisdom and writings of the ages. My personal favourite writers are Dickens and Dostoevsky, these indoctrinated types sadly won't enjoy their genius because they were just "old white dudes" haha 😅😅 Can you imagine calling the collossal genius of "War and Peace" and Tolstoy just an "old white dude", the joke is on them... I will stick with my classics and great minds from the last 2,000 years that feed the soul 😊😊 so don't feel bad ever again! At worst, feel sad for them, and what this indoctrination has taken from them. God bless you 🙏 🙌 😊
I have quit listening to several bookish podcasts because the hosts spouted something about “dead white dudes have nothing to teach you!” And just like that I was permanently done with their podcast. They are shallow, brainwashed cultists.
Having people dismiss work of arts on prejudiced ideological basis is a crime among the worst...
Hemingway is definitely overrated but Vonnegut is a great choice.
Happy that someone said this. It was one of the major reasons I walked away from Trad Publishing.
You made the best decision
The anti-man discriminatory stance of many publishers results in a cyclical result. They don't print books for men therefore we men don't read as many books, etc.
Submission requirements should NOT include anything about a person's race or sex.
Applying this illogic across society, such as sports, doesn't work. And it fails in publishing also.
Actually in the future it should be- those currently let in should be shut out as they have produced NOTHING of value
@irateindividual8086 Good point.
I was stunned by how small the dark fantasy section was last time i was in a BAM. Only a handful of warhammer, no legend of Drizzt, no dragon lance, no pulp fiction. I was genuinely depressed
It strikes me as comical when society hammers on endlessly about diversity in all things but then you look at content of nearly all mediums being a bland concoction of sameness.
@@HidingSleeper the homogenous state of diversity is a hilarious contradiction to watch happen
diversity does offer varying perspectives and diversity in art but that doesnt mean there won't still exist the "popular" or mainstream that makes the publishers the MOST money.
This comment just made me think of sports and how more men watch and play sports and so men make the money and buy the merch and watch the men play the sport.
Anyways women buy more books. Young women who are into fantasy romance are the main economic force behind publishing industry. That’s just the fact at the moment. I’m starting to get annoyed that people are missing the point.
@@202cardline AGREED. even if it was a legit issue, lets not pretend we dont live in in an age where you can get a book to your house within 2 days on Amazon or get it instantly on your ereader.
@@AuthorJohnADouglas i dont see a contradiction.
Reading through the Harvard Classics. Just started volume II, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius. Only 47 volumes to go, so I’m good for awhile.
I am keeping my eyes open for Great Books of the Western World series by Britanica. I would absoultely take a set of the Harvard classics instead...or in addition to!
Aurelias is good, but I love me some Eptictetus. Real no nonsense sort of figure.
I have stocked bookshelves. But 90% of them are at least 30 years old...
I have one from 2018 (Stephen Markley's - Ohio-) and the rest are in line with your time stamp as well.
I haven't read much published after 2000. Brad Thor and the Jack Reacher series and a couple of others, but not much. I'm always wondering if I will get a novel or a sermon.
Sad but true. Male audiences must look outside the bookstores for stories they'll enjoy.
we have over 2000 years of literature worth reading. pick up the Aeneid
Lets just ignore Adrian Tsciachovsky, Pierce Brown, James Islington, Christopher Ruocchio. Target isnt a book store!
If I want to read western contemporary sci-fi or fantasy, I end up having to read amateur stuff on forums or western equivalents of sites like webnovel.
@@TrueTheology
Those are great books but beside those there should also be new contemporary books for men.
@@mabusestestamentI agree. But what would be in those books for men? Trans bullshit? Female dominance? Cleverly making the title character really a costar always being rescued by sensible, quick on their feet women with answers to every problem and no background as to how she got there.
I've definitely noticed a big shift in fantasy AND SciFi. It seems as though EVERYTHING is going the way of twilight and reads like fanfic stories rather than serious novels.
I'm not sure that there's a loss of serious novels -- I think there's always been a lot of "popcorn" books. I do think there's a shift in targeting those "popcorn" books at women (so fanfic stories rather than cheap action novels) , and in trad publishing being dominated by women. But I feel like when you're reading in contemporary fiction you always have to sift through the haystack to find the needle, no matter what era you're born in, because you're looking at literature before time has had a chance to wash away the cheap stuff. Older books seem better because we don't remember the bad ones. (This is an argument for reading older fiction, to be clear, but not a denigration of "popcorn" books.)
And nothing but gay in every modern book there is.
This is why I self-published my first book in the last couple weeks. With the exception of Baen, the publishers have been very open about not wanting manuscripts by men for men. I have zero interest in sending a manuscript to a publishing house that has a history of using their blog to spew vitriol at my demographic.
And, contrary to a couple posters below, women were not the major book consumers outside of certain genres. Historically, the primary consumers of scifi and fantasy were men. Go to any bookstore in the 90s on a weekend, and here's what you saw for fiction: men gravitated to scifi and fantasy while women gravitated to romance and other fiction. There were even differences in non-fiction consumption. While there were absolutely exceptions, women were never the dominant customer base for bookstores. The change has been recent and driven by the pipeline between publishers and retailers. Men started checking out of bookstores for the same reason we've checked out of so many other aspects of life: exhaustion due to a combination of blatant pandering and being told it's not for us.
Not to mention being vilified for those things that are for us.
@TBDubbs absolutely. I still remember when they tried to label enjoying Tolkien as a sign of rightwing extremism and crap. That lasted about until they decided to milk more money from the franchise.
Yeah, when you kept walking to the right, I had no idea there was a genre change. All the covers looked the same.
@@tobeytruestory what I didn’t show was two aisles away was the YA section and it was just more of the same
@AuthorJohnADouglas haha! Yeah, I've seen those. They might as well not even have different genres.
@@AuthorJohnADouglas This is happening in my local bookshop as well, YA stuff is drifting into the Fantasy/Sci-fi section too.
