Pet Peeves

[ldj]

Might be completely wrong but it seems like young women are far more likely to actively read than young lads, might have something to do with it.

[Thorn]

Very possibly true, I'd imagine. I think the really sad thing is that reading in general amongst young 'uns is dying away.

[Ollkiller]

Very possibly true, I'd imagine. I think the really sad thing is that reading in general amongst young 'uns is dying away.

Declining by about 5% a year amongst young people. All on their smartphones I suppose.

[Eoin McLove]

Yep that might be part of it, but having almost no male writers on the shelf is hardly going to stimulate young lads to get reading. Vicious circle.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I'd say young people browsing real-world bookshops outside of Christmas present buying season is on an even steeper decline than actual reading. Maybe it's more of a local issue, this no male authors on the shelves thing? It's not one I remember hearing before. You living in like the San Francisco of Oz? 

[Cosmic_Equilibrium]

I have bemoaned this in the past and it remains true today.  It might even be worse now. Going in to a book shop and almost every book on the shelves is written by female writers. It was glaringly obvious last week when I went in to buy a new book and today I got an email from Booktopia.com and out fifteen new titles being promoted a whopping one was by a male writer. One!!! I used to read women writers all the time but I have actually found myself physically incapable of picking up a book by a woman in recent times (unless I'm already familiar with her work). The only positive I'm finding is that because I don't want to buy female writers and my choice has become extremely limited, I'm taking more chances on writers I've never heard of before and discovering some really great new (to me) voices. Still though... very bizarre.

I don't get this. If it looks interesting, buy it and read it, why does the gender of the author matter?

[Eoin McLove]

You're dead right, the gender of writers shouldn't matter. So why does it matter to high street bookshops? I need to get over it and start making an effort to buy more female writers again, but I can't help but assume that if whoever is in charge of purchasing the stock at these shops is more concerned with the gender of the writers they stock, what other priorities are they putting ahead of writing ability? Ethnic status? Disability? Sexuality? I get that these are possibly unreasonable concerns on my behalf, but the seed has been planted in my head and I have found myself veering away from buying female authors because of it. I can't be the only reader who has noticed this trend and been negatively affected by it.

[Eoin McLove]

I'd say young people browsing real-world bookshops outside of Christmas present buying season is on an even steeper decline than actual reading. Maybe it's more of a local issue, this no male authors on the shelves thing? It's not one I remember hearing before. You living in like the San Francisco of Oz? 

No man. I first noticed it back home before moving over here and it has become even more pronounced over the years.

[Cosmic_Equilibrium]

You're dead right, the gender of writers shouldn't matter. So why does it matter to high street bookshops? I need to get over it and start making an effort to buy more female writers again, but I can't help but assume that if whoever is in charge of purchasing the stock at these shops is more concerned with the gender of the writers they stock, what other priorities are they putting ahead of writing ability? Ethnic status? Disability? Sexuality? I get that these are possibly unreasonable concerns on my behalf, but the seed has been planted in my head and I have found myself veering away from buying female authors because of it. I can't be the only reader who has noticed this trend and been negatively affected by it.

I honestly think you're jumping at shadows a bit, but each to their own I guess.

[Eoin McLove]

No sir. I am responding to a real trend which has become ever more apparent over the past several years. Clearly it is inconsequential to you, which is fine, but my sensitive soul is mildly traumatised by it 

[Sworntothecans]

Very possibly true, I'd imagine. I think the really sad thing is that reading in general amongst young 'uns is dying away.

Declining by about 5% a year amongst young people. All on their smartphones I suppose.

One massive factor in the drop in print is the trading card bus

You're dead right, the gender of writers shouldn't matter. So why does it matter to high street bookshops? I need to get over it and start making an effort to buy more female writers again, but I can't help but assume that if whoever is in charge of purchasing the stock at these shops is more concerned with the gender of the writers they stock, what other priorities are they putting ahead of writing ability? Ethnic status? Disability? Sexuality? I get that these are possibly unreasonable concerns on my behalf, but the seed has been planted in my head and I have found myself veering away from buying female authors because of it. I can't be the only reader who has noticed this trend and been negatively affected by it.

If it's a chain of a bookstores they will have Vendor agreements to keep the strongest titles front and center so they won't have a choice in what to display. If the "book Tok" crowd are spending the money they want the stuff easy to find.
And suppliers can do mystery shops/audits to make sure that generic writer aimed at 18-35 female demographic is in the hotspots next to a bay of generic sports guy ghost written by some hack aimed at the male 18-35 demo.

[Eoin McLove]

That is grim. Thanks for the info.

[Born of Fire]

Lucky for me then that I do the vast majority of my book buying in charity shops! The peeve being that I end up buying way too many and have nowhere near enough time to get through the ever growing pile 

[Trev]

Lucky for me then that I do the vast majority of my book buying in charity shops! The peeve being that I end up buying way too many and have nowhere near enough time to get through the ever growing pile 

Yeah I've a tendency to bulk buy and just throw the latest on top, noticed the other day that the book at the bottom of the pile has probably been there three or four years at this point

[Carnage]

The oul' getting old thing. Near daily reminders that time is ticking away and not to our advantage ('our' here referring to my peer group and those of a similar age). Another lad I went to school with died this week, and in the round table catch up it came up that another lad is now a grandfather, one of many I'm sure. And it's only going to become more common as time passes.