Says Esther Walker in the new episode of "Giles Coren Has No Idea."
"But the other side of it is to say, yes, men may have been put off writing novels by the hegemony of women," says Giles Coren, referring to the dominance of women writers (and women readers) in publishing.
For the record "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" is not a novel. It's a memoir. It's a quarter century old at this point.
పోస్ట్లు
78 కామెంట్లు:
She needs to mention that public education has produced several generations of kids that can't read or write as well as they once did.
Maybe the controversy surrounding the issues raised by the Sad Puppies movement might have something to do with it too.
"'But the other side of it is to say, yes, men may have been put off writing novels by the hegemony of women,' says Giles Coren, referring to the dominance of women writers (and women readers) in publishing."
Just like academia, the publishing fempire is a female dominated space, and the only men you'll find in late-stage fempires are flavors of gays with and without dresses.
IF you sell a MILLION books (Highly Unlikely)..
how much money do you make? 1? 2? 10 million? in your life?
If you have a million views on You Tube.. How much do you make? a day? a week? a month?
Our next Louis L’Amour is a video game writer. Good to know.
The PTB are doing their best to ruin video games too.
I suspect that is why so many young men are becoming conservative.
Careful - It's mind-crime to veer into the right lane.
That's a left-wing ambition of monopolistic progress in a kleptocracy of redistributive schemes.
Gilles Coren has no idea about most things. The podcast, like mom and dad said about some TV programs, will rot your mind.
There was a feeling that an earlier generation of male writers of "serious fiction" exhausted male themes. That was the Updike-Mailer-Roth generation in the US and the Amis Jr.-Barnes-McEwan generation in the UK. When it came to sex and the midlife crisis in particular, readers and the publishing industry came to feel that they'd heard more than they needed to hear from (straight) male authors. Females moved into writing and publishing to exploit this, but are there really some great unpublished men's novels out there?
Interesting. I watch plenty of YouTube videos written by men discussing how bad writing in media and entertainment has become, because men, particularly manly men, are not welcome. I'd say she is FOS.
This is all because women will work for less money than men would, since their lives are easier and cheaper.
Publishing houses realized this and so predominantly hired married women editors who would work for 75% of what a man would require to raise up a family.
Lots of the world's problems are caused by women who undercut men. We don't notice it and can't talk about it because they won't let us write about it and they control most of the writing media, including most of the press.
MISOGYNY they'll proclaim! SEXIST they'll yell! They do this to prevent this conversation from occurring.
The Muslims, it turns out, are right about a lot of things. Not everything, mind you, but a lot of things.
There are plenty of books written by men out there. I've published 3. They aren't about midlife crises. I've never liked those books, even though I eventually turned 40 myself. Holy shit, guys, learn to live with your choices, or do something about it. The angst is boring. I'm sure some guy can write a book that speaks to the 21st century male audience, but it won't be something left-wing literary critics will like.
I know of a young man, a promising writer, who did exactly this. He writes computer game programs now in his off-hours.
He leans politically left; the Karens of publishing wouldn't bother him. I would suggest his choice is more about access. It's easier to succeed independently in gaming than it is in fiction writing.
If you want to write a novel, you sit and home and write a novel. It's a very independent process (although getting it published may not be -- but even then, self-publishing is an option).
If you want to write video games for EA Games, you have to go to EA Games, interview for a job opening at EA Games, get EA Games to hire you, and then write what EA Games tells you to. It's a very different process.
"I've published 3."
This isn't meant to be rude, but a natural question from the tone of your post; how did they sell? Did you publish them traditionally, or yourself? It just seems like there is something missing from your post.
Women dominate publishing. And Education. No wonder men have been abandoning both. They seem to be increasingly prominent in the Judiciary and government.
I'm quite fond of women. I have worked with many and loved a few. It saddens me to say, without reservation, that our current situation is a lose/lose :-(
I watched a YouTube a little while ago where the guy was berating men who didn't think that there was anything for men to read being published today. The gave an example of five "coming of age stories" for young men. I checked out the first one, it had 5 main characters, the young man, granted, but then it had a gay story line, a young woman who was recovering for a divorce from a quickly failed marriage, yada yada yada. I didn't bother with the rest, this. was the first on his list. He just proved the point of the people calling him out in the comments.