Eeeeeee John thank you for the shoutout 💖IronAge and Indie Creators are working hard to write what men want - and men want ACTION and heart - not lectures!
@@RHSNOW happy to do so.
Yes, men enjoy action. Men also enjoy philosophy, theology, intrigue, mystery, thriller, detective stories, romance, stories of family and legacy. Men are not one or two dimensional characters. Like women complain about how female characters are portrayed, men are sick of how we are portrayed in this hyper-feminist/Marxist/Fanon literature age. The scales require a drastic balancing.
@@jeffcurry1280
Very well said!💯
I'm with you on most of this, but good grief, where are the Marxists?? Pointing to some critical ideology, absorbed two or three degrees away from the actual sources by these people, that vaguely rhymes with Marxism without any of the actual rigor of Marxism doesn't count.
Excellent video. I create books for readers (obviously), but I do want my main audience to be men. I’m trying to help solve this problem, and I’ve already dedicated years of my life to it.
Thank you for making this video.
@@drhino419 Hopefully one day things will turn around
You're not the only one who's been talking about this.
@@jasonfisher8689 I seem to have kicked off a bit of a hornet’s nest
I’ve pretty much accepted that if a fiction book isn’t older than me, it’s probably going to suck.
This is the reason why so many people, rightfully, hate DEI.
It's not about diversity or inclusion when you intentionally exclude people. And these people thing they are absolutely correct in their racism, sexism, and heterophobia even as they claim everyone else are the bigots.
DEI is defended for, among other reasons, going after ignored audiences. YET the publishers are not ignoring one of the most lucrative audiences of all times: white men. And the powers that be are perfectly fine with that.
It’s certainly not wining any friends but it seems to be a toxic thing now.
Funny enough, Raz0rfist has authored a fun pulp fantasy that I loved. Appreciate your take on this, outside of Joe Ambercrombe, I can't think of anything new that Wowed me as a series. I'll happily look at your series. For the most part, I've been finishing classics/authors I missed, re-reading my R.E. Howard, filling in the holes on my John Carter books and so on.
@@delcarsdungeon if you go back in my channel you’ll l find my reviews of Razorfist’s Nightvale novels as well as my interview with him on my Author’s Outpost livestream
I've noticed that Amazon's categories have become "soup categories," by which I mean that Action & Adventure Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, etc., now include everything from Romantasy for women (this is usually the dominant element) to Haremlit for men, cozy fantasy... and some actual, older-style fantasy mixed in.
To be clear, I'm not objecting to any of the above existing and being successful. The only real problem I see here is that the categories are not as useful as they could, and perhaps (arguably) should.
So, my question: why can't Amazon redo its categories? They could have an entire category just for Romantasy, and another for Progression and LitRPG, another for old-school Epic Fantasy, and so on. *Everyone could still get what they want,* and books could still be in more than one category (within reason), but the categories would make more sense than they do at present.
@@MichaelRSchultheiss Manga succeeds with different genres for different demographics
This just needs to happen. It's getting hard to find anything.
Sellers are incentivised to maximise their genre labels to maximise their discoverability. If I label my book a sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance then that's four categories I'm showing up versus just one. Amazon and other sellers are indifferent to what you buy so long as you buy something so don't expect this to change.
Steam tried to solve this problem by having users tag products instead, but end users are just as prone to be overly broad and inaccurate as sellers albeit for different reasons. Perhaps the ideal is some kind of weighted tagging system.
@@the_last_spring I appreciate the insights, and I really like the idea of a tagging system!
There are indeed separate categories for romantasy ("romantic fantasy") as well as gamelit & litrpg. The problem is that authors and publishers may put their books in up to 3 categories, and they often go for categories that are not the best fit because they're chasing the coveted "best seller in x" label. That said, it used to be worse. In the old days a book could be listed in as many as ten categories.
Half the reason I got into writing was because I couldn't find any appealing fantasy this side of the 1990s. I'll do it myself! Of course after I started marketing my work on social media I found a sizeable number of excellent indies. The shelf space issue is a tough nut, but the mainstream advantage is slipping year by year.
Indie author here - based on your comment I think you already know trad publishing doesn't do marketing anyway. You'd still be learning this skill either way. Give it time and literature will go back to the artists control since trad publishing mainly helps cover things like and editor and cover artist. Just my personal opinion, since I keep bumping across indie authors and have only met two traditionally published.
7:24 For me the travesty is all of the male authors getting turned away. Most fiction books written are mediocre, but those mediocre ones have to exist as an arena for the truly great works of fiction to first, exist, and then rise above the rest. If men aren't writing books because they aren't getting published, then that third novel of some obscure author that blows and up and one day becomes a high school curriculum novel will never even be written let alone published. I think a prime example is Stephen King. I cannot conceive of him having the career he had today. He's baked into the culture enough right now that his books are still sold on shelves, but if he was an up and coming author in 2018, I don't think he would have made it. I think many other authors would have the same experience. Chuck Palahniuk is another example. The Chuck Palahniuk of our day will not write let alone get their Fight Club published, and there will be no David Fincher to adapt it into a great psychological thriller, as this generation's David Fincher was passed up by the studio for another director to make a crappy Marvel-clone movie. Just as it was a tragedy that many great female writers were never published due to sexism back in the day, the same is beginning to happen to men. When are we going to learn that judging work based on superficial crap like people's race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is a waste of everyone's talent and time?
Someone might say it's positive discrimination, publishing a book because the author is a gay black woman. But if she writes like shit, and it's a competitive market, that's shelf space, printing press time, media coverage, etc. that is being taken away from a different author who would get published on merit. And it's demeaning her, preventing her from striving to write the best work she can. And if she does go the extra mile and writes something amazing, she'll never be able to be sure if she actually earned it or if it's because of her identity categories. Anything other than meritocracy erodes, hollows out, rots, suffocates the creative genius of humanity.
