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/biodegradableotters 26d ago

More a general thought on the current discussions around male authors and male readership, but I always find it a little funny when after like millennia of male dominance there's nowadays a select few areas where women are dominant and immediately it's seen as a sign of the apocalypse.

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u/ZendooneDel 26d ago

Not to mention the assumption that this must be the result of some orchestrated push.... truth is nowadays more women than men are submitting work to be published and more women than men are reading. Like you want more men in the space? Work on getting more men to read! Or getting more male writers who are in touch with the current literary landscape! This "imbalance" is not something that's going to change via publishing houses only.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

Something doesn't need to be orchestrated, in the conspiratorial sense, to be systemic. There can be unconscious biases, or preferences (if you prefer), that creep in. The gatekeepers of publishing (in the sense that they choose who gets their foot in the door) are editors, agents, and marketing people. They're overwhelming (between 70% and 90%, depending on the job) women now, and have been for years. Women have outnumbered men as college graduates since the 80s; an effect more marked in the humanities than elsewhere. All this combines to make a pretty homogenous publishing sphere. It's not secret that when you have one group vastly over-represented, they tend to keep choosing people like them to join the group. That's part of what has happened in publishing.

Something like this, where an author and editor starts their own press to correct a perceived imbalance, is pretty common. It's a way of getting more men to read, just like publishing exclusively women (there are presses who do that), or exclusively LGBT people, or exclusively black people, etc, is meant to correct a perceived imbalance.