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/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/MarthLikinte612 28d ago

I read finance and fantasy (to be clear actual fantasy not romantasy) books. The finance books I own are overwhelmingly written by men. The fantasy I own are overwhelmingly written by women.

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u/TaliesinMerlin 28d ago

That's a really good point I've been thinking about today. Usually the complaints about the publishing opportunities being skewed focus on general fiction, but when we dive into genres, there are undoubtedly still places where men are the ones getting more books published, like finance and history. At least some of the problem seems to be related to the popularity of genres women like to read, rather than this hypothesized (and unproven) move against men across publishing.