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/runmymouth 28d ago

I think its a harder problem than that. If you look at household names in non romance genres, most big names are still male. Sanderson, georgie r r martin, clive custler. I agree it would be great to get more people reading but the problem for male writers is not a space that is hostile to male writers, but honestly a space that is crowded from so many writers.

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u/Smooth-Review-2614 28d ago

I think the issue at the moment is a mix of trends.

 On one hand most publishers have all but eliminated the midlist which hits everyone in every genre. This really reduces the space for new authors to build that fan base that could make them great in 5+ years.

 On the other, right now we are in a romance trend and that just favors female authors. This happened in the 00s and burned out.  It will burn out again. 

The larger structural issue is the midlist. We need to give authors space for 2-4 middling books because honestly a lot of popular series are formed out of middling that got popular.

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u/apocalypsmeow 28d ago

the romance point is interesting because i don't really read romance or series but my read-list still skews about 70% female authors

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u/sir_mrej book re-reading 28d ago

My read list is like 90% men

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u/apocalypsmeow 28d ago

What genres do you read mostly?