The guy who publishes hoe_math tells a story of being laid off from his job, and a woman he worked with was kept on, and judging by the work he does on-line, I believe his take that the choice was AA related, rather than performance related. Anyway, six months later, he is driving Uber, and she still has the well paying job, they match on a dating app, and they go out, and he asks her if she would like to see him again, and she tells him that he "doesn't have his life together," but were the shoe on the other foot, he. would have had zero problem dating her from a comfortable job while she did gig work. It just doesn't matter to men. If a cute girl is driving a tiny Japanese car, it subtracts zero from her attractiveness to guys, even compared to a woman driving a 'little red corvette" like the song goes.
This new paradigm is brutal for young men. DNA research suggests that the majority of men through the history of our species never produced progeny, but the vast majority of women do. Plus ça change...
My experience… wrote thirteen thrillers for NY houses, and over a dozen foreign countries. Well reviewed. Raised a family with four kids. Took a break from novels about 15 years ago and got hired at Microsoft to write games. I loved it, not just games but the talented collection of brilliant oddballs who made them. Felt right at home. Retired last year. Working on a new novel for the pure joy and freedom. Still play games. Better writers and I get to shoot monsters and respawn when I get killed
Dudes go where the money is. And there are some writers--John Sandford and Dustin Stevens and James Lee Burke come to mind--who find a writing franchise and ride it for all its worth. But are there books great literature? No way Jose.
Nice if could I spell "their" rather than "there"--but autocorrect will do wondrous things.
@robert ferrigno - Hey, I liked your novels, I remember reading some of them many years ago. Glad to hear you're writing again.
He leans politically left; the Karens of publishing wouldn't bother him.
I wouldn't be so certain of that. The Girondins didn't think the Montagnards would bother them. Quite a few pious leftists got a belly-full of the internecine purity spiral of the Biden years, whence Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Rogan and Jo Rowling.
Wait-wait-wait! First the chicks say they just want to be allowed to play, then they say the rules are unfair to chicks, then they change all the rules so you have to be a chick or a faggot to win, then the men don't want to play any more? No, no, no. That could never, ever happen. Anywhere. That's completely impossible. That would mean that Chicks Ruin Everything!
yes the editors are the gatekeepers and they dismiss anything that doesn't validate their view point, in fantasy and science fiction, perhaps a little less, although we have seen what the Hugo and Nebula reward for instance, look at the self indulgence of the Booker prize winners,
so we have powerful anecdotal evidence like no white man under 40 has even competed for a certain contest, of course there are exceptions,
@Ted -- Steam has many indie games, self-published. Working for something like EA is AAA gaming, corporate and exclusive, as you state. However, it's easier to get eyeballs on Steam than it is self-publishing on Amazon.
yes ferrigno's last was a gritty dystopia, as I recall,
Joyce Carol Oates: “A friend who is a literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good; they are just not interested. this is heartbreaking for writers who may, in fact, be brilliant, & critical of their own ‘privilege.’”
Ms. Oates is obviously correct. It's not men chasing money; it's a racist and misandristic industry.
why would that be, Miss Oates, maybe because there is only perspective that need apply,
Maybe I should write under the pen name Georgette Sand.
@Jaq, Best @hoe_math quote ever:
“If we taxed obesity and ugliness and low IQ, people would get fitter, smarter, and more attractive in just a few generations. Instead we tax successful people to pay fat dumb ugly people to breed infinitely. Personally, I don’t believe that’s an accident."
Love that guy.
The publishing industry in the USA us run by women, for women only.
It's odd that Esther Walker would say that. I've been reading for the last couple of years that the video game industry has gotten hostile to white males.
"Unleashed Games Founder And CEO Irena Pereira Brags About Excluding White Male Characters From Alpha Build Of Upcoming Game ‘Haven’
In a now deleted post to X, Pereira wrote , “Just wait until they notice that none of our starting characters in our alpha build are white males. None. Out of 6.
