So I was catching up on all the blog posts that I missed during NaNo and the holidays when I read this post, which discusses the problem of too few guy readers and why perhaps that is.
I'll be honest, I didn't even realize this was an issue until just before Christmas. After all, I'm a guy, I read A LOT, my friends are guys who read, and the first book blog I ever read was by a guy. But then I found myself in Wal*Mart with $20 with which to buy things, so I headed to the book section. I, for one of the first times ever, had a hard time finding a book I wanted to read. It seemed like EVERY book in that section was aimed at females. D:
Now, I think the reason I never noticed this before is because I usually know what I want before I go to buy, and I tend to buy from Amazon or B&N and not so much at stores.
My younger brother was only interested in Video Games and was feeling very impatient with me as I struggled to find a book to get so I also felt rushed. Perhaps if I had had more time to browse the books I would have found that more of them would have interested me, but I didn't have time, I was judging almost entirely on book covers (a horrible sin, I know) and most of them looked full of flowers and fairies and other such things and so I passed over them because it was obvious who they were geared toward and it surely wasn't me!
Finally I found a little area that had fantasy and I cried tears of joy. More like I fell to the floor to get a better look as they were very low to the ground. And even then most of them looked girly. Thankfully one cover caught my eyes, it had a dragon on it, or four, or a four headed dragon. Either way, dragons, I was happy. But it was a book four :( So I looked for book one of the series and to my unspeakable horror, book one's cover was filled with fairies! How could fairies become dragons? Luckily I noticed the blurb, it was a blurb by Christopher Paolini (you know, the guy who writes those books about DRAGONS?). The blurb said that it was one of the most enjoyable fantasies that he had ever read. This sold it for me. He is one of my favorite authors (because he writes about dragons, seriously, that's all you have to do and you will likely have my undying devotion) so I picked up the book. What book was it? Fablehaven. I hear its pretty popular no?
I had money for more books, so I looked for more. I saw a cover with a guy on it holding a sword :D called The Lightning Thief so I snatched it up, and then I saw Inkheart which one of my friends (who is a guy) recommended, so I grabbed that one also. Yay for three new books, of which I am currently devouring, and they are tasty.
What that? What's my point? I dunno, perhaps that I just discovered that something is very wrong with publishing today (besides that it needs more dragons, but no matter how many it produces I shall not be satisfied). Perhaps to say that while it is a problem, it isn't exactly all that bad as I could still find books that interested me, even if two of them have girl MCs and one had fairies on the cover. Perhaps it's been to long since I just discussed something here and I wanted to. I dunno, what I do know is that I'mma go write more Skies of Fire, I've been neglecting the poor thing since November.
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2 comments:
I just finished reading The Lightning Thief, and will be reviewing it on my blog tommorrow! It is awesome, and my boys tell me the other 4 books are as well. Did you know the movie's coming out? And . . . Riordan has a website with book suggestions. Just in case you were lookin'. :)
You make an awesome point about covers, and I think publishers do make an effort to "brand" a book to draw in a type of reader with the look to the cover. My boys pass over the girly looking ones, even though they have no problem with female MC's per se. The YA section in the bookstore is a veritable sea of pink. It's distressing, and I'm not sure what the solution is. Gender neutral covers?
This is a question I'd love to pose on Nathan Bransford's Forum - or perhaps you'd like to? I have a thread going over there.
For heaven's sake, why alienate half the reader base with all the girl-covers?
I have to say that they alienate more than half their reader base with the covers now. I'm a girl who's not really into any "girlie" books.
I do the same thing when I don't have a lot of time, browse the covers. I have to read the rest of Fablehaven, only read the first one.
Inkheart is amazing. I actually liked what they did with the movie as well. They bridged fairly well. The Lightening Thief is awesome!
If you ever find yourself short on books give me a shout out. I can give you some ideas.
I might ask you in the future as well.
Oh. And most those books that you saw in Wally World geared toward girls were probably more about vampires than fairies. Seems necrophilia is the new fad.
Anway, I have three books sitting on my shelf that a guy friend lent to me. I'm almost done with the first one, Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, kind of trippy to read, but good. The other two are the same.
Maybe you can influence some of your non reader male friends to read, kind of to make a point to the book publishers?
(sorry for the long comment. Oh, and I like your fanfic by the way).
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