“From my personal experience (and I really can only speak from that perspective), I truly believe that for literary fiction, it’s much easier to sell boy writers than gals. I know. Who can possibly make such a general statement but I have to say that I’ve encountered several worthy manuscripts that I’m rather convinced that if the writer had been male, the novel would have sold.”
–from Pub Rants by Kristin Nelson, Denver literary agent
My advice to female writers: use a male pseudonym or an androgynous name unless you write romance. If I was starting now, that’s what I would do. Unfortunately, it never ever occurred to me that readers would select a book based on the gender of the writer.
Well I certainly don’t select by the gender, but that’s just me. A lot of my favourite authors are female and as you know I read a heap of books. I can’t imagine it to be true that publishers favour male authors, but you should know.
I don’t know if it’s something true for any books.
According to what i hear daily creativ activities are told like a spare-time for Women ,when Mens are much more seen like serious artists.
When i say i’m painting people ask me if i like decoration stuffs, and if i could do a portrait of their kids ^^
Gynie – sigh. I sympathise.
All I can say is that a lot of people are missing out on some great books by female writers because of their pre-conceptions and bigotry.
I read a recent blog by English/American fantasy author J.V Jones (Julie Victoria) that said in countries where her books were sold without her photo on the sleeve, most people assumed she was a male.