She added, “Have at it. Again I will say representation matters – and I don’t know how many games have lacked female characters, or created gameplay penalties for being a female character. Or created vertex shading on white skin to represent people of color. Games should represent…”
In another post she also wrote, “Representation matters. Inclusivity is not the same as racism. Enjoy hating on me for today. I’ll go back to making games.”
https://thatparkplace.com/unleashed-games-founder-and-ceo-irena-pereira-brags-about-excluding-white-male-characters-from-alpha-build-of-upcoming-game-haven/
I call bullshit! The publishing world is woke as fuck and white, straight, males need not apply. I worked with someone who is a gay asian. He wrote his first novel and sent it out and got accepted by multiple publishers. One publisher admitted that he “checked all the right boxes” and targeted the right demographics. I am happy he got published but I imagine a number of other authors are never going to get published because they didn’t check the the right boxes and didn’t target the right demographics.
its not a right wing view it's an objective analysis, but thats probably verboten in the New Thunderer,
Since Giles Coren has no idea , he certainly cannot be Ashkenazi, so what's the big deal with the ongoing podcast about Giles by Esther Walker? Is this the second coming of the scroll known as the Book of Esther published first in the Hebrew Bible and added to the Old Testament of the Christian Bible?
"Just like academia, the publishing fempire is a female dominated space, and the only men you'll find in late-stage fempires are flavors of gays with and without dresses."
You can explain this to people but you can't understand it for them.
Esther Walker: "Where are all the hot young literary creative guys? Why aren't they writing heartbreaking works of staggering genius? Why do they all leave to go work for EA games, and what do they do there?"
Guys @ EA games: "It's really boring. Very soul crushing. Believe us ladies...stay far away. DON'T COME HERE!"
I read a lot, mostly guys like wareham or hosker on kindle or kindle unlimited. There is a broad range of writers.
Larry Correia (successful author, former accountant and Sad Puppies founder) has written a few times about how to get paid as an author. For instance:
How Authors Get Paid, part 2
About 13 years ago I published Achieving Lean Changeover with CRC press no complaints and they treated me as I expected. I get a check for $40-60 every 6 months.
About the same time I published Packaging Machinery Handbook with Amazon's print on demand service. I get a royalty payment of $150 or so every month.
I found the Amazon experience much better than the traditional experience (good as it was)
I got to hire a professional editor in the industry with subject knowledge instead of just a grammar cop editor.
Instead of 6 months Fry final approval to publishing Amazon is 3 day. Quality of the physical book are the same.
Ive published 5 more books with Amazon since then. There is nothing a traditional publisher can do that Amazon can't. And a lot Amazon can do that a trad house can't.
I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would go with a publisher
Only advantage would be access to bookstores, t.and such, gotta be pretty big to get that.
John Henry
Robert, just downloaded prayers for the assassin.
Thanks for making it available on kindle unlimited.
All of my books are avaliable via Ann's Amazon portal
Just search by title or John R Henry.
John Henry
When I broke into publishing in the 80s/90s with a mystery series, I ran straight into the Fempire. After my two novels disappeared I went back to my career as a magazine writer and editor. Later I got the rights back and began self-publishing. Amazon makes it easy. The hard part is finding and building an audience. Done OK. 17 novels published: two mystery series, an epic historical novel set in Scotland, and my current historical mystery series. Don’t drive a Mercedes, but my wife and had a good life: small home, good wine and love. It can be done without the gatekeepers in NYC.
For those who have thought of self-publishing via a "vanity press" Amazon charges nothing to publish any book in paper and/or kindle.
Go to kdp.com for full info
John Henry
The ultimate civil war is clearly going to be woke wimmens versus the world.
I'm shocked to see Robert Ferrigno on here. His "Prayers for the Assassin" trilogy is still on my shelves long after a slew of books (and as a former newspaper reviewer I had access to a ton of them) have marched off to the library/bookstore.
And, yes, I was published once by Penguin. Got a good advance, too. A collection of stories about writers and the fun times they get into away from their desk. Got a New Yorker artist to do the cover, and it was published the same week Borders imploded. I had some publicity, but had no idea how to gin it up myself (this was in 2010, the infancy for such things).
Now I self-publish. Thirty-four books in all genres, and I earn about $5K a year. We might do better once I start advertising, and one of our books got my wife an invite to a major book festival in Britain. Love the life, but it's a ton of work. It's a business, in fact. No time to write a middle-age angst book or even to drink.
