Esquire has apparently decided to publish fiction for men.
I do think it’s a good idea to attempt to target men with fiction. Look at the depressing stats. The typical female avid reader reads nine books in a year, while the typical male avid reader reads only five, only half as much. (What the FUCK definition of avid reader do these people have? I read nine books in the last two weeks.) Women read more in every category except history and biography, and men account for only 20% of the fiction market. Men still dominate the upper echelons of literary fiction, due to the well-known “women are cooks, men are chefs” phenomenon, but everywhere else it’s ladies all the way down.
As someone who very much likes books and values their continued existence, I think we need to get more readers, and men certainly seem to be an underserved group. As someone who has been greatly enriched by zir favorite books and cannot imagine life without them, I think that people who don’t enjoy books in some form (whether audiobook, ebook, classic book, or what) are missing out on one of life’s greatest joys, and I hate that so many men don’t get that. And as someone who wants a career as a writer about men… fuck. Read already.
I do question, however, whether Esquire’s approach is the best way to go about it. Before one goes about marketing books to men, one needs to figure out why they aren’t reading. Run focus groups. Do interviews. Issue surveys. Don’t just rely on your gender stereotypes! That way lies failure. And it really doesn’t seem like Esquire has done enough research on the “why men aren’t reading” problem to be able to solve it.
I mean, seriously? Men like “plot-driven and exciting, where one thing happens after another. And also at the same time, dealing with passages in a man’s life that seem common”? As opposed to women, who are notoriously fond of plotless, boring books in which nothing happens and there is no resonance to their lives whatsoever.
I, um, don’t think that’s what men like in books. I think that’s more-or-less what people like in books. And it’s a good thing that Esquire is attempting to publish good fiction? But I don’t think they should be calling it men’s fiction then. It’s just people’s fiction. Strictly speaking, it’s a better approach than “men like guns, right? Big guns! Also ladies with big tits who will fuck the hero in the first chapter! Maybe we can work in something about muscle cars.” But not only is Esquire’s somewhat insulting to women, I fear that it’s not actually going to help.
I guess now is the time for everyone to be all “so, Ozy, how do you intend to solve this problem?” Fuck, man, I dunno. But there’s got to be some way more effective than that.
Five books. Shame. Shame. I shame ALL OF YOU. Get off the Internet and read something with pages, plebes.
Don’t force them to read awful shit they can’t relate to at school.
Give them a kindle.
Introduce them to goodreads.
(My literary horizon has expanded exponentially thanks to that fine website. I never thought there was such a diversity of stuff, that some of the books wished existed actually did and i just didn’t know about them)
There you go :).
I feel obliged to mention Chuch Palahniuk (fight club, choke, invisible monsters, haunted, rant), because he prides himself on writing the kind of books that are enjoyed by men who don’t read much (possiy because when he started writing short fiction, his teacher had him read his stories out loud in bars, so you had to write something incredibly attention-grabbing). While Fight Club might be pretty typically violent, and blatantly about manliness/what it means to be a man, Palahnuik has a beautiful use of language, and writes thought-provoking stuff about a lot of things (art, addiction, loss, time travel). He… Read more »
I think you’ve missed something, that the internet is just as much a legible way to read as books are, and that men, in fact may not be reading books because they are indeed more likely to find their content on the internet,and, that there’s nothing wrong with that. Even though I do like books myself, I do think they are becoming…evolved into virtual content, partly because you can get the same quality for free, partly because you can download ‘books’ from the internet. The blog, the wiki, the content on fictionpress.com and the ‘virtual books’ like you get on… Read more »
I read a hell of a lot of slashdot news articles and comments, Gizmodo, the Good Men Project articles + comments, etc. I haven’t read a book online or offline fully for a long time, I usually read a few pages here n there and of random chapters (chap 3, then 1, then 2, etc) and mostly that’s tutorial/learning material for photography, electronics etc.
I don’t read as many books as I like because of a combination of lack of money to buy them (books are freaking expensive) and a lack of availability (I live in a small town with only one small bookshop). I think most of the books I’ve read are either free ebooks or ebooks I’ve… “acquired” through other means. It’s possible that the lowering of purchasing power plays a part in this whole not reading phenomenon.
