| Four bestsellers narrated by men. |
A pant from August 2012.There is discussion right now* on the Historical Novel Society's Yahoogroup whether women, who are said to be the greater number of readers of historical fiction, will read novels where the first person narrator is male. To be more exact, the question is whether these readers will buy these books.
It appears that certain publishers do not think so. I have heard from more than one author of historical fiction that although an editor might love a manuscript, the sales and marketing folks put the kaibosh on adding it to their catalog. They say it is too large a risk to publish a book with a male narrator. Women just won't buy them, and there are not enough men buying historical fiction to make up the loss.
I have two questions.
1. Is this even true?
2. What data are the publishers' sales departments using?
I can think of several novels off the top of my head that are narrated by men.
Bernard Cornwell's series The Warlord Chronicles and The Saxon Chronicles
Barry Unsworth's Morality Play
Brandy Purdy's The Confession of Piers Gaveston
Kate Sedley's Roger the Chapman mysteries
And I know there are many more. I read all of these enthusiastically, and last time I checked my DBA indicated I am female
(I suppose the next question is.. but am I female? Hmm... hadn't thought of that when I wrote this.)
I will save my rant on this subject for a later date. For now I want to hear what you have to say. Please take the anonymous poll in the upper right hand corner of this blog. Add specific comments by clicking on "Comments" below. We need to get to the bottom of this.
* Originally posted on 12/9/08.