And John Henry's right. You can publish a book for free. You need some know-how, but there are a lot of free resources out there. Now, if you want to make money at it, that's an elephant of a different color.
Literature is magnificent when it is done right. One of the best Great Courses literature professors named Arnold Weinstein never ceases to amaze me with his magnificent courses.
Don’t miss out on him. And he is a man.
One more point: New York publishing only want the "right" kind of books from minorities. One worked in our local bookstore, and she loves to ride horses. She proposed a YA series about it, and was continually told they wanted stories about how hard it is to be black in the United States.
So this post might help explain why only two of my seven or eight favorite authors is a biological male.
I (Roger von Oech) also was happily surprised to see Robert Ferrigno pop up with a comment. I read his books in the early 1990s, and especially loved his debut novel, “The Horse Latitudes.” I had wondered what happened to him, and now I know.
I’m also a published writer with nearly two million copies sold (best known for “A Whack on the Side of the Head” ( https://bit.ly/whack24 ). I made good money from the book sales, but that was dwarfed by the income from the consulting, seminars, and corporate off-sites that the books led to.
Big fan of Meade!
My first novel will be avaliable via Ann's Amazon portal, once I get it out of my head onto paper. I’m kind of like Mozart in that way.
She proposed a YA series about it, and was continually told they wanted stories about how hard it is to be black in the United States.
Masochism by proxy, a form of Munchausen's syndrome, read only by smug, purse-mouthed white spinsters with short gray hair dyed purple, problem glasses, and NPR tote bags.
"Love the life, but it's a ton of work."
Tom Hanks, as Jimmy Dugan: "If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it."
Whirred hacks,
I remember whack on the side of the head.
Did you also do the Ball of Whacks? It was a bunch of magnetizes pyramids that could be put together in a abll. I had a lot of fun playing with it with grandkids.
And by myself
Very cool toy/gadget
John Henry
Andrew,
Mozart was told he could never be a musician. Luckily he didn't listen to them.
Don't you listen to the naysayers eithet
John Henry
so, here's a Time Warp..
back when SE Hinton was a freshman in college..
and her english teacher assigned a 500 essay to the class..
and Susan asked "does it HAVE TO BE 500 words"?
and the teacher snidely said; "oh no, it can be longer if you want :)
and the next class she dropped The Outsiders on the teacher desk..
and he read it, and asked her: "you, a college freshman, wrote this?"
and Susan said; "Oh, no; i wrote that 2 years ago when i was 16"
and the teacher told her that she had to publish it..
and the publishing house said:
"We Love It, Susan; but we're going to call you SE Hinton, because people don't buy books by girls."
The upshot is: Sounds like it's time for guys to start using THEIR initials when the publish
Dave Eggers' title choice for AHWOSG was playfully and ironically skewering the concept of literary genius.
I had never heard of SE Hinton until just now when I looked it up. Looking her up- her stuff is dross- to me.
James Tiptee Jr- as far as I can recall, liked all her writing. And I knew that was pen name for Alice Bradley Sheldon, born as Alice Hastings Bradley. Her writing was engaging.
Andre Norton- wasn't aware that Andre was a pen name for a female. More dross. highly recommended dross, nonetheless, dross.
CJ Cherryh? Don't particularly like her writing, but not dross.
Lois McMaster Bujold? Her Vorkosigan series is riveting. haven't read anything else by her. She hasn't pumped out a Vorkosigan book in a while, concentrating on fantasy instead of SF. I see looking her up she's 75- a few years older. Should have recalled that having met her at a Con.
I don't care who's writing it- as long as it holds my attention
Entertainment Weekly in 2022 published a list- "27 female authors who rule sci-fi and fantasy"
link:https://ew.com/books/27-female-authors-sci-fi-fantasy/
Only heard of 2 of the 27- with nothing good about either their written works nor their personal life. Well, really negative things on both for one of them.
The list doesn't include successful indie writer Sarah Hoyt, nor any of the authors who hang out on her Facebook author's group page, or on her blog- who are also indie writers, many of whom were active in 2022. I am, BTW, not a writer. But I hang out with many online.
