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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Guest Blog: Susannah Sandlin: Battle of the Sexes, Author-Style




I realize this is a blog for readers and writers of romance, and most readers and writers of romance are women, but bear with me a moment.

I’m sort of astounded, you see. On my book blog, I recently came across an urban fantasy title by a debut author who respectfully requested, on behalf of her publisher, that her gender not be revealed. In other words, by remaining “gender-neutral,” she is in essence posing as a guy in order to appeal to a broader readership. I went along with her wishes, of course, but it really made me think.

On one hand, I understand the rationale. Survey after survey, blog discussion after blog discussion, male readers have said they are unlikely to read books written by women—or at least are more hesitant to do so. The reasoning? Books written by women are more likely to have that objectionable emotional stuff in them, they say. They can’t identify with the heroines, and the heroes are unbelievable. (I recently wrote a post for this on the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog if you’d like to check it out.)’

On the other hand, I’m kind of outraged, and the more I think about it, the more bothered I am. What does it say about our society, and our industry, if the only way a woman can publish a non-romance title and be accepted by a broad audience of both genders, at least in certain genres, is to pretend to be male or hide behind a “gender-neutral” pen name? By following this marketing rationale, is the publisher being smart, realistic, or perpetuating a cultural stereotype we should be well past?

George Eliot, anyone? George, aka Mary Anne Evans, was one of the most respected of Victorian novelists, who assumed a male pen name so her work would be taken seriously and not lumped in with the romance-driven (and thus not serious) work being written by women. Had she written Middlemarch or Silas Marner under the name Mary Anne Evans, would those books still be considered among the best novels of their time or would they have been dismissed and fallen into obscurity?

Seriously, have we not moved beyond the Victorian age?

(To be fair, this works both ways. The fabulous fantasy author Daniel Abraham writes urban fantasy under the gender-neutral MLN Hanover name, although he’s been open about it. But if you’re scanning book jackets and look at the covers of his Black Sun’s Daughter series, you’d assume the books were written by a woman because of the kickass heroine on the cover, a la urban fantasy.)

It’s a real issue. I’ve had guys—quite a few of them—admit somewhat sheepishly that they liked the first book in my urban fantasy series (under the Suzanne Johnson name), much to their surprise, although a couple wanted assurance that the light romantic element wouldn’t get out of hand in future books. If the series were being written by S.M. Johnson, would it have gotten a bigger male readership? Probably not, because the cover screams GIRL. Gender-neutral’s cover was very, um, gender-neutral, so this was a carefully designed marketing plan on her publisher’s part.

Would guys like the paranormal romance series I write under the Susannah Sandlin name if it were written by S.M. Sandlin? Would my readership double by tricking guys into reading a book written by a woman?

Conversely, am I more likely to read a book written by another women than by a male author? I honestly don’t care. Looking at my shelves of favorite series, it’s about a 60-40 female-to-male ratio.

Maybe instead of trickery I should just look at “gender-neutral” as savvy marketing.

I’ve spent more brain cells than it was probably worth, wondering if I would have gone along with my urban fantasy publisher had they asked me to keep all my blogs, email addresses, Twitter ID, Facebook profile, etc., “gender-neutral.” I don’t know. (I mean, what a pain in the bohonkus. I have enough trouble keeping track of myself without attempting to also create a “gender-neutral” identity!)

What are your thoughts on this? Am I being naïve to wish we’d gone beyond the marginalization of female authors? Would you (or do you) write as a “gender-neutral” author, and has it broadened your market? Are there guys writing romance under women’s pen names for the very same reason?

 BIO:
Susannah Sandlin is the author of paranormal romance set in the Deep South, where there are always things that go bump in the night! A journalist by day, Susannah grew up in Alabama reading the gothic novels of Susan Howatch, and always fancied herself living in Cornwall (although she’s never actually been there). Details, details. She also is a fan of Stephen King. The combination of Howatch and King probably explains a lot. Currently a resident of Auburn, Alabama, Susannah has also lived in Illinois, Texas, California, and Louisiana. Her novel Redemption won the paranormal romance category in the 2011 Chicago North RWA Fire and Ice contest, and is the first of three in a series that debuts this year. Book two, Absolution, will be released September 18 and book three, Omega, on December 18.
BLURB: ABSOLUTION (The Penton Legacy, Book 2)
Release date: October 9, 2012 -Publisher: Montlake Romance

With the vampire world on the brink of civil war over the scarcity of untainted human blood, battle lines are being drawn between the once peaceful vampire and human enclave of Penton, Alabama, and the powerful Vampire Tribunal. When the descendant of a powerful shaman is sent to bring Penton's second-in-command back under Tribunal control, will Glory Cummings help Mirren Kincaid find absolution for his ruthless past, or will she turn him back into the Tribunal's killing machine?