If you live in the states, you’ll be happy to know about the existence of Half.com. You can get books for less than $5 from there (shipping included).
I see it on the bus and train – when people bring something with them to pass the time for a long trip – women read books, men play video games on handheld devices. I mean, sure, occasionally it’s the other way around, but the divide is quite noticeable.
I believe there are three things which is almost essential in order to become an avid reader as an adult male. One need to start young, with good books and one need to have a good enough reading comprehension and a high enough reading speed so it can be about the story and not having the struggle to read obscure and kill the story and the joy. I believe there is a direct link between the fact that more boys than girls lag behind in reading comprehension in school and the fact that women read more books than men. A… Read more »
I haven’t seen a copy of Esquire in years, so I don’t know what its content has been recently, but, years ago they did publish a fair amount of fiction.
I think it starts in the teenage years. In terms of fiction aimed at 9-12, things are pretty equal. When you get into the teens, the books become much more skewed towards girls.
What’s worse is that many men seem to have the attitude that fiction is somehow not “useful” and therefore not worth reading, as if novels have no capacity to tell us anything about the world. That’s depressing.
Back in high school, I was on the academic quiz bowl thingy, and when we split into groups to practice, my friends and I would always label ourselves “The Scum”, because we would get every science and math question instantly, but stare blankly about anything involving art, music, literature, or history. We were proud of the title, though we never really elucidated why. I think it’s because it subverted the typical social expectation – if you don’t know/like science or math, that’s normal, ok, and nothing shameful, but if you don’t know/like the humanities, you’re somehow uneducated, boorish, unsophisticated, or… Read more »
I will, for purposes of my shaming, be willing to consider a scientific journal a book. 😛
Much obliged.
Err…I’m a mathematics professor, and I’m also a history buff and avid sci-fi reader. Liking one kind of knowledge does not preclude one from enjoying others, and not all forms of knowledge are necessarily practical.
Besides, I learned a lot of social skills from observing the characters in books. Since I was picked on a lot as a kid for being accelerated, I didn’t have normal friendships until I was an adult, and without books (yes, even really out-there fictional books), I would have had no clue how to interact with other people.
I never said the two were mutually exclusive (I’m into sci-fi as well, though almost entirely through visual media), just that in my case, the one vastly predominates the other. That humanities etc is treated as necessary for being “well-rounded” while science and math are considered superfluous unfortunately overlaps with my interests in precisely the wrong way, such that what I like isn’t valued and what’s valued I don’t really like much.
Actually, I’ve been thinking about this, and both sides of it are kinda bullshit. You shouldn’t be proud to be ignorant. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a humanities person who is ignorant of the sciences, or a science person who is ignorant of the humanities; ignorance is bad any which way! People should know things! Of course, thanks to our mortal lifespans, not everyone is going to know *everything*, and some people have less aptitude for some areas and that’s okay* but that doesn’t make being completely unfamiliar with a major division of human knowledge is somehow okay. *Some people… Read more »
Holy mis-interpretation, Batman! When did I ever say I lacked knowledge of humanities? Yes, I said I couldn’t answer the “quiz bowl” style questions on it, but those were designed to be as hard and obscure as possible. In fact, given that at the same time I was in or had taken AP English (both types), AP history and AP Latin (and passed the AP tests for the first 3). I’m not espousing any sort of “anti-intellectual” viewpoint, but rather objecting to the fact that others seek to pressure me into how I spend my rather limited free time. Since,… Read more »
Addendum: Ozy’s post is more about reducing anti-intellectualism by writing and promoting quality literature for men. Novels are a gateway drug to reading about scientific research, comparative religion, history, archaeology, and just about every other form of Really Cool Knowledge known to humanity. I once tried to read through Will Durant’s world history series for no other reasons than a) it was there, and b) it was about things that had actually happened, and that’s pretty damned cool. (It was much too dry for me to read through like that, but I find Durant to be very pleasant in small… Read more »
My objection wasn’t to the fact that more people should be encouraged to read and read widely, but the tone in which it was made, suggesting that those who don’t consume vast quantities of fiction are somehow Philistines whose idea of entertainment is Jersey Shore.