I've started writing so many stories, but have never been able to finish any of them. Prohibition-era detective story following a WWI vet detective with PTSD, a Van Helsing/Solomon Kane-esk character in the late 1880's American Southwest, WWII Allied paratroopers on a mission to stop an SS colonel obsessed with the occult, as well as a typical fantasy and a sci-fi story. I wish I could finish at least one of these.
These sound so good! Please finish one of them someday, we need your stories!
Sound like great stories, it's been a long while since i saw someone using the occult side of WW2 Germany
All that sounds promising based on your idea descriptions. Maybe you just need to travel or get some new experiences to give you that push to complete something.
@@Sebastian_Rabbit you ever heard the legends/folklore about Houska Castle? Because that is where the colonel is based out of.
I’ll be honest I probably wouldn’t read if it wasn’t for Amazon, even with major book stores like Barnes n Noble there selection sucks and they ask for premium prices for crappy mass paperback books it’s insane
@@Lou45833 many such cases
I just witnessed this recently at B&N a MM edition of any of Tolkien’s works we’re going for $25 a piece. For MM?! I couldn’t believe it, I’ve adored MM for my entire reading life, pocketable, abusable, and CHEAP
There is a cause and effect questions. Are there mostly romantasy in libraries because men don't read or do men not read because there is mostly romantasy? If they aren't catering to men anymore, then wow.
This is a great video.
Thank you
Given the previous literature by men I'd be incline to think it was more the latter. Though one could make the argument that video games and other more immersive story appeal more to men in this digital age in a way they don't tend to draw women in. It's and interesting question.
@@ehdrake I suspect so as well. I know that recently there has been a push to feminize stories in general in story telling and such stories might not be appealing to men. I should make a video about this on my channel.
I turn to non fiction because I no longer enjoy the fantasy we have in the market. It’s fine people like Romantasy and it’s rampant. But I hope those publishers don’t gate keep any form of fantasy. It’s frustrating.
Head for the indie publishing authors. Plenty of action fantasy there.
I read a lot of classic literature so I’ve never noticed, but you’re right. There isn’t much in the way of male genre authors at book stores these days.
@@johnparinellojr.2035 have to go looking for them now
I haven't read modern fantasy books since high school (2010 grad). I've noticed that most fiction books are geared to women with female protagonists, special powers, and a love triangle. Even sci-fi is not as interesting aside from the odd WH40K book since Star Wars is a damaged brand and most other sci-fi feels generic. You can thank Twilight's success and the general success of the YA dystopian novel genre that came out of the 2010s for this. They're easy to crank out that even an chatgpt can do it at this point. Now I read nonfiction (philosophy and academic biblical works), so maybe it's a net good. But I do miss the old days when I'd be stuck in the fiction aisles for hours in Barnes and Noble after school.
This is how I few after reading fourth wing and iron flame.
Now that I think about it, how much I read dropped off pretty sharply after high school too. (2002 grad). It's not that I lost interest. I still check for books any time I'm out shopping, but I rarely find anything that sparks my interest anymore. I usually end up ordering 30+ year old publications from Amazon instead.
This is LITERALLY the reason I have up being an Author. Id be writing for an audience that doesn't exist, in a world that would condemn my work for something as simple as my Gender. Yeah Im black, but most of these publishers wouldnt like the fact im Black with more conservative leaning views and old fashioned sensibilities. I wanted to write for men but men in my generation dont read.
@@pheonixwilson5577 don’t let that dissuade you from making your book. There’s an audience out there but you have to work harder to market.
Us men need a Conan, or pulp in general. The closest books that target men now these days are just warhammer 40k novels, and those too are slowly having female lead stories.
@@Inquisitor_Lelouch Check out my latest book review of Sledge vs The Labyrinth. I think we’ve found our new Conan
@AuthorJohnADouglas Thank you! I'll check it out!
I've seen people complain that Conan is misogynistic, but at the same time the people complaining about Conan read books where unattractive women are surrounded by a harem of hopelessly gorgeous men whose author describes in detail their physical appearance.
But okay, is wrong when a male author describes the appearance of a female character in less objectivist and vulgar terms.
As a male author who has self published two books that I make pretty much nothing off of (I’m bad at self promoting) it’s pretty disheartening to know almost for certain that if I ever tried to go for trad publishing I would definitely be passed over because I’m a man who writes sordid, gore-laden, darkly comic horror.
But make no mistake, this isn’t about money. Otherwise these people would be doing a lot more to capitalise on this market. This is ideological.
Many - although not all - have a pathological hatred of men and male archetypes instilled through education and media. Men by and large do not have this kind of resentment against women. If publishing were primarily run by men then you’d undoubtedly see female authors and genres promoted as well as male authors and genres, because it would make money. Men would hire women specifically to read female authors and determine if it was worth publishing.
The fact is that this isn’t going to change any time soon. I think the focus should be on trying promote self-publishing as the future and on helping new authors - whether they be male or female - in promoting themselves.
It’s about time these trad publishing cartels were brought down.
Honestly, Sarah J Maas books give me the vibe of dressed-up Fabio novels laden with YA clichés.
@@edwincasimir28 That’s all they are. Just with more magic and dragons
I recently went to my local Books A Million after watching one of your videos. As a small time author myself, I have to agree, traditional book publishing is focused on women. Overly focused on women in my opinion. There are full display tables dedicated to Book-Tok while you have to trek to the back of the store to find the Sci-fi and fantasy sections. Non-fiction is even smaller unfortunately. I also understand that business is business, and if that's what brings them money, they have to keep the lights on somehow.
This is why I avoid the YA section at Barnes and Noble, and the library.
@@milestrombley1466 a wise decision
Avoid the library? I guess I’m blessed with normal libraries, good lord.
@202cardline I meant I avoid the YA section in the library.