Back in JHS- the most recommended SF book by school librarians was "A Wrinkle In Time", lots of literary awards. It was absolute crap. As in, never bothered getting past the first few pages of it. Heinlein, Asimov, E.E. "Doc" Smith, Saberhagen, those writers I liked. And of course, at a younger age, "Tom Swift" books. Written by many authors. Which, of course, I didn't know at the time.
If you're trying now to write and make money, indie seems the place to be. And lot's of advice- one piece from Sarah at Mad Genius Club https://madgeniusclub.com/2016/04/20/going-indie-for-dummies-you-lays-down-your-money/
This wouldn't be complete without Larry Correia's THE OFFICIAL ALPHABETICAL LIST OF AUTHOR SUCCESS.
Gospace - cut Madeleine l'Engle some slack. She wasn't so much writing sci-fi as she was writing Christian apologetics. I loved one of her sequels to A Wrinkle In Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet. It was more fantastical than AWIT, more along the lines of most women sci-fi authors of that era in my opinion, but I still found the message compelling. And her book about Noah post-flood, an interesting exploration of "what if we don't fully understand the physical history of the earth" plus Christian theology, can't recall the title, was very interesting.
But Heinlein is, was, and ever shall be my touchstone. Even his more... questionable later stuff. I hope to see him one day in the afterlife he couldn't quite bring himself to commit to.
@Jaq
Since you asked, I've sold a total of about a thousand copies. They were published by a micropress, and I don't make a living writing books. I thought spamming my books on blog comments was frowned upon, but if you want to read them, here you go.
My Amazon page, with my books for sale.
My Kirkus Reviews Page, if you want to read reviews.
My author website.
On Robert A. Heinlein, he wrote one great book, and many good ones. The great book is "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." It's a book with many levels, part political novel, part revolutionary adventure, part speculation about what bizarre customs could be sustainable somewhere else with different circumstances, a parable of American history, and a comment on the tragic nature of human beings' inability to leave each other alone. Most of all, it's a meditation on freedom. What is it? Is it the freedom to be governed by your own people? Or is it freedom from any government at all? To me, this is is Heinlein's master work, not Stranger in a Strange Land, and it doesn't get enough credit.
He also wrote some really bad books, mostly toward the end. I will follow the example of everyone else and not mention them.
Asimov wrote a lot, but I think his best book was "The Gods Themselves." It's genuinely creative, has an interesting mystery plot, and pays off.
Also, I'll say it's great to find out about the interesting people who happen to read this blog that I've been following for 20 years.
“Larry Correia (successful author, former accountant and Sad Puppies founder) has written a few times about how to get paid as an author. For instance:”
First of all the disclaimers. I know I could never make it as a writer. Never tried. Never will. My mind just isn’t inventive that way. And most anyone who has been here very long knows my writing style - long exceedingly complex sentences and paragraphs. I wrote code for a living, then patent applications, where thoroughness was rewarded over brevity. Plus too much Latin in HS and college.
The Sad Puppy stuff is done. The Feminazis controlling the awards are irrelevant. I have 50 years of buying sci-fi and fantasy on one of the walls in my garage: paperbacks 10’ high and maybe 25’ long (including several of Correia‘s). When I was working I traveled a lot, and that meant maybe a couple books a week. It’s been maybe 5 years since I bought a paperback novel. Drove by a BN today, and 5 years ago, that would have required a stop, to see what is new. Now? It’s Amazon all the way. And, in particular, Kindle Unlimited. It allows me to essentially rent books for a low monthly fee. I have a daytime and a nighttime iPad Pro, with one on the charger while the other is in use. My reading novels is now intertwined with reading and commenting on blogs, email, text messaging, making reservations, buying stuff online (esp, of course, from Amazon Prime, for next day delivery), banking, etc.
Good friend’s daughter has moved into the successful author category, all with online books. Creative writing degree in college. Always wanted to write. Fumbled around. Worked in the publishing industry in NYC for a decade. Finally got going with Kindle Unlimited. Built up a loyal fan base, one fan at a time, and probably spends more time in fan relationship work than writing. And a couple years ago was able to transition from Kindle Unlimited to charging for her books. Six figure income, a nice house in ID, with no mortgage, and a husband who handles the business side of her writing. She now has paperbacks out, but that’s a brand extension, instead of the other way around. They are happy, but work hard at it. Very disciplined. Started getting awards maybe 2 years ago (Best Selling lists, etc).
