I was going through “fantasy books” on amazon and was surprised to see that most of them are written by women, and the ratio is not even close. I was kind of expecting the opposite.

Does anyone know why this might be the case?

  • Vanth@reddthat.com
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    8 days ago

    I suspect your algorithm has offered you a biased sampling.

    As of the 2010’s, 79% of Fantasy/Sci-Fi genres bestselling books were written by men.

    Source, also contains other interesting author demographics.

    • gramie@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      But OP was speaking specifically about fantasy books, and not specifying only bestsellers.

      My guess, with no data to back it up, is that both men and women enjoy writing fantasy and science fiction, and many of them are good at it.

      But writing science fiction often requires a science background, and historically there are many more men than women who have that. It is certainly becoming more balanced, but the difference is still there.

      So women, who generally don’t have as scientific a background, turn to fantasy where they can create their own worlds.

  • Zonetrooper@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    The last few times this was brought up for discussion, one thing that many people mentioned - including quite a few who had interacted with publishers - was that publishers were strongly selecting for female authors. Some of this may have been in an effort to correct for lack of female presence in what was perceived as a male-dominated genre, some may have been trying to find the next wildly successful Rowling / Suzanne Collins / Sarah Maas / etc.

    Several expressed that it was actually difficult to get a response as a male fantasy author, so this well-intentioned drive may have resulted now in some over correction bringing us to our current place.

  • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 days ago

    Youre better off asking why women overall are more likely to read. It follows that more women would be authors. And it gets even worse if you’re looking at book club participation where women are much more likely to participate ime as the frequent only man at book clubs.

    For your fantasy book authors, you probably were expecting the opposite because society historically pushed male authors to the forefront and you can still see this today where many people will list their top fantasy books and not a single woman author can be found. This is either inadvertent or intentional sexism.

  • Fletcher@lemmy.today
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    8 days ago

    I don’t have a problem with women writing fantasy books. I just wish the fantasy market wasn’t glutted with ‘romantasy’ novels. I really, really dislike those.

    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      I can appreciate what you’re saying, but it’s kind of like action adventure films. They mix the genres because the audience they’re targeting wants that. So, if women are interested in romance, they can expand the fantasy readership by putting that in there. I’ve read some that aren’t bad and some that are pretty tiring, but Allen Dean Foster wove a romance element into the Flinx series now and then, and it was a key part of the Spellsinger series. So not really just a women-only thing, and likely for the same reasons - expanding the market for the books.