I grew up reading Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Tolkien, the Narnia books, the Hardy Boys, Shakespeare - all (presumably) straight white men, which I am not. That was how I learned that the author of the story doesn't have to be someone like me, and the main character doesn't have to be someone like me, for me to get something out of it, to appreciate and learn from the themes and character development. Seeing ourselves in the "other" is one of the most powerful things that literature - and art in general - can accomplish. It's something that most BIPOC folks have had to learn - we had no choice because there weren't stories "for us." And now, after generations, people other than white men are seeing themselves in literature and it's such an issue. It seems like "a thing" in the scope of our lifetimes, but in the scope of the history of published stories - this moment in time is a blip. It's too bad that everyone in the comments complaining about DEI and feminism and whatnot haven't learned the same lesson that the rest of us have had to learn since the dawn of published stories. Some of the most profound lessons can be learned from someone else's story. From someone else's life - someone not like you. You're missing out on a lot if you don't get that.
That being said I'm also not a fan of Romantasy. I don't care that it exists, and I personally know authors who write it, but it's not my jam. I also know there's a lot of resentment of it taking over - and we agree that it's taking over - not only from straight white male readers such as yourself. As an author, I wish I wanted to write it because I'd probably sell more books but it's really not for me as a writer or as a reader. And we probably share reasons why we don't like it even though we are different types of people. But I don't know that the books you find at Target or Walmart are really representative of the market as a whole. They will stock what the biggest/most likely sellers are. And right now it's what you're seeing on the shelves. And that's Capitalism more than any "woke" agenda.
Maybe if more men started making TikToks (I hate what that platform has done to literature and publishing and wish it would go away) about the books they enjoy things could shift? That won't be me though - I'm not young and pretty enough for TikToks.
Anyway, this is a complex issue and I think there's more to it than wokeness has ruined everything - not that you said that, but the tenor of some comments lean in that direction. I do appreciate your video. Lots to think about.
@@mutantsong well said
It is such a weird phenomenon. It wasn’t long ago that Michael Crichton, John Grisham and Dan Brown crushed all others. Would they even be considered for publishing if they were starting out right now?
@@bslatimer no they wouldn’t
In defense of your point, back in the nineties I can remember going to a Shopko and looking for a book just randomly with a few dollars in my pocket. I found the second book of the Belgariad. It got me started on reading Eddings. And these days, even if I had the money, I could not do it
The industry has always had a narrow focus on what is considered profitable and has always stacked the entrance and windows with it. I'm pretty sure people weren't too happy with the Crime Fiction boom in the 90s/00s, but there just wasn't social media to document it.
Target has marketing people to analyze what to put on the shelves. Marketing people have "data" that tells them what should go on the shelves. Nobody stops to aske themselves whether or not it's worth taking a risk or two on male readers. Having said that, it's up to male readers to band together and drive the market. Unfortunately, publishers are now part of huge conglomerates, and they must--at least to an extent--submit to that mentality.
It's been said that publishing is now a female-dominated industry. That may be the case, so it's especially important for male readers to make their voices heard.
Finally, men should read with joy and gusto. Be a real man and seek out good books. Don't accept what bloody Target tries to sell--or what anyone tries to sell you for that matter. Develop the antiquated yet lovely quality known as "taste."
Razorfist received pushback because he assumed that book was originally published by a corporation when it wasn't and he couldn't admit he was wrong, thus making a fool of himself.
WE know that, but cast majority of the general public walking into the bookstore seeing it doesn’t. If you think he’s bothered by your opinion of him, you’d be sorely mistaken
@@AuthorJohnADouglas "If you think he’s bothered by your opinion of him, you’d be sorely mistaken" I never assumed that, but clearly you are.
Randomly stumbled upon your Twitter. This is a great point.
It starts in school as well. Most English books we read are geared to girls and women. Unless it's the classics. Anything modern, at least when I was in school, which was a while back, was more female oriented.
I just had a son. Will definitely be following your content to see what your recommendation for boys are.
@@AlbieTom that’s another video for another day. They hit you early with trauma dumps that resonate more with girl readerships. Thank goodness my library had good stuff
@@AuthorJohnADouglas "They hit you early with trauma dumps that resonate more with girl readerships."
"Male" fiction like the kind you cited in the video ('80s action, etc.) is all about events that are massively traumatic, if they actually happened to someone - often far more so than stories that "resonate more with girl readerships" (which I don't think is true). The only difference is that the "male" fiction you seem to like tends to ignore it and play into dangerous BS that trauma doesn't exist or shouldn't affect "real men" or only affects men who are "weak" or "bad at being men," which is a terrible message for boys.
@@wasd____ female oriented lit encourages a feminine and overly sensitive reactionary state of being that is utterly destructive for young boys soon to be men to live by. Functioning men can experience horrible pain and trauma and horror and keep moving anyway it isn't bullshit to condition young men to act in the manner in which all their ancestors did. You simply don't understand.
When I was in school we read the classics: Shakespeare, Homer, Poe, etc. Stories like there's got me hooked on reading when I was very young.
@@wasd____People like you miss the point entirely. It's not about hailing those experiences characters go through as laudable but something to overcome and come out the other side stronger for it.
While I have not finished writing my own book(yet!), I have paid close attention to the market.
A common saying is book publishing is on average 20-30 years behind the market.
Up until the early 2000's boys read comic's and girls read novels on average. (Now the why that was the normal for so long is another story.)
Even outside the Romance and it's many sub-genres women were the majority of readers by a 70-30 split on average. (these were from articles I read a decade ago, so grain of salt but it was fairly contestant)
Then in the 90's Wheel of Time, a Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter and the Dresden Files came out. This closed the split to 60-40 split which remained until the rise of the kindle and e-books.
We are a decade past the e-book boom, but most of the big name publishers are still stuck in the 90's.
Hell back in the early 20-teens they were still taking 60-80% of sales before amazon bent them over a barrel and claim a 90% market share.
