File this under: Smack A Bitch (comma) Am I Gonna Have To

[megwrites]

This makes me beyond furious.

The short version of the story: There's a cover to an anthology of stories in which half the authors in the anthology are male, half are female.

Yet *all* the author names featured on the cover are male.

A lot of people have had reactions varying from "sexist scum" to "eh, that's business".

I think that it probably wouldn't have done one damn thing to hurt sales if at least *one* female name had been featured on the cover. It might have helped. I know that I personally stray away from anything that looks like its inhabited solely by White Guys. Why? What writers of color and women bring to the party is more to my taste.

Any time I see an all White Guy cover/anthology, I can't help but think, "This is going to be a big slice of the same boring story that white guys have been writing for 50 years. With a side of offensive. I'll pass."

Inclusion of women and authors of color makes me *trust* the quality of the anthology more.

Does that mean any anthology with a woman or WoC is automatically good? No. Does this mean anything written by a White Guy will automatically be boring, dry, and offensive? Heavens no. (See also: Neil Gaiman).

But covers are about snap judgments, and my snap judgment will bend in your favor if I see some of *my* people included. Yes, *my* people.

But what gets me more is the reply that came from Jason Williams of Nightshade Press (the press which is publishing the anthology in question).

This is besides the fact that I think it shows some of the most unprofessional behavior I've seen. What was Jason Williams thinking? I dread even contemplating what ran through his head.

Here's a rule, for all you business people out there. Don't stoop to replying in livejournal comments. There can be no good in that. If you feel the need to respond to the mudslinging, do so in professional manner. A press release, a carefully worded letter on a website.

Livejournal is not the place for you to enter this fray. This is a place that prizes the ability to put funny words on pictures of cats. Is this really the venue for you to respond?

And for fuck's sake, if you do feel the burning need to respond via LJ comments - do not do so without a lawyer and a PR consultant right there next to you.

Why?

Because if you don't have those people, you'll say things like this:

"So I'm going to pick the five names that I think will best sell the book, and frankly, gender isn't important in that decision to me, unless I think the author's gender will help me sell copies of the book."

So, gender's not important to you unless gender's important to you. Let's chew on that for a while. Let it leave the deep, hickory smoked flavor of fail in our mouths.

So you've just said that you don't think about gender, unless gender is important. And as a white male, gender is *never* important to you. Because you, as a white guy, never have to think about gender or race. You can very safely ignore it, because no matter what, you will always be represented. You don't have to worry about not getting a slice of the pie.

Because nobody has to create special movements and special interests and agendas just to make sure White Guys get their fair share or at least the opportunity to try. White Guys don't have to scan the shelves carefully and pick out a few treasured authors who are like them, who represent them. They have nearly a whole damn genre to pick from.

So yes, I'm sure you thought that gender wasn't important in your decision. Well, it should have been. The fact that it isn't speaks to the fact that you're probably a lot more sexist than you think, Mr. Williams.

Just like all those nice people on the internet think that being colorblind is a good thing. (It's not. Let hth_the_first explain why being colorblind is very BAD).

And without that lawyer and PR consultant there to smack you upside the head (and you deserve it like WOAH), you'll go on to say something like this:

"I have read posts here that say "so-and-so is a way bigger author than so-and-so that you put on the cover, so you must be sexist" and you're going to have to trust me on this: you're probably wrong. I have access to sales data, you probably don't. I do this for a living, I own the company, and I don't have a foreign conglomerate backing us, so when I'm wrong it costs me a lot of money. If I thought putting five women on the cover would sell more copies, I'd have done it."

Which translates to: "I'm invoking WhiteGuy privilege so I can declare that you're all wrong because it makes me massively uncomfortable. I'll even vaguely refer to sales data, thus cementing my rightness and your wrongness. Because, of course, whenever someone disagrees with WhiteGuy privilege, they're instantly wrong. Because being white and having a penis gives me the magical power to invalidate any argument against me without even considering it to be worth thinking about. Also, this whole fairness thing doesn't matter to me. Unless there's money in it. Because I'm plenty willing to use women for money, I just don't care if they get treated equitably."

Frankly, I think his sales argument is bunk. I think the amount of people he's pissed off, plus the amount of women who probably will be wary of even touching the book because there's not even one woman mentioned, plus the people who probably hadn't heard of the male authors, but knew one of the female authors will equal bad sales.

I certainly will not even touch this anthology, and I certainly will think twice before touching anything by Nightshade Press. It'll take a damn good author to overcome the bile I feel.

Thing about women is, we have money and if you piss us off enough, we will take that money elsewhere. Combined, we can lay a lot more than twenty grand on the table.

Which is why you need your lawyer and your PR consultant sitting there, instructing you on how to at least write a professional, politely worded response that doesn't make people want to punch you in the face.

I think I shall declare next week to be: Women Writer's Week. In which I will rec, pimp, and otherwise regale you with links to fabulous books and stories written by women authors. Maybe you could do the same.

Comments

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm going to repost here what I posted at Coalescent (http://coalescent.livejournal.com)'s journal:

Okay, may I interject from the perspective of yet another publishing person?

It isn't that female sf/ writers aren't popular, or even that those particular female writers aren't popular.

It is that when you are presenting a book to the buyers at B&N and Borders, the only thing those two buyers - the two buyers who will constitute the largest part by far of your print run - the only thing those two buyers care about is how the author they see listed on the front cover modeled in their system for previous sales track record. And while all of the female authors presented in this anthology are amazing writers, they don't have a great sell-through at B&N and Borders. If one of the female authors were Diana Gabaldon or Laurell K. Hamilton, they would be on the cover.

