Interesting read! You opened a can of worms for me! I would be interested in eavesdropping on these conversations re romance and genre/ self-publishing, but I don't know where to find them. I did, however, read the Barkan piece, the Pistelli interview, and ARX-HAN's "androgenic lit" proposal and got caught in a web of male literary discontent, and so I'm specifically interested in what "things happened" for you when you sat still and kept listening to those conversations. particularly the "plight of the white male" and the overreach of woke as it pertains to the publishing industry. I had strong reactions, so my solution to that is to try not to come to conclusions and to keep reading.
I am confused about a seeming opposition to identity as a marker ("overreach of woke") also seemingly being dependent upon identity (women in control, the plight of the white male)
But I do find the idea that novels about or books marketed to the "angry young man" is waning interesting, particularly during this moment when there are other cultural, social, and--yikes--political convos about this same group, if I don't agree with many of the reasons given I am reading.
Thanks for this. Substack does seem to be the place for now. And self publishing. And I guess we should embrace our new role as the underdogs and the underground.
Great post Anne. You're the first publisher I'm aware of who's recognized Substack for what it is - a tremendous incubator of talent, and, yes, the place where the "intellectual energy" has gone and far more productively tbh than with the Twitter of the 2010s. Traditional publishing and journalism barely deign to notice Substack - I don't think I've seen seen a single positive article - but everybody and their mother has a Substack now and it's where people WRITE, far more freely than they can for an edited publication. If I had a press I'd be doing exactly what you're doing - getting outside of the "one known market" and its endless echo chamber - and looking for people who are out doing the thing and organically building a following. It's really wonderful that you've found John and ARX-HAN. More publishers should be like you!
And fwiw I have no allegiance to Substack; in fact, I'm quite skeptical of the company itself and doubt it'll last long as a good place for writers, just as so many others before it have "pivoted" or whatever for profit reasons (unlike the decentralized blogosphere, for which one might be rightly nostalgic). It does seem to be where a bunch of smart people happen to be right now, but it's the people, not the platform, that interest me.
But I would add that the platform gives those people resources that simply weren't available before - the ability to write in longform, with no restraints (character count, etc), and to seamlessly build community through their writing. These people were just having their writing marinate in their laptops before or else thinking that there was no point in writing at all.
Yes, so much, to that last sentence. That is, it may be that any platform would have done that — I've never tried any others, and mainly chose Substack because some writers I read published on it, which seemed like a good indicator — but now have so much writing in existence and out in the world because of starting a publication here.
Do you know of any self published crime authors? Genre with a certain literary stance—like, say, Tana French or Sara Gran? Would be interested in getting to know that. Always enjoy the newsletter!
Dunno if it’s your thing, but a self-pubbed book I really enjoyed, and which has built quite a following, is Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. Your son likes anime, right? He might like this—got a strong anime feel in the vein of Berserk.
Very much agree that there's a lot of interesting ideas kicking around on Substack - like a more centralized version of the original blogosphere than waned after bigtech and social media took over the internet.
"...the excision of this type of fiction [by white men under forty] from the marketplace is, in large part, an inevitable outcome of current moral and cultural values of this group [upper-middle-class liberal white women, who dominate publishing]..."
But aren't we told time and time again that, statistically, women are more likely to be readers? Which tracks, considering that women have, historically, been less encouraged in sport/physical activities, comics and gaming, etc. Consequently, over decades, we've developed a lopsided market for books in which women are the main buyers (and more frequent buyers - in 2018, 11% of women read 31 or more books per year, compared to 5% of men).
So the lean towards publishing women authors appears to be primarily a business decision, rather than a result of trad publishing's "current moral and cultural values". As far as I can see, the dominant value of trad publishing (particularly big legacy houses) is - and continues to be - 'make money'. If women readers are your market, and they prefer women authors over male authors, you're going to publish the books that fit your market.
If commentators like Ross Barkan and ARX-HAN want to see more male authors published, and more books on shelves that "accurately capture the psyche of millennial masculinity", they might do better to make it a long term project to develop reading across gender lines more broadly by encouraging young men to read.
Maybe I’m old enough to remember the 80s as a cultural wasteland, which I now view fondly under the cloud of nostalgia, and that there was nothing worth reading then. But it turns out that time sifts all that into a sort of intellectual recycling conveyor belt, leaving the survivors as work worth engaging with, reading, listening, viewing. Maybe the there is really nothing for any under 40 write to really say when they emerge from an infantilized cocoon with the expectation that experience is a reaction to screens instead of the real world. Then there is Starburster by Fontaines DC. Sure, it’s a band with a song. But they sure do have something to say.
WPA for intellectual life! I am in! I find that adults (as in people well past traditional college age) are so much more enthusiastic as students than, well, you know, traditional college students. They hunger for intellectual conversations because those conversations are so few and far between in our society. In fact, I've started a sort of salon with a group of friends where we get together and discuss "intellectual" topics, like, what is art?
Really interesting, thanks!
Interesting read! You opened a can of worms for me! I would be interested in eavesdropping on these conversations re romance and genre/ self-publishing, but I don't know where to find them. I did, however, read the Barkan piece, the Pistelli interview, and ARX-HAN's "androgenic lit" proposal and got caught in a web of male literary discontent, and so I'm specifically interested in what "things happened" for you when you sat still and kept listening to those conversations. particularly the "plight of the white male" and the overreach of woke as it pertains to the publishing industry. I had strong reactions, so my solution to that is to try not to come to conclusions and to keep reading.