So yeah, they're boned.
As a writer myself, I wish you luck and courage on your path toward finishing your story, and going on.
I got excited that after 28 years my sister finally got into reading fantasy. I wanted to read her favorite series to have something in common with her, so I looked into Sara J Maas… damn.
@@SandyCheeks1896 My condolences
Thanks for posting, great video here.
As a reader I have 100% noticed this trend and it kills me. I have read some of these female authors and some are good, but as a male reader of fantasy and horror I am finding it harder and harder to find books with characters I can relate to and I can get invested in.
Read older books. Everything about the world right now should point men to the past for inspiration. The problem isn’t just entertainment, it’s the entire culture.
@@PitchBlackForge I already addressed this in my follow up video
Coming in with my agreement that the publishing industry isn't really thinking outside young women 20s-30s with the romantasy , cozy romance. booktok marketing is constantly pushing it now as a book lover and female in their 40s I'm sick at seeing romantasy everywhere .
Personally I'm a horror reader , I like dark things I also am fine at reading gore when I go into a big named book store your choice is even more limited .
The book industry needs an overhaul , celebrity biographies seem to inundate non fiction aisles and celebs really don't interest me either .
It's not looking great for variety .
I'm a woman and I'm sick of romantasy crap. Give me something that actually sounds good.
@@futoijosei May I offer my own book, which is classic epic fantasy, unpretentious fun and adventure? (Link in my bio)
@AuthorJohnADouglas You may. I actually already added it to my list.
@ Sweet! I hope you enjoy your time with it
Amen and Pass the Ammo.
I continue to be a big fan of your work. I feel like you've really hit the nail on the head with this video. Thank you so desperately much for your contribution to this topic. As a man, it's easy to feel my voice drowned out.
The thing is that males are more likely to go for non-fiction in an idiosyncratic field of interest/study or go for classics published way before their time. Furthermore, tabletop RPGs and video games tend to cater more towards them recreationally.
Thank you for the video. I'm on bookstagram and booktube mainly reading poetry and trying to be active in that space as a man. I personally think a lack of marketing modern books for men is partly what is leading to men not going to college as much and having lower grades in school. People can point to stuff like Tolkien or Frank Herbert or C.S. Lewis, but there is something to being a part of the modern zeitgeist that is just not nearly as available to men by male authors. Like you said, absolutely nothing wrong with female authors, but when we talk specifically about this issue, I think a huge part of it is the lack of a zeitgeist for men.
@@james_library classics are great but they’re not what most folks look for when they’re reading unless they’re well read or prefer older writing.
When you watch tv, what do you watch? What’s on now or what was on 60 years ago?
@@james_library You said it very well
John, I literally was thinking that about two weeks ago after browing target books for the last 2 months. Thank god I am not alone in this!
You're def. not alone
If you have the time and desire could you explore another sub culture along similar lines. How there are almost no actual mystery books anymore. That whole genre should be classified as crime/murder novels but they hide behind a nicer sounding genre, mystery. I wonder if there is a link, since women are lately in charge of what gets published and promoted through not only their positions, but also as influencers and at the same time women are more prone to be fans of true crime (murder) genres. There are countless memes that I've seen shared, through humor people admit things, how they like to get comfy and put on crime, murder shows, movies, documentaries. It's apparently a psychological phenomenon but it unfortunately seems to have ruined an entire genre.
There was an article on "psychologytoday" website titled "Why the true crime audience is predominantly female.", and there are many articles in general in the last few years asking specifically that, why are women obsessed with it. Regardless of the reasons even though it's disturbing on its own, again, it's unfortunate that a whole genre has been tainted by it. You'll be hard pressed to find a mystery novel that's actually mysterious and not another murder crime plot...
@@AA-iy4gm I had a mystery author who noted this to me as well
WOKE is killing reading starting with children. My concern is not only the feminisation of titles but ridiculous’ sensitivities of WOKE readers. Even “Charlie and the chocolate factory” is now published in ‘original’ and ‘sensitive’ editions.
Sensitivity editing is covert book burning. They are burning ideas they don't like in the hopes that they can force or coerce others into thinking - or feeling - like they do.
Women are the largest segment of readers in general, and romance is the largest segment of those readers, AND women do the largest share of the shopping at Target. Therefore, Target is going to sell to their market.
I addressed this in a follow up video
I , as a woman, had no idea this was a problem. I usually read thrillers (if someone dies, I'll read it.) and just thought men also read them. But I guess if you indeed like fantasy books then right now it's all pretty much the same story with the same tropes (and indeed very with a female view on it.) I don't read a lot of fantasy (apart from Harry Potter back in the day) but the book reviews I watch online here do tend to all be the same book, somehow?!
I hope for all the reading men out there it will get better soon.
You've sold a book and gained a subscriber sir! Thank you for your message. Can't wait to read the book!
@@Hunterhopefool thank you, sir. Much obliged
1:25 Yeah, I am immediately disinterested in covers that look like pastel romance tripe and tween interspecies romance. There are a couple of used book stores I go to, sometimes just to look at the cover art from the '70s and '80s.
@@johnstuartkeller5244 take me back to the oil painting city where the girls are in bikini chainMail and the covers are pretty
@Raz0rfist speaks the truth
Never bet against the razor
Just bought your a book on principle.
Keep speaking out.
@@matthewsiahaan1312 much appreciated, sir. I hope you enjoy your time with it
A lot of people have been discussing this and the problem is we need to identify which came first, the chicken or the egg? Basically, Did publishers and bookstores just abandon men/boys, or did men just stop reading and so bookstores don't want to cater to them anymore? Truthfully, I don't know the answer.
