(Originally posted on Twitter/X)

(I’m taking a break from editing an anthology at the moment and am using voice-text speech. I’ll try to go back after this is done and edit, but I am also functionally blind right now as my eyes recover from the ER/hospital stay and the optic nerve swelling. But then again, this is Twitter, so I guess misspellings are expected? Be warned: this might go long.) So yesterday (I think it was yesterday, time math is weird right now)

The Critical Drinker posted a really good article he wrote about the nature of readers and who is buying what. I’ll tack it down and add it to this when I’m finished (found it: https://x.com/TheCriticalDri2/status/1957888428684501429…).

Anyway, there is (and has been) a huge screed online by publishers and authors alike about how men don’t read anymore, and people are pulling up numbers showing that the reason everyone is publishing either “navel gazing” novels or romantasy novels is because only women are reading (and male English lit professors too, I guess?). I looked at my numbers and thought about it and realized that my readership is roughly 65% male. Now, I’m not a big name, but I made enough in royalties last year that I had to pay an accountant to do my taxes (and I complained about it the entire time because, well, taxes). Full disclosure—not counting advances, it was over $20,000 in royalties. This does not include advances, by the way. Peanuts, yes, but I’m still technically very new to traditional publishing (and I’m only now dipping my toe into hybrid/indie publishing to supplement it), having “earned my spurs” in the small/micro press market the first 10 years.

Now, I don’t write Mack Bolan-type novels, no. Shockingly, I would say that more than half of my main POV characters are women. My two biggest novels out from Baen at the moment were both first person POV female characters, so take that however you want. Men and women both read and bought the books, and feedback has been very positive from them all.

“Yeah, okay, cool story bro… but where’s this going?”

I started thinking about the storytelling process after Drinker’s article, and it made me realize that books (like movies) are written to different audiences. Okay, nothing groundbreaking here. Lots of authors write to the market and tailor what they publish to meet the target audience. It’s why publishers throw thousands of novels at the wall hoping for one to stick. They honestly have no idea what is going to be a massive hit from a new author, and what is going to fail spectacularly. Oh, they can put a massive marketing push behind a novel they feel might do well, but in the end it’s not up to them, but the reader. And with romantasy dominating the fantasy market right now (and fantasy usually beats the science fiction market like a government mule), the obvious answer is to write romantasy and just hope something hits, right?

Many authors follow that route. Less than 0.1% see the success they expect.

Why is that, though? I mean, Shy, Ugly, Weak but Secretly Beautiful and Strong Female Character is put in Extraordinary Circumstance where two Attractive Men, one dangerous, the other safe, are vying for her attention as she succeeds beyond wildest expectations despite zero… okay, that might be a little heavy handed. I’m not known for subtlety. Besides, nobody would write that. It’s silly.

(somewhere in the distance I can hear knives sharpening…)

This entire screed of mine was started with the idea of storytelling, though. That’s what got my brain going initially. I’m not talking about writing to market, though. No. I’m talking about writing the books you yourself want to read, and writing to the reader. That last bit is important, because the human mind works billions of different ways, and no reader will read your book the same way. There’s a line in The Neverending Story II that a book is never read the same way a second time. As I’ve gotten older and reread books I enjoyed when I was younger, I’ve found this to be very, very true.

It’s no big secret that women and men are simply wired differently in the head. We just are. I forget what comedian did the comparison, but women’s brains work like the old filing cabinet system at libraries. Everything is catalogued, cross references, stored in neatly orderly drawers, and readily accessible when the time comes. Men? We’re pretty linear. We focus on getting from A to B, and if we need to remember precisely why we segued over to C, D, and God forbid L, we backtrack to try and remember (much to the eternal frustration of women, who have already catalogued how we skipped F, G, and H and will remind us later why that caused us to take longer to get to the point). I think this is why women tend to read what I termed earlier as “navel gazers” and convoluted stories which seem to meander all over the place while men tend to read linear story telling because we’re simply wired that way.

CONTROVERSY! OMG! DESTROY THIS GUY!

Hold up, wait a minute. Stick with me here. Pitchforks down. DOWN!

Let’s switch storytelling methodology for a minute. Let’s look at the movies. What? Didn’t think there’s any correlation? Oh… oh man… I’m all over the place tonight.

Women like certain movies. Men like certain movies. There is some crossover. Women will watch men’s movies without too much complaint. Men might watch women’s movies (and maybe complain?). But in everything, there are various storytelling techniques that different directors use to engage their audiences (readers/viewers/listeners). The most obvious one is a director I like to pick on, but there is no denying that when you watch a Michael Bay movie, you know what you’re getting – linear storytelling, Point A to B, excitement, cool visual effects, not a lot of deep thought, but something to engage the mind for two hours. Look, this isn’t saying every single male reader is like that, so chill. But for modern day linear storytelling approach? It seems to intrinsically appeal to men.

(Overheard at the movie theater)
Woman #1: OMG, where’s the plot? It’s just thirty foot robots beating each other up!
Woman #2: Yeah! Pointless!
Man #1: But… babe… thirty foot robots beating each other up! It was awesome!
(Back to our unhinged screed on publishing)

Meanwhile… I read House of Leaves in college. I could argue it’s one of the most convoluted stories around, but I can’t even really remember what it was about except that it made me not want to have anything with academia and not pursue a doctorate. AT ALL. But I hear a lot of friends whose brains are wired completely opposite of mine who loved it (well, they claimed they did, but I have a lot of friends who claim to like things and then have no idea what I’m talking about when I share the interest).

But all this ties into the publishing industry as a whole and why advances and publishing is a gamble. If they knew every single book which was going to be a breakout hit, then they wouldn’t need to spend money trying to market, sending the author out for signings, etc, etc. They have NO idea when it comes to new authors. Oh, Rebecca Yarros or Sarah J. Maass will release a book and it’s going to sell 60k copies per week, yeah. They’re established with diehard fan bases, know their readers and deliver to expectations, and have the momentum of mountains behind them right now. Could the publishers who did their first editions guarantee they’d see this success? Unlikely. Maybe someone in the company said “hey, this might move some books,” but I doubt anyone said “we’re gonna be buying a gold G6 with the money we’re gonna make from these books.”

I mean, if they did, well… that person doesn’t need to even think about working, ever again.

Look, we can doom and gloom it all we want, but there’s no simple, surefire fix. There is no right or wrong answer here. Men are going to read what draws and keeps their attention. Women readers are the same. Everyone in between? Holy crap, the same. Shocking, right? As the author, it’s our job to write entertaining material, be it romantasy, naval gazing, Mack Bolan, or a satire of academia. Write what you want to read. Remember who you want to read it.

And keep having fun when you write. That’s probably the most important bit of all.

Obligatory picture of awesome book cover incoming!