Now, personally, I probably wouldn't have included Lucius Shepard, as he actually doesn't have a great sales model. But he is a Nightshade house author, so Jason and Jeremy are obligated to put him on the cover. If the anthology included Liz Williams - another Nightshade house author - they probably would have included her on the cover as well.

They need to do what is best for the book as a whole, not for any individual writer in particular, regardless of gender.

My two cents.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

>Now, personally, I probably wouldn't have included Lucius Shepard, as he actually doesn't have a great sales model.

Ah, interesting! I've wondered about him--he publishes _a ton,_ so I assume he must sell at least okay, but still...I have wondered.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

He publishes a lot with small presses; there is a reason that large houses don't pick him up as a house author.

He's a great writer but for a large trade house to publish him, they will want the book to sell at least 15-20,000 copies, and he just doesn't have that kind of track record.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd figured, but nice to hear it confirmed. And nice that there's a place for those kinds of writers (even if Shepard himself doesn't really do it for me). Thanks for the info.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

The thing is? I think the cover outrages me less than the response from Mr. Williams.

If he had bothered to couch his response in professional, businesslike language, I might have been much less angered.

Since you are far more of an expert than I am, let me ask you. Would changing *one* name on the cover list have affected the book being bought by B&N?

I totally do understand that there's a business aspect to this, and I understand that putting your bestsellers out front is just good business - but I also wonder if there's not some wiggle room.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

It really depends upon the name. Like I said, I probably would not have included Lucius, based upon his sales track record. But they are obligated to include him. And as a publishing professional? They would have been negligent not to include the other four, particularly Garth Nix. Hi name alone will sell more than all the others combined.

Most of the women included in this anthology have a slower sales record than Lucius, so it is hard to say. We know who they are because we read widely. The average joe SF/F reader shopping for books is not going to know who they are. They may even pass on the book based on the fact that they don't have a passing familiarity with the author.

The fact is that Nightshade is a small company and does not have co-op monies to toss around to get the anthology god placement in a large chain. They are therefore relegated to using the only tool they have - the cover - to grab the attention of as wide an audience as possible within a brief - usually less than two-second - perusal.

So it then makes sense to include the biggest selling on the front of the book. I probably would have done the same thing, and not felt a whit of guilt about betraying my gender.

:-)

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Here's another question that I put to you and your great publishing wisdom:

Is the number of women that might be put off by an all male cover made up for by the people who will recognize the authors. Because it seems to me that if you substituted one of the names, you still - playing the odds (unless I'm wrong, and I very well could be) - could count on people recognizing the other four.

Especially if, as you say, Garth Nix all by himself is bigger than the other four combined?

The fact is that Nightshade is a small company and does not have co-op monies to toss around to get the anthology god placement in a large chain. They are therefore relegated to using the only tool they have - the cover - to grab the attention of as wide an audience as possible within a brief - usually less than two-second - perusal.

Well, I think that's sort of everyone's point.A lot of people are saying "hey, this *cover* bothered me." They're not arguing against the contents. I've heard no one say that they think this anthology is bad, or that the content within isn't equitable. But they're saying that the cover, the major selling point, is off putting to their sensibilities.

I guess the thing is, we're saying that "not having women will hurt your sales" and they're saying "not having the biggest names will hurt our sales" and we're wondering why one risk seems so minisicule to them in comparison to the other.

It is a trade off, I recognize that. You put a woman up there, you knock off a better known name. You put all the big hitters, you piss people off.

But how many people would that one name have drawn, versus making the entire cover more palatable?

I know that given both the art work and the all male list on the front, my first assumption about the book was, "This thing's gonna be a well dry snooze fest". Upon reading the ToC and seeing female authors, I thought, "Hmm, probably would be a good anthology, but I just can't bring myself to pick it up".

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

I think that far fewer women are put off by the lack of female nams on the cover than most of you might think.

I am a woman. I am a GAY woman. And I could care less that there isn't a woman on the cover. I'd be a lot more upset if the anthology didn't include women in the TOC. And if I were a bookseller, a book buyer or a publisher, I'd be exceedingly upset if my being overly PC with the jacket meant I lost sales for the book.

I don't exclusively look for female writers, but I read a lot of them. But overall, I look for good writers. When I go into a bookstore, I am not the avgerage reader. I spend more time looking at the books - the jacket, the table of contents, the typeface, the ackowledgments, everything. Most avergae readers don't do that. They go by a quick glance at the cover. So you have to use what you have.

Since most SF/F buyers are women (this is a fact), and they seem to buy just about anything, I don't think that they will lose any readers at all. The Garth Nix thing - his audience is about 80% female. Not putting him on the cover would seriously hurt sales.

But not including Margo Lanagan? I love her writing. Really love it. But aside from two women I know who have read her books, the only people who have ever recommended her books to me have, in fact, been male. At least seven male friends have recommended her to me. Do I find it odd that more women haven't read her work? Not really. In fact, until just now, I never thought about it. Much in the same way that I think a lot of women don't use gender as a criteria for choosing the fiction they read.

And two of the women in the anthology are writers I've never heard of, and I work in the industry. So it's not hard to see how jason and Jonathan might think that having lesser-known writers on the cover might hurt sales.

Is it better to include a woman's name on the cover to make a point, and hurt the sales of the book OR included names that will make people pick up a book and buy it and READ the stories by those same women, people who might not have picked up the book before?

I think Jason did what was right for the book.

He just needs to be more diplomatic when he answers questions.