Anecdotally, as a teacher, I know that it is impossible to get my boy students to get into reading and writing. If I offer a writing workshop, it's all girls and maybe one boy (forced to be there by parents). Whenever I ask about future plans, girls are all over the place, lawyer, doctor, writer, artist...all my male students want to be engineers/programmers or athletes, I have not had a single male student in my over 15 years of teaching say he wants to be a writer. Even the few that enjoy reading have no interest in writing. I have reduced myself to begging some of my male students to read and write and it simply goes nowhere. Furthermore, women love their cheap romance novels and romantasy. When I worked at a used bookstore as a student, women would come in and buy them in bulk; I've never seen men or boys do this (you can see why bookstores offer so much more for women/girls if this is how they read). Perhaps it's because there simply are no more simple stories for boys. The days of pulp adventure novels are long dead, superhero comics are largely soap operas now (even in the world of manga), and every year there seems to be fewer things for boys to read. If those things existed, would boys read more? Do adventure books need to be about engineering to get boys' attention?
As I said, I'm not a publishing expert, and so I have no answers, but it does make me sad. Men and boys seem to have abandoned the intellectual sphere. Not only do they read and write less, they go to college less, too. Somehow this must be rectified, but I have no idea how. But this goes back to the chicken/egg thing. Do we need to get boys to read more first, or does there need to be more for them to read? I tend to think, at least economically, it's the former. Because bookstores and publishers aren't going to start mass publishing for a population that isn't there. Somehow, we need to get boys away from coding and back into reading and writing.
In my experience boys have moved primarily over to Shonen. Jijistu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, One Piece, My Hero. Any of these books tend to sell more copies in a month than the entire superhero comic book industry. Dragon Ball Z still remains one of the most popular IP ever among boys. The top superheroes heroes among boys to my understanding tend's to be Wolverine, Iron-Man, Batman, and Spiderman.
My own personal view. Boys want books with action scenes and books with fantastical/fantasy machines that show how they work.
@@shadowspider9 I say this as a massive comics and manga geek, I used to read most of those you just listed, and I quit reading comics because they became focused on character relationships over story. Shonen manga gets a lot of readers to start, but they drag on so long that they almost always end up focusing on interpersonal drama over story. But even if all those you listed were perfect boys' stories, at the end of the day they are comics. I love comics, and am happy to chat about them with my students, but they are not reading material that teaches the beauty of the written word. They can be beautiful works of art with amazing stories, but they are not literature. And whenever I see a boy reading Naruto or One Piece, I am sad because he will "read" a thousand chapters of that, but no amount of encouragement on part will get him to pick up Treasure Island or The Hobbit.
My girlfriend kinda brought me into reading. I am very much into history and fantasy so thats the way to go for most men i suppose. Lord of the rings, witcher and empire of the vampire of jay kristoff, which is probably my most recommendation for non book readers to get in. I do more research until i read a book.. the average fantasy book mostly was not what i enjoyed
Under capitalism, you're basically guaranteed a decent life as a competent engineer, and you can suffer in poverty while being a brilliant writer. The choice is kinda obvious
@Dizerfullpower That was always true. Great writers dying impoverished was always a thing in virtually every culture around the world (although some made a lot)....and yet men still became writers, and at far higher rates than women. Furthermore, your explanation doesn't account for women diving into it. If economics alone accounted for writing, then 100+ years ago, it should have been flipped. Women, who had men largely supporting them, should have been writers while men were working and providing. But now that many women have to work to support themselves and/or help support families they should be diving into engineering and coding, instead they have taken over writing and publishing and men, who have more free time than at any point in history, only care about engineering. Your explanation just doesn't seem to hold water. I believe there is something cultural going on.
Men, I suggest you find local used bookstores and libraries for your reading pleasure. I am one of those who have read very little from 2000 onward. I have read Brad Thor, Robert Harris, Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, a couple of Harlan Coben, Stephen King, etc. But, I have an affinity for Cold War espionage action and some fantasy. I read Bill Granger, Jack Higgins, John le'Carre, Tolkien,Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc. All feature men being stoic, confident, brave, strong, and handsome because of it. Women are women, men are men and both like it that way. I go to my local B&N and the new fiction display has nothing appealing aside from a couple of authors I mentioned above. Support your local Indy bookstores because they will most likely have what you want.
Books should be seen by both male and female authors and audiences. Books are to be enjoyed by everyone that's how I've seen it for years.
@@Kite562reviews Different demographics have different interests. The manga industry has different genres for different demographics and it’s works successfully
@AuthorJohnADouglas oh I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. :)
This is something I've noticed at my local library. It seems as if seventy to eighty percent of the new arrivals they get are catered towards a female audience.
@@ryguy1928 70%-80% seems really low these days.
@@AuthorJohnADouglas Maybe. I don't want to put the estimate too high, or it might seem like I'm exaggerating the severity of this trend.
@ I don’t think you or I are
I wonder if men are more prone to buying ebooks, where women are more likely to buy physical books. I have no idea or not if that's true. Your observations about Target are true.
Romantasy.
It has it's fans, given. And depending on the presentation/tone, may be worth a darn.
But when it is the only option...?
Nah. I'm good.
I may check out that Sledge thing you mentioned. Sounds fun.
Here's to the #Ironage
Thank you for this video. I was an avid reader about 15 years ago and have recently been wanting to restart. In my search for fiction books in mainstream bookstores, I have been utterly perplexed in how to find a book that is suitable for my interests. I do understand the economics of it from a publishing standpoint, but I have given up a couple of times because all I seem to find is romance books. Question for you John: can you do a video on how to find these Indie authors, perhaps naming them? I have no clue where to look!
@@jbdjbd8922 they’re very active on Twitter if you look, but my channel is a bit of a platform for indie authors. The playlists ‘Why You Should Read’ and ‘Author’s Outpost’ are all book recommendations and interviews with mostly indie authors
You have to proactively search for fiction books that appeal to men and almost all of what I enjoy reading is AT LEAST 20 years old.
