Men Didn’t Stop Reading, Oldpub Stopped Serving Them
The Times recently ran a curious story: A men-only publishing house was created to fix the imbalance between the sexes in readership. The implication, dutifully repeated in the article, is that men have vanished from the literary marketplace, leaving a yawning void that only a segregated press can fill.
Stop for a moment and examine that claim closely.
Men haven’t disappeared from fiction, just oldpub. And they’ve taking their wallets and attention with them. The 20 percent statistic that haunts every Manhattan editorial meeting is proof of deliberate neglect.
As I’ve written before, the notorious 20 percent figure comes from Nielsen BookScan, a service that tracks sales in the physical bookstores that oldpub still fetishizes. While fine back in 2005, relying on those numbers is laughable now.
BookScan ignores digital sales, newpub works, and the enormous swath of Amazon purchases in genres men still dominate like sci-fi, thrillers, military adventure, and pulp fantasy.
Government surveys like the NEA’s paint a different picture: 33 percent of American men report reading at least one novel per year. That is the floor; not the ceiling.
Include the digital-first reader, the Kindle commuter, and the newpub enthusiast, and the male reader share rises sharply.
In short, men haven’t stopped reading. What they’ve done is stopped waiting for oldpub to wise up and serve them.
Look closely at the Big Five’s behavior over the last two decades. Editorial floors are increasingly staffed with women pushing ideological acquisition policies. Marketing departments have been converted into HR compliance offices. And genre after genre favored by male readers has been sanitized to meet the demands of sensitivity reader sensibilities instead of customers’ imaginations.
What happens when you systematically insult your core customers?
They leave.
And with luck and diligence, they find entertainment that respects them.
Here’s what that men-only press is implicitly admitting: Oldpub failed, and men went elsewhere.
A men-only publishing house might seem like a bold corrective measure. But it is, in reality, an acknowledgment of oldpub’s dereliction. It does nothing to challenge the underlying issue, which is that mainstream publishing abandoned large swaths of its audience.
The real revolution is already underway: Newpub authors and small presses are producing books that men actually want to read. Print books, DRM-free PDFs, and audiobooks, are being offered through direct-to-consumer storefronts. And these are the channels men have embraced.
Newpub doesn’t care about conforming to obsolete metrics, diversity quotas, or Nielsen’s lumber inventory. It simply serves readers.
And the readers respond in kind.
Men didn’t stop reading. Oldpub stopped serving them.
Any solution that merely segregates books treats symptoms while leaving the disease unchecked. The true remedy is a publishing industry willing to respect readers’ appetites, take risks, and deliver stories worth reading.
Until then, every Times editorial fretting over male readership will land DOA as another zombie meme.
Men have moved on. And frankly, they’re reading better books than ever.
The third book in my record-breaking series has funded! But that’s just the beginning. Get enticing rewards, get the new book before anyone else, and unlock our first awesome Stretch Goal!
Brian Niemeier is a best-selling novelist, editor, and Dragon Award winner with over a decade in newpub. For direct, in-person writing and editing insights, join his Patreon.