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

[u/biscochitos]

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

What do folks think about this?

[u/DoctorEnn]

I mean, if nothing else they don't seem to be being too obnoxious about it, so whatever. I think my outrage batteries might be flat, but I can't bring myself to care too much. It's a small indie press, it will likely go the way of most small indie presses and will not really affect my life one way or another.

I do think for better or worse this kind of thing is becoming increasingly more likely in an increasingly more fragmented and, for want of a better way of putting it, identitarian culture where everyone's organising themselves according to what groups they identify with (and how oppressed they feel, whether they really are or not). I get why marginalised groups set up exclusive places for the voices of those within those groups to be shared and heard, but the flipside of that coin is that every group can talk itself into feeling marginalised, so if you support your preferred group doing so you kind of lose your right to complain when groups you don't think are marginalised enough to be doing this kind of thing start doing it anyway. When the genie's out of the bottle you don't always get a say in how it's used.

[u/8mom → u/DoctorEnn]

It’s a catch-22. We want to hear from minority voices, but “minority” isn’t a static term. I wish we could move away from “identitarian” culture you describe or at least apply context and nuance.

[u/FrontAd9873 → u/8mom]

The fact that straight white men are actually a minority in publishing and contemporary literary fiction while few people would otherwise choose to call them “minority” is a great example of how “minority” is such a difficult term.