And that’s the point - the awards came from the sales, and not the other way around. The Feminazis can take over whatever writing awards they want to. That’s what they are good at - networking. But as others here have pointed out, that really doesn’t translate that well into sales anymore. And for the most part, they try to use it as a shortcut. Instead, they should be concentrating on their writing (in the Sad Puppy fiasco, their writing mostly sucked), and building a loyal fan base.
I Read a book a couple years ago: The Long Tail that really goes a long way to describing where the publishing industry has gone.
There are industries where many of those in it make a decent living, but rarely make huge amounts - for example, plumbers and electricians. Then there are those with more making pretty good money, and some making a lot of money. And then, there are fields where most don’t make diddly squat, while the superstars make insane amounts. This is especially true in Entertainment, including acting, singing, dancing, modeling, and, here, writing. What Amazon, BN, etc discovered was that the old way of doing things was inefficient. In particular, there were significant barriers to entry. In particular here, you had to be a successful author to get book contracts, and you need book contracts to be a successful author. Someone had to pay to print, distribute, and promote the books, and that was risky. Someone, the publishers mostly went with those with a proven track record, but you couldn’t get a decent track record without being published and sold. Thus, all those awards for different genre, best sellers lists, etc.
But it turns out that the market for music, books, etc is much smoother. If you eliminate the physical costs of printing, distributing, and promoting books, then you can be successful selling a small number of books for millions of authors, and millions of books for a small number of authors, instead of just the millions of books for the small number of authors. The ramifications here for authors is that the cliff of getting a publishing contract is no longer a barrier to entry. You can start the way that that friend’s daughter did - selling tens, then hundreds, then thousands, and one day, she was on the NYT Best Sellers list.
Sounds like we need to address the misogyny keeping women from writing video games!
Thank you Steve.
"protect the people of Earth from things that are not supposed to exist,'"
OK, that is a pretty good line.
"Look. Some of my best friends are men. I'm married to a man. But men make up less than fifty percent of the population and only about twenty percent of the fiction market. Why spend time catering to such a niche market?"
-- Mary Robinette Kowal (Hugo Award Winner)
It's locking men out of mainstream literary fiction that steams my onions. I am old enough to remember when a big literary bestseller would come out, and the country would talk about it for a while. A book like Bonfire of the Vanities or Lonesome Dove, or even Jonathon Livingston Seagull could set the national agenda for discussion. Genre fiction is fine, and a lot of people really enjoy it, but it will always be niche, and any splash will happen in a silo.
So men were chased out of academia, then publishing, then movies, and now they're being chased out of gaming. Soon, they'll even be kicked out of women's sports. What's next? Where to go? Since men invented practically everything, maybe they'll come up with something. Or maybe we'll just go back to telling stories around a fire.
Someone online has said that when women dominate an art form it becomes a minor art, or maybe that when an art form loses significance it comes to be dominated by women. If literary fiction is now dominated by women and nobody -- not even the culture writers at magazines -- talks about literary fiction anymore, which way does the causation (if there is any) go?
Jaq and Lazarus,
I don't that men departing literary fiction is any kind of loss. I have no problem with men writing, of course; it's "literary fiction" that is meaningless to me and seems to be heading for its well deserved niche status.
Norman Mailer? Philip Roth? Who else am I supposed to include here? Yeah only Tom Wolfe wrote anything worth reading.
Gender balance your bookcase!. —Vice
Updike, DeLillo, Burgess to name only a few, wrote novels that are worth reading today.
And why 'literary fiction'? Is there another kind?
That "Heartbreaking Work..." book was recommended then given to me years back. I tried my best but it was an intensely self-indulgent, meandering unto nowhere ode to the author's high self-opinion for too much of the beginning to keep my interest. He bored me out of the place; couldn't wait to get it out of my house. People like that (as well as the recommender, as it turned out) are simply not my bag. Oh well.
When the publisher's won't publish what is written, authors frequently go into another line of work. That describes young males attempting to write SciFi completely today.
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