Do men read books by women and vice-versa?

[UnquietDad]

Publishers are convinced they don't. They'll even design covers to appeal to one gender or the other.

As most of you are women, do you read many books by male authors? As, until recently, most books were written by men anyway, is this inevitable if you are a wide reader?

Do you find there are more "womensy" books available now, in the post-Bridget Jones explosion, or is that not the kind of thing you like to read?

And do the men on here read much writing by women?... As a male reader, I don't intentionally discriminate. Outside the obvious classics (Brontes and Austen), I have to look along my bookshelf and remind myself of the female authors I have enjoyed in the last few years: Penelope Lively, Margaret Atwood, Maggie O'Farrell, Anita Shreve, Catherine Fox, Catherine O'Flynn, Gillian Cross, Helen Cresswell, Helen Dunmore, Zoe Heller, Hilary Mantel, Libby Purves, Donna Tartt.

I'd rather poke my eyes out than read most of the stuff which is very "female" in its look and tone - all those "feisty" heroines living in London.

(God, all the above sounds like I am fishing for quotes for some crappy article - please be assured this is not the case!)

I read lots of things by both men and women. Gender of author has no bearing on whether I'd pick the book up. I do like some chick lit though - Slummy Mummy, The Thorn Birds and Valley of the Dolls spring to mind.

I doubt DP has read a book by a woman, other than Harry Potter, for a good while though. He tends to like authors like Ian McEwan, Iain Banks, Jake Arnott, Robert Harris etc.

bleh - that's the way authors see it all the time, yes. The way publishers see it is that the book isn't "targeted" properly if it straddles the gender divide. It's madness.

But in marketing terms it is often rational to maximise appeal to a core audience -- rather than take a gamble on extending appeal to a more peripheral audience, at the possible cost of diluting impact with core audience. Not saying it is right in every case of course, but you can see the in-principle commercial rationality.

Since it is difficult in individual cases to make a judgement about the possible benefits of taking a punt on grabbing the wider audience, it might well be rational for publishers to adopt an across-the-board conservative marketing policy for these sorts of books -- one which maximises profit overall even if it might fail to maximise sales in the case of an individual book. I.e. the costs of gathering enough info on each individual book and tailoring its marketing more precisely might outweigh the possible benefits.

It would be very surprising if publishers hadn't given this thought/research.

(Of course, these are all commercial decisions and in artistic terms it is pants.)

It pigeonholes writers early in their careers, so ultimately it's a shirt-sighted marketing decision. One might call Iain Banks more of a "boys'" writer, but I know a good few women who enjoy his books - I imagine it would be less so if he were marketed in a more "macho" way. The black-and-white iconic imagery on the early editions of his books was quite inspired.

Or even short-sighted!

lol shirt-sighted.

That would be advertising Pride & Prejudice with a pic of wet-shirt Colin Firth on cover.

The think is, I guess, that publishers need to maximise sales across their entire list, on a finite resaerch and marketing budget, which means satisficing in the case of individual books.

Whereas naturally authors seek to maximise not satisfice their book sales.

I don't really pay attention to the gender of the author.
Isn't it the case that historically women took on a make pseudonym so a publisher would take them on?

can't stand chick lit. (will admit to the odd marion keyes on holiday tho!) and can't stand the girly girly covers but I can't get that snobby or bothered about them if it gets people reading

I'm a bloke and, although I don't consciously look out for male or female authors, about three quarters of the fiction books on my shelves are by men. I've read Bridget Jones but, apart from that, I stay well away from the "shopping, coffee and crises" genre. Nevertheless I do enjoy writers such as Margaret Forster, Lionel Shriver, Doris Lessing and Marina Lewycka and I've never consciously shied away from a book just because of the sex of the author.

Non-fiction is much closer to 50:50.

I read anything by anyone.

DH mainly reads fantasy, but again, isn't swayed by gender so much as storyline. His fave would be Robin Hobb

I also can't stand chick lit.

I do judge books by their covers (going with the theory that publishers have put in a lot of time and effort to ensure that it is right ) - the most clear one being The End Of Mr Y - A book with coloured edges I am always going to buy

Eliza - there were soldiers on the cover? I thought it was a woman running through trees in a red coat?

Surey 'we' the readers are partially to blame, though, for not considering reading a book with a 'girly' cover if we only like 'boyish' books or vice versa (ie for literally judging a book by its cover)? It's a bit like the argument about who is to blame for the trash peddled by papers like the DM - is it the readers' appetite for rubbish that controls the paper content, or is it the paper's content that creates/controls the readers' appetite? A bit of both, I'd say.