Books were a big gateway for me too, but instead of fiction, I was reading every book on dinosaurs the New Orleans public library had, memorizing the list of snake families in The World Book Encyclopedia, and reading about predator-prey ratios in Permian and Triassic fossil beds.
Her point was that the average woman reads almost twice as much as the average man, and that this is a sign that something, somewhere has gone wrong. The averages shouldn’t be that far apart.
I agree – people should be more well-rounded, but there’s a big problem with your comments on science journals. Most science is now so specialized that an educated scientist from another discipline can barely understand sometime outside their field, let alone can someone without a higher science education. There are popular books about science which I enjoy – I loved the Code Book by Simon Singh, and I read an interesting (though flawed) biography of Alan Turing. But I take great umbradge with the idea that novels are about “something that doesn’t exist.” That’s simply not true, even if the… Read more »
Actually, asking who’d read JCompPhys was meant as hyperbolic – illustrating and ridiculing the different standards applied to continuing education in humanities vs sciences and the esteem they’re held in.
And my point is that the books you mention simply do not speak to the human condition the way a great novel can.
If I had the choice between the works of Shakespeare and the works of Einstein, I’d choose Shakespeare every time.
And I care about “the condition” of one of the less interesting mammal species why, exactly? I mean, I get there’s some aspect of “rooting for the home team”, but come one, we’re not even venomous. I’m not being facetious, either. To me, nothing humans can produce can ever come close to nature, and the highest thing we can do is try to understand nature. The hopes, dreams, fears, and longing of most of the human species is, to me, less interesting than the critters I can find under a log, and if you take than as disparaging, it’s only… Read more »
Man, we should just all kill ourselves then for daring to be self-aware.
Nothing wrong with being self-aware, or even valuing that trait, just so long as one doesn’t let it get to one’s head and jump to the asinine conclusion that humans are the be-all-end-all of life on Earth. Our existence is a mere blip in 500+ million years of multicellular evolution, and possibly a transient one if we don’t get our act together.
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s? – C. P. Snow, 1959 Rede Lecture entitled “The Two Cultures and… Read more »
I think the problem is that lots of books suck. They tend to be overly time consuming (superfluous text), and the “classics” are generally horribly didactic.
How many classics have you read?
Here are some books you may want to try in different genres: – The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour. He mostly writes westerns, but this book is actually set in medieval Europe. Jam-packed with adventure, travel, and so much suspense and intrigue you forget it’s also educational. – Carrie by Stephen King. Short, but no less engrossing for that. There’s a reason this one keeps getting made into movies. – The Accidental Werewolf by Dakota Cassidy. Yes, it’s a romance novel. But it’s hilarious. A flaky cosmetics salesgirl is accidentally bitten by a werewolf (with whom she ends up falling… Read more »
The problem with long posts is it’s too easy to lose part of your post. The Hitchhiker’s Guide part should read:
When Arthur Dent narrowly escapes the destruction of Earth, he learns about a massive conspiracy involving ancient beings from another dimension; the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything; and that his long-time friend, Ford Prefect*, is actually an alien from the Betelgeuse system. He also learns that the Universe makes no kind of sense whatsoever.
* His “nicely inconspicuous” Earth name, which is actually the name of a Ford vehicle which was only sold in the UK.
Due to your mention of ADHD, the cut off was actually funny and I thought it was done on purpose. Yes, I’m probably a terrible person for laughing at that.