I’ve addressed this in a follow up video
Ah yes. Diversity, But only in if it's in one direction. Which destroys the very meaning of the word. When I want fiction that has a target audience and appeal for men like me, I generally steer clear of modern book fiction. Even male writers have wised up and followed the over saturated trope of weak man - strong woman or male villain oppressor -female girlboss hero dynamic. Can't say I blame them. If I had to do this for a living as a man, I'd do it too. Can probably create more believable female protagonists than the current crop of writers too.
Many such cases
Update: I just put your book on my Kindle. I will do a full review on my own channel. Thanks for putting this out and best of luck.
Oh thank you so much. I hope you enjoy your time with it
While an observation of manga, I think that the insight is transferable to the book media.
I was watching a manga with a female MC, it was well written and I found myself immersed and invested in the MC until they introduced the romance triangle which then over took the story. It was so jarring to me personally that it threw me out of the story and never did get past that point.
I have a feeling that a lot of the 'romantasy' books would do the same to most guys.
The problem with trying to go back to the past is that sometimes that isn't much easier than going to the indies. I recently decided to start reading the Lensman novels and neither my library nor my local Barnes and Noble that's so big it has an escalator inside had any of them, so I ended up having to buy them used online. It's unlikely that anybody is going to find a book that way unless they're already looking for it.
I got into reading as a hobby seriously back in 2021 and was lucky to have a list ready of books and series that I had hear or known of but have never gone out of my way to get and read until that year. Glen Cook's The Black Company, Jack Vance's Dying Earth among others and also end up discovering authors like Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch all throughout word of mouth or online discussions. I don't know if I would have keep up with reading as a hobby if I was dependant on what was available on my local bookstore.
I used to wonder why I really hate modern fiction and love literary works by the looks of Dostojevsky, Erasmus and Antoon Coolen. You explain it really well!
Yes, been saying this about nearly all forms of entertainment, books, tv shows, movies. The vast majority is about women written by women edited by women. Not to say that I don’t like women authors, Lyndsey Davis, CJ Cherryth and others. But it seems no one writes for men.
Ransom Riggs just published a new book. I picked it up at Walmart no less.
@@KlingonCaptain rate instance!
That was hard to get through. I'm male and I've been a serious reader since graduating from high school in 1975. I lost interest in science fiction and fantasy in the '80s and I think you just pointed out why. In the past couple decades my interest in those genres has been reawakened because it's not just boys' action stories any more. Even though I've been reading about five books a week in recent years I'm not able to keep up with all the exciting stuff out there.…But as far as bookstores not stocking guys' action stories, they just don't sell. Then men stop looking. Then those books sell less. Around and around. Finding stuff on the edges of mainstream has been difficult and progressively harder because of how much money can be made with a few best sellers. Why stock ten of thousands of titles when only a few hundred will sell (mainly to women) and only a few dozen will really make money. Saying that you're being cut out of the market because you're a man seems off the mark.
@@FormerBiped the majority publishing industry for several years now has had an active bias against bringing in new male authors, but that was a different topic for a different day. Others have covered it and I know several indie authors who confused they had agents outright tell them they love their work but can’t sell them because they’re straight and male.
There IS a bias in the current industry but I wanted to point out the result, not the cause for this video
The problem is that, in general (yes, I know there are exceptions), women authors tend only to write for other women and, not only that, they tend to write only for women of the same class, ethnicity, and background as them on themes that are of interest only to women of their particular background, while male authors tend to write for a wider audience and address more universal themes. This, of course, is just my observation, but one that I believe is backed up by lots of sociological data as to what happens when certain occupations or other spheres of cultural activity become "female coded."
This trend has been running for many years but few people except industry insiders who happen to be male noticed it- which is why I wrote my book '100 Must Read Books For Men' back in 2007 (published in 2008). I've worked in bookselling for 40 years and have seen an excessive and growing feminisation of the book industry- there are simply not enough men working in publishing and bookselling anymore, so everything is offbalanced. I've been exploring this on my channel for months.
Doing God’s work, bro. Take my
Sub
I hear you mate! I've been struggling for years to get a sniff of the industry, so much so, I have had to resort to online publishing like wordpress and royal road just to get my stuff out there. It's tough man, especially as a male writer.
@@themercoctavius the indie will be much kinder to you. Better to build a readership than to let your work rot in the slush pile
@@AuthorJohnADouglas You're not wrong mate!
I selfpub because trad publication just cuts the heart out of the stuff they want to sell. They make the stories fairly bland so that it will appeal to a larger audience.
The same issue has destroyed movies.
No, it hasn't. Stop being a bitch-ass chud.
Or folks can hit up their public libraries. Yes, they even have them in “just add water” towns.
I already addressed this in my follow up vid.
@ yeah, the algorithm suggested this one first then I saw the follow up. I’ll watch that one shortly.
@ no worries. You’re not the only one. It’s a good problem for me to have
If romance can get its toe into any genre it will take over. When I was a kid the "historical" romance was what filled book stores. Twilight was a warning shot. Any time you can create a Beauty & the Beast type situation a book will be sold. I am seeing it now with elves & aliens. The thing is I remember my mother and all of my female relatives when I was growing up were always reading a book. My male relatives, not so much. It's purely capitalism. If books for men sold at Target their shelves would be filled with them. Notice how in most Targets the book section is right next to the electronics/gaming section. While women look for books, men look for games. Still a lot of good books for guys out there.
The thing is stuff like a court of thorns and roses is a good series, but its targeted audience is women and the only reason why guys read them is their lover recommended it.
Its funny that booktok doesn't see that the best city in the series is a secluded city with a monarchy/capitalist system
I have two books published and a third to go, but it is male centred set in the Royal Navy and set in another century. Most agents are women. So no go.
@@book-ramble you’re not alone
What’s it titled?
@@hymnsarebeautiful6353 The novel? or the two published?
@ either or.
@@hymnsarebeautiful6353 The novel's title is WIP - I have an idea or two but not set in stone.