 It’s a town under siege, a powerful warrior in a battle with his past, and the power of one woman who can make the earth move—literally—as the Penton Legacy continues.


172 comments:

Sandy said...

I had a guy read two of my books in my Odyssey Mysteries Trilogy, but he didn't read the third one. The reason he gave was it wasn't the genre he liked to read. He knew me, or he wouldn't have read the first two because they were romances.

I don't know the answer to this question. I think there is always going to be gender bias.



Suzanne Johnson said...

You're probably right, Sandy. I know the gender bias is there, but it (naively) surprised me to hear of this marketing strategy being used today. As an author, I'm not sure I would've gone along with it. Then again, it might pay off.

Sandy said...

Suzanne, it's sad that it's that way, but there are so many other biases sader than this one.

Vicki Batman, sassy writer said...

Very interesting. I doubt that even if I changed my name to gender neutral, men would read my stuff. Handsome won't because it is romance. I have had some men read and they told me they liked my stories. How come I can read a mystery by a male author?

Very interesting.

jean hart stewart said...

The only male readers I have are for my historicals. I Don't intend to try to buck the market. You gotta write what' in you and I write mostly romance....

Suzanne Johnson said...

Thanks for the comments, everyone! I knew that most urban fantasy readers are women, and most UF authors are women, so it never occurred to me that I might increase male readers if I took a gender-neutral pen name. So interesting, Fierce, that you don't think gender name has impact on sales.

Interestingly enough, a woman commented on the blog post where I interviewed "Gender-Neutral," that she rarely read books by male authors but might give that one a chance. So it works both ways.

Suzanne Johnson said...

Definitely on presentation, Fierce, and I think on genre too. General "literary" fiction isn't such an issue, and there's probably a reverse bias in favor of women authors in our romance books. If I wrote straight science fiction, though (no romantic elements), I'd probably change my name to Jack!

Paris said...

Interesting post and question. No, I don't think we've moved much past the Victorian age when it comes to attitudes. On the other hand, I think women tend to be less gender-biased than men when it comes to deciding who to read.

I keep hoping that one of these days people stop making decisions based on any kind of gender question. That won't happen until we stop identifying people with the stereotype assigned to their gender.

Probably won't happen until sometime after a zombie apocalypse but I'm hopeful:)

BTW: Wicked-interesting blurb!

Liza O'Connor said...

Great topic. I think a savy author who wants their books read by a wider audience has to consider gender neutral in their marketing strategy. We can't change how people think, we can only change how they perceive us.

Andrea Wenger said...

I tend not to read male authors because the stories don't have enough emotion and don't portray women realistically. So I identify with the male readers who say they tend not to read female authors because the stories have too much emotion and don't portray men realistically. Until both men and women write stories in a gender-neutral way and portray both sexes realistically, these biases won't change. One reason few men read romance is because the market is driven by a female readership that wants a hot-alpha-fantasy hero.

I try to portray my male characters as realistically as possible. Real men are much more interesting to me than a hot-alpha-fantasy. But as long as my genre is called women's fiction, it might be difficult for me to convince men that they might like my stories.

Cassandra L Shaw said...

As I mostly (as this stage write romance or strong romantic elements) I am happy to use Cassandra L Shaw as my author name. And would imagine most of my readers would be female(if I am ever published) However, if I were to write a suspense or mystery without much or very little romance I might just change That to C L Shaw if that brought in fresh readers - but my website and blogs would remain with my pictures etc. In the end gender should have nothing to do with choosing a novel. But I do beleive it does - my husband picks male authors over female every time - and I am thinking that if Nora Roberts does it, then there must be something important in that name change for marketing purposes. We know Nora Roberts is romance - but her J. B. Robb stories are not.

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