I know my book What More Could You Wish For is not one a man would pick up off the shelf - the cover's all pastel-y and light, kind of fluffy, and certainly doesn't denote any car chases or intrigue or high body counts.
I've heard from a few men who read it in its self-published version which had a more 'serious' cover (but an even less man-attracting title, Mr. Right-Enough) and they've all said that although it's not the kind of book they'd ordinarily read they couldn't put it down. Nice reviews, all, but how do I get men to read my book if they're not related to me? Maybe I could provide them with a fake cover wrap with an AK-47 on it so they wouldn't be embarrassed to read it on the CTA.
Interesting article in the New York Times about women's fiction.
The Second Shelf
On the Rules of Literary Fiction for Men and Women
By MEG WOLITZER
Published: March 30, 2012
If “The Marriage Plot,” by Jeffrey Eugenides, had been written by a
woman yet still had the same title and wedding ring on its cover, would
it have received a great deal of serious literary attention? Or would
this novel (which I loved) have been relegated to “Women’s Fiction,”
that close-quartered lower shelf where books emphasizing relationships
and the interior lives of women are often relegated? Certainly “The
Marriage Plot,” Eugenides’s first novel since his Pulitzer Prize-winning
“Middlesex,” was poised to receive tremendous literary interest
regardless of subject matter, but the presence of a female protagonist,
the gracefulness, the sometimes nostalgic tone and the
relationship-heavy nature of the book only highlight the fact that many
first-rate books by women and about women’s lives never find a way to
escape “Women’s Fiction” and make the leap onto the upper shelf where
certain books, most of them written by men (and, yes, some women — more
about them later), are prominently displayed and admired.
Read the rest of the article.
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