In a merit based society and culture "minority" factions end up being unrepresented.
I was there, as a reader in the 80's when the powers that be decided to try and sneak female authors in to the fantasy space, in particular "Julian May" springs to memory. I got most of the way through the first of the 'Saga of the Pliocene Exile' books, before putting it down as a not particularly engaging tome by a woman.
In retrospect it seems that this had been going on for quite some time and even today amongst the #Booktube set there is plenty of over representing of unworthy authors, both past and present.
You've quite a battle on your hands if you wish to combat the IMF and BIS.
To me, the bigger problem is what this does to authors--what it does to an entire industry, in fact--to have taken your *best* new writers and told them to go do something else. I believe this is going to destroy the novel as an art form. We'll see whether the indies are enough to preserve it, but I really doubt it.
@@SuppressedOfficial It won’t die if I can help it
That's why I started to write my own books. Just kidding. I've been writing since I was 7 and I just love to write.
I didn't actually know this was a problem, but I'm not at all surprised. Though, I have noticed I usually only read my own stuff nowadays.
@@ZLEntertainment That’s valid
Show of hands who came here from *The Bald Book Geek*
Also, going to admit I'm a woman. I honestly debated making my vampire buddy-cop mystery a romance because of this very trend. It just wasn't right for the story and I wouldn't smoosh that square peg through the round hole just to market it. So I went the reverse route, making my pen name generic so either men or women might consider the novel, because it's written from both perspectives and their both important. I had my husband read it and give me his perspective, especially on the male chapters. We need to invite men back into literature.
@@ehdrake Will is a good friend. Thank you for dropping by.
@@AuthorJohnADouglas He seems awesome. We're trying to work out an interview on my Podcast but the emails are not cooperating (freaking spam filters). The more I dig through your content, the more I'm thinking about begging you for perspective on inviting men back into the fiction space.
This is one of the reasons why I get most of my books from secondhand stores like Half Price Books.
Half Price Books stores do sometimes carry some recent publications, but the majority of it is romantasy because that is what's popular. I love horror, war fiction, and science fiction especially, and the best of those are found either in used bookstores, indies, or online.
A book is fine if it has romance, but jeez, not as the primary plot in every book and in every genre dominating the publishing industry.
That’s all well and good but I do like new stuff as well. Thankfully indie fantasy provides in abundance
Absolutely. I agree. I get a lot of indie books online and sometimes I get lucky and find some in a secondhand bookstore.
It’s insane that Brandon Sanderson, who is arguably the most popular epic fantasy author writing today, is not on the shelves of Target.
@@Ironworthstriking very odd indeed
@ I’m currently writing my first novel. A southern gothic in the vein of Cormac McCarthy. And I’m not even going to try to go tradpub. Seems like it’ll just be a waste of time.
I find lots of books written for men, but they are all self-published on Amazon Kindle.
@@gaiustacitus4242 that’s the good stuff. I wrote one as well if you check the link in my bio
I agree with you just one note.
Light bringer is geared towards men
With that said I did notice a good chunk of novels that are underrated or self published tend to be as good as back in the past.
It’s a shame these books don’t get as much attention as they should.
@@vaderkurt7848 I answered this in a follow up video that dropped today
As a woman, in my late 50s, I couldn't agree more. I can't stomach most of the stories I have tried to read and the way they are targeted towards women. I tend to enjoy the kind of books you are talking about, although I am a woman. The covers are usually enough to put me off and as soon as I see anything about romance in the blurb I just put it back. I went to Amazon and put a heart next to your book after reading the description. I've also signed up for your sample chapters. 💜
@@heathergoldsmith thank you so much. I hope you enjoy them
@AuthorJohnADouglas Thanks. I couldn't open the file on my tablet, but just emailed it to my Kindle, so hopefully that works. Will have to check later, though. 💜
@ Huh. That’s odd. If it doesn’t work let me know and I’ll just come you a copy of the book
@@AuthorJohnADouglas It hasn't shown up, but I will retry. It's a new Kindle, first email. I might have written it out incorrectly.!
@AuthorJohnADouglas OK, worked the second time! Will read tonight. Thanks again. 💜
Well, in my experience with professional writing circles and organizations, they are 90% female and the last 10% is dubious at best. So there is a filter there right from the start.
Then the next level, agents. Which are, once again, predominantly female.
And then you have publishing houses.....you get the idea.
For a new male voice to break through traditional publishing in the spec fiction world their voice or story has to be undeniable.
It took Steven Erikson 10 years to get 'Gardens of the Moon' published, and that was way back in 1999. And he is THE greatest fantasy author of the modern era. (I'd fight anyone in the face that disagrees.)
But I digress. For a male voice to breakthrough in publishing, it's an uphill battle. Not impossible.
Edit: as an example of "new" male writers:
Richard Swan, has a great fantasy series.
T.R Napper, won the highest literary award in Australia for his debut book 36 Streets. It's a cyberpunk action/thriller with a mystery and it's awesome.
As a man, I’m not interested in the extreme in one direction or the other. More Great Gatsby, Blood Meridian, Death of Ivan Ilyich, the Bluest Eye-type literature. But nowadays that’s asking too much.
@@GreatestAuthorinFlorida indies has been killing it
We aren't allowed anything
Thankfully indies don't have to ask persmission
@@AuthorJohnADouglas WURD
I'm not saying the discrimination against men in publishing industry isn't real. It definitely is. They're even against white women; I can attest to that. But you don't have to start overexaggerating and whining about not "being allowed anything." If you live in a western country, even if you're not rich, you can do many things, my dude. Privilege is a good thing, so use it. You can easily self-publish. Do you think a Brazilian living in a slum could do the same as easily?
@ thank you for watching
I have 3-4 series that I reread regularly. They are of solid length and great stories. If I need something else I go back to other rereads. It’s been at least a year since I read a new book.