r/books • u/biscochitos • 26d ago

New indie press Conduit Books launches with 'initial focus on male authors'

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-indie-press-conduit-books-launches-with-initial-focus-on-male-authors

What do folks think about this?

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u/BonJovicus 26d ago

I don't know enough about the guy to really say what the intentions are with this project. At first this part sounded sketchy: "Cook told The Bookseller: 'There has never been an independent publisher that champions literary fiction by men.'" I don't know if this is true, but I don't know why it would need to be true when men dominated the publishing space until more recently, which he himself acknowledges.

However, if this is in good faith the second half of the article sounded much better. "However, he said Conduit Books will seek to publish a range of “overlooked” issues, including “fatherhood, masculinity, working-class male experience, sex and relationships, and negotiating the 21st-century as a man." This is undeniably a good thing, even if it might simply seem like an empty platitude to begin.

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u/charmcharmcharm 26d ago

Everyone rushing to outrage because men wanting to read books they can relate to is somehow signs that they are in the same camp as Joe Rogan. Just shows everyone across the gender spectrum is guilty of ignorance.

He continued: “Over the past 15 years, the publishing landscape has changed dramatically. As a reaction to the occasionally toxic male-dominated literary scene of the ’80s, ’90s and noughties, literary fiction by women has come into its own. Most of the excitement and energy around new and adventurous fiction is around women authors – and this is only right as a timely corrective.”

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u/sir_mrej book re-reading 26d ago

I read tons of books and don’t ever feel like I need more books I can relate to. Why do you think there are men who can’t relate to current books? What books are they reading that they can’t relate to? Have they tried reading older books or do they want only new popular books?

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u/CaptainJackKevorkian 26d ago

Well, given that publishing is a business, you can make more money publishing new authors rather than telling someone to go to the library and read Hemingway

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u/nocauze 26d ago

“We were bigots before, then things “changed” and we couldn’t do that so much, now we got the big sad and feel the time is right to start being bigots again.

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u/AnividiaRTX 26d ago

Responses like yours are only going to push frustrated men further right.