Weekend Lounge ~ Where Have the Men Gone?

Find the post in question here!

Welcome to the weekend! 

Today we're going to look into the question as to why males have been not only cast out of the book industry, but are actively ignored and looked down on as readers by those still inside. This is not a new issue. Where did all this hostility come from, and why is a growing problem?

First, I will direct you to author Kristin McTiernan's Substack and her recent interview with Louis L'Amour's son, Beau. It's quite an interesting read. If you do not know who Louis L'Amour is, well, then that is very indicative of the very problem we are facing today. Let us just say he is the top selling and most influential western writer of the 20th century (the only ones who come close are Max Brand and Zane Grey), and that he isn't as well known today is a sign of what we are talking about. There is an ambivalence, at best, to even bothering to approach half of the population as potential customers. That is not a sign of a healthy industry.

This isn't a new problem, but is one that is finally being addressed today after over a quarter of a century being blatantly ignored by the top dogs in charge of the old industry. Why don't mean read and why does an entire industry seem uninterested in learning why?

The above video attacks the most recent blow-up over the "Men's Fiction" problem and what to do about it. She isn't the first one to talk about this, not even recently, but it is a sign that more and more folks are waking up to the issue and wish to do something about it.

I recommend both the video and the interview linked above, but we all well know there is a bias against men in writing, specifically men who don't want to write for women or middle-aged urbanite women's grievance study pet projects. But this is the nature of OldPub and what it has allowed itself to become, which is a gatekeeper for letting in mediocrity at best above all else. They use their trope checklist-adled brains to check the right boxes both for the author their eyes are set upon and for the works they want to pump out to their increasingly microscopic readership.

This is who runs the industry now:

And they'll take their dying husk of an industry with them to the grave. There is no returning from this level of tone-deaf behavior. OldPub is dead and not coming back.

You might lament that it ended up this way, but that's how it was always going to be when the industry didn't select for intent, ambition, or sociability, only on those who faked it until they made it. Once said people got in, the mask dropped, the gates swung shut, and now you've been subverted. The only thing that happens now is terminal decline.

Should have kept vigilant! But they didn't, and now they are paying for it, swirling down the drain to irrelevance. It cannot be stopped now because there is no one in charge with the desire to change course. Like all cultists, the need to go down with the ship far outweighs the desire to turn before barreling into the rocks. This result is what they want.

Of course, this is all only if you're still focused on the old industry. OldPub is dead because old things die. It was always going to happen, we just didn't know how or when, and while lamenting about how it happened is natural, eventually we're going to have to accept it's gone, never to return. And at that point we will have to move onto something new and built on sturdier ground. Most of us already have: it's called NewPub.

So what is a good way forward out of this? Perhaps this response from McTiernan's interview with L'Amour's son should help clear it up:

And this is exactly the sort of thing that is going to carry NewPub forward into the future. There is no other way, if we want to both connect to the past and find a new road to travel down, then to use the last ideas that gave any sort of success as to how to reach abandoned audiences.

We have our path forward, and nothing is going to stop us. Especially, not anyone who still clings to a dead industry while pretending it is still vital.

At the end of the day, this destruction isn't anything new. We all know who is doing it and why, and they have no problem telling you themselves. Now that we know it, we can work to building something much better than what we're leaving behind.

And it's about time!

The newest issue of Cirsova is out now! My story, Void Railway, a tale of creeping terror in space and the Enforcer fighting against it, is included. Check it out to see just what NewPub has to offer!