The Accidental Werewolf by Dakota Cassidy It’s quite a while since I’ve read that book, so my memory may be faulty, but I from what I seem to remember it’s a good example why I don’t like romance novels. While she is a human (well, werewolf) with human flaws (flaky sums it up nicely), he is just perfect in every sense: rich (he owns a company producing/selling cosmetics, so she can have a career in her field, yay!), high status (he is the “alpha” in his pack, if I remember correctly?), good looking, and without problems of his own besides… Read more »
That’s the part that makes it hilarious for me. She gets a guy who’s perfect for her, AND stinkin’ rich, and she’s too busy fussing about how she’s a brunette now, and OMFG COLOR WHEELS. She literally causes every single bad thing that happens to her in the entire book, but is more than happy to complain about it. Her friends (the protagonists of the other books in the series) at least care more about the fact that the male leads are supernatural monsters than about the fact that their new blouse no longer brings out the color of their… Read more »
I have my own list which I can post if people are interested (it’s… weird), but if I were to recommend any author for a man who wants to read more novels but doesn’t know where to go…
Elmore Leonard. He is the absolute master of dialogue, and his plots are usually quite good.
@The_L- I liked your list! Regarding how the Canterbury Tales is taught in schools, when I was 16 (6 years ago) I got to answer exam questions on the Miller’s Tale. I think they chose it precisely because it’s so rude, and they thought that would help get us into it (they were right :D). I really should get around to reading the rest of them. (though definitely with translation!) My mum tells me that when she was at school they had to do the Knight’s Tale, which she found really long and boring, but was no doubt chosen because… Read more »
Nine books a YEAR qualifies as an Avid Reader? I consume 9 books a month. I have a friend who does 9 books a week. What are we Obsessive Readers?
Could the gender divide in careers and expectations to work 50+ hours in typically male-dominated ones explain the gender gap in reading? I mean, the reason I only read about nine books a year is because I get maybe half an hour to read a day if I’m lucky, and work pile-ups lead to gaps in reading and unfinished books (and I’m only a student).
Admittedly, I read a lot more when the shininess of the computer screen isn’t distracting me, so maybe that’s the problem (and men are a lot more welcome on the interwebs).
Havent read many books lately, but I do read a shitload of blogs! Especially yours!
I don’t read books much, if I do it’s usually learning material for photography, woodworking, etc. But I get my stories from movies, games, TV, etc. Text alone doesn’t give the imagery and body language I crave in stories, Movies/TV can show that in the form I like and games fill the interactive portion quite nicely. I’ve never had a book capture my attention like a game does though.
Uh.. That wasn’t bragging. That was saying that nine books a year does not an avid reader make. Ozy didn’t say “I am such a super cool awesome person because I read so many books”, they said “I read quite a few books and consider doing so to be an important qualification in being considered an avid reader.”
This. I can understand not having as much time to read as you’d like, or not being a fast reader. But I would kind of consider one book per month to be a reasonable minimum for the use of the adjective “avid.”
I generally read 2-3 books per month, and during my college years, I reached a maximum of 2 novels per week. But I had no social life then, didn’t do much around the house, and didn’t own any pets.
I do most of my book reading on the toilet. I spend a lot of time reading pages online however, the GMP gets quite a few hours a week. A lot of stories and experiences just in the comments alone, let alone the main articles. I guess I like short stories.
Sadly, any attempt to market books to men as they are now is likely to end up pandering to existing gender stereotypes, if not quite as blatantly as your tits-and-guns example.
PS: Well done for managing to fit in an aside about how many books you read, I’m sure we’re all very impressed.
I’m predicting that it’s gonna be books about war. That hasn’t been done yet, has it?
Not necessarily. Let’s look at two authors in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. John Ringo relies pretty heavily on the tits-and-guns combo. And by “pretty heavily,” I mean that every book of his I’ve read* before giving up on him altogether had at least one very physically attractive heroine, who is described repeatedly by other men as having very nice breasts. (Sometimes big, sometimes small, but always magnets for the male gaze.) At least one heroine in every book uses sex appeal to get her way; at least one heroine uses guns. Sometimes these are the same person, sometimes not. Stereotypes abound… Read more »
But I think is is interesting to compare Harry Dresden’s sexual side with the usual female protagonists in his genre (urban fantasy). Most of these female protagonists have a wish fulfillment like love live they have either outright male harems (the Anita Blake tradition) or have at least some suitors besides their primary partners, and they are certainly *never* single because of lack of willing partners. Harry’s love life on the other hand *sucks*: the first girlfriend dumps him in one of the first books, then he’s single for half a dozens of books, then he has a fling with… Read more »