I'm with you on the strong reactions!
I am confused about a seeming opposition to identity as a marker ("overreach of woke") also seemingly being dependent upon identity (women in control, the plight of the white male)
But I do find the idea that novels about or books marketed to the "angry young man" is waning interesting, particularly during this moment when there are other cultural, social, and--yikes--political convos about this same group, if I don't agree with many of the reasons given I am reading.
Thanks for this. Substack does seem to be the place for now. And self publishing. And I guess we should embrace our new role as the underdogs and the underground.
Great post Anne. You're the first publisher I'm aware of who's recognized Substack for what it is - a tremendous incubator of talent, and, yes, the place where the "intellectual energy" has gone and far more productively tbh than with the Twitter of the 2010s. Traditional publishing and journalism barely deign to notice Substack - I don't think I've seen seen a single positive article - but everybody and their mother has a Substack now and it's where people WRITE, far more freely than they can for an edited publication. If I had a press I'd be doing exactly what you're doing - getting outside of the "one known market" and its endless echo chamber - and looking for people who are out doing the thing and organically building a following. It's really wonderful that you've found John and ARX-HAN. More publishers should be like you!
I appreciate this Sam!
And fwiw I have no allegiance to Substack; in fact, I'm quite skeptical of the company itself and doubt it'll last long as a good place for writers, just as so many others before it have "pivoted" or whatever for profit reasons (unlike the decentralized blogosphere, for which one might be rightly nostalgic). It does seem to be where a bunch of smart people happen to be right now, but it's the people, not the platform, that interest me.
Fair.
But I would add that the platform gives those people resources that simply weren't available before - the ability to write in longform, with no restraints (character count, etc), and to seamlessly build community through their writing. These people were just having their writing marinate in their laptops before or else thinking that there was no point in writing at all.
Yes, so much, to that last sentence. That is, it may be that any platform would have done that — I've never tried any others, and mainly chose Substack because some writers I read published on it, which seemed like a good indicator — but now have so much writing in existence and out in the world because of starting a publication here.
Do you know of any self published crime authors? Genre with a certain literary stance—like, say, Tana French or Sara Gran? Would be interested in getting to know that. Always enjoy the newsletter!
we need aggregators! For substacks, for self-published works worth checking out, for podcasts.
Seriously—they took Google Reader from us and gave us ChatGPT in its place
Dunno if it’s your thing, but a self-pubbed book I really enjoyed, and which has built quite a following, is Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. Your son likes anime, right? He might like this—got a strong anime feel in the vein of Berserk.
will mention to him and report back!
Thanks for the shoutout!
Very much agree that there's a lot of interesting ideas kicking around on Substack - like a more centralized version of the original blogosphere than waned after bigtech and social media took over the internet.
"...the excision of this type of fiction [by white men under forty] from the marketplace is, in large part, an inevitable outcome of current moral and cultural values of this group [upper-middle-class liberal white women, who dominate publishing]..."
But aren't we told time and time again that, statistically, women are more likely to be readers? Which tracks, considering that women have, historically, been less encouraged in sport/physical activities, comics and gaming, etc. Consequently, over decades, we've developed a lopsided market for books in which women are the main buyers (and more frequent buyers - in 2018, 11% of women read 31 or more books per year, compared to 5% of men).
So the lean towards publishing women authors appears to be primarily a business decision, rather than a result of trad publishing's "current moral and cultural values". As far as I can see, the dominant value of trad publishing (particularly big legacy houses) is - and continues to be - 'make money'. If women readers are your market, and they prefer women authors over male authors, you're going to publish the books that fit your market.
If commentators like Ross Barkan and ARX-HAN want to see more male authors published, and more books on shelves that "accurately capture the psyche of millennial masculinity", they might do better to make it a long term project to develop reading across gender lines more broadly by encouraging young men to read.
Absolutely agree. They might reply it’s a chicken/egg situation.
Yes, I read Barkan's article and I believe he said as much.
To which one might reply that it seems to be less a "chicken/egg" situation and more "chickens coming home to roost".
Ha, indeed
Really enjoyed this post. Former academic, self publishing one book this month while preparing for a traditional small press release in spring 25.
Maybe I’m old enough to remember the 80s as a cultural wasteland, which I now view fondly under the cloud of nostalgia, and that there was nothing worth reading then. But it turns out that time sifts all that into a sort of intellectual recycling conveyor belt, leaving the survivors as work worth engaging with, reading, listening, viewing. Maybe the there is really nothing for any under 40 write to really say when they emerge from an infantilized cocoon with the expectation that experience is a reaction to screens instead of the real world. Then there is Starburster by Fontaines DC. Sure, it’s a band with a song. But they sure do have something to say.
WPA for intellectual life! I am in! I find that adults (as in people well past traditional college age) are so much more enthusiastic as students than, well, you know, traditional college students. They hunger for intellectual conversations because those conversations are so few and far between in our society. In fact, I've started a sort of salon with a group of friends where we get together and discuss "intellectual" topics, like, what is art?
Enjoy your break!