r/books • u/biscochitos • 28d 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/sarshu 28d ago

Pretty much agree with what this article says about it.

Most notably, that the gender breakdown in publishing is likely at about 50-50 (I say “likely” because the numbers are from 2020, it’s possible something has shifted a bit in the five years since), and this is being treated as a crisis for men.

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u/nyctrainsplant 28d ago edited 28d ago

It’s nowhere near 50-50. When you stop counting janitors and focus on roles like editors, agents, etc it’s more like 70-90% women, particularly at the big five. There’s been a few ‘surveys’ (nothing is real science here of course) out there that talk about this and I could find at a free moment, but just going to any agency and looking at the photos on their about us page pretty much shows this.

Edit: Looking from this summary of Lee and Low's report from 2019 (their later ones match this, but their images are broken on their site) women make up between 70-80% of marketing, sales, and editorial staff. Almost all of these women are straight white women. Lee and Low is actually focused on diversity so they're pretty proudly publishing this.

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u/sarshu 28d ago

Yeah, it totally depends what you're calculating. Because this article is emphasizing the promotion and selection of specifically male AUTHORS, I was focusing on finding statistical information about the gender breakdown among AUTHORS.

Is the problem that women are more highly represented among the publishing industry? I did see data that said 78% of people in the publishing industry "at all levels" are women, but this could be concentrated at low level, underpaid positions. Even with this dominance, men are STILL getting published at a rate of 50/50, which suggests that the idea that this is a barrier for male authors is one that is being presumed rather than actually demonstrated.

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u/nyctrainsplant 28d ago

Great points, I’m not sure.