I forget that there’s a whole ‘nuther world out there. Thanks for reminding me how good I have it, ‘Three’ Guys…

i hope that helps.

:p

http://threeguysonebook.com/where-have-all-the-cowboys-gone

It seems to me that the publishing world has written off the male reader to some extent, as Jason more or less suggests. The numbers indicate that women read fiction, so fiction that appeals to primarily, or even exclusively, to women is what’s accepted and packaged. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I go to a bookstore and look at the new-fiction shelves, I almost never see titles aimed at guys like me — educated guys reared on literary fiction that reflects their experience, or their wished-for experience, as per Josie’s remark about adventure. Creating a readership isn’t simply a matter of quality writing; what’s also necessary, I think — especially in this, an era that focuses heavily on image and personality — is a sense of commonality and/or admiration. Hemingway owed much of his following to his uberman glamor, however false it may have been, just as Kerouac and Bukowski and Thompson owed theirs to their ballyhooed status as rebels.

But that particular kind of rebel has passed out of fashion — or has it? All of the above named writers continue to be read, even by guys in their twenties, who are obviously said to read nothing at all. Do those writers have no heirs? And if they exist, or if they did, would they find their way into mainstream print? I can’t help but wonder if those in publishing circles have a distaste for what, for the purposes of this comment, I’ll refer to as machismo, which they associate with sexism and related p.c.-isms — and in many cases, I’d be willing to bet that they’re unaware of their bias, if it in fact exists, thinking themselves endlessly accepting and open-minded, as I’m afraid liberals self-deceivingly do. (I consider myself strongly liberal-leaning, for the record.) This bias has a parallel in the movie business, where high-testosterone leading men are almost exclusively imported from the U.K. (including Australia and New Zealand). When Colin Farrell first appeared, I noticed a number of profiles that introduced him with: “He drinks! He smokes! He fucks around!” So does every guy I know, I thought, but those guys largely weren’t represented by American screen actors. An “exotic” accent is a kind of excuse for alpha-male traits, as if Hollywood were saying, “It’s okay if he scares you a little, because he’s a foreigner and doesn’t really know any better.” Americans are easily frightened these days, as they apparently weren’t in the time of Clark Gable.

I also think recent trends in education are potentially culpable. College enrollment for men, at least in the U.S., is down, and liberal-arts majors of either sex are increasingly rare. Still, anyone who’s taken a literature class in the last few years will report that female students far outnumber the males; and in general, we’re approaching a class division that, bizarrely to me, is halved according to gender, with culturally astute women to one side and doltish, philistine men to the other. Will women be happy with this arrangement, once it’s become, as it already is to some extent, the norm? I personally think it’s in their best interests to require signs of intellectual life, as they apparently in volume do not. Men and women alike will invariably take the necessary steps in the romance and sex departments. Reading? Yep. Guys’ll do it if girls expect it — or do you think all those enlightened men of yesteryear were in no way thinking of the power of the mind to attract?

There’s more I could say, but this comment is already long. Still, it’s obviously a subject that interests me. The novel I recently published was written very much in the hope that it would be read by guys, because I frankly don’t see many others writing with them in any way in mind. This was not, to be be clear, my first and only goal: I love women and greatly value them as readers. But I don’t think the guys have been well served in recent years, and I, for one, would like to breach the gap and, if possible, help to restore balance.

I’m writing these remarks in haste, so apologies where I’ve generalized and so offended in a discussion that calls for nuance.

Do you know how much video games cost? It’s definitely not a money issue. If you want to woo men back to books you’re going to have to sweep them off their feet the same way women get swept away between the covers. Adventure for men is miles from what women find exciting. How to sweep a man off his feet and still be able to survive in a market funded by women… there’s your real challenge.

After reading this piece, I plan to join one and see how it works.

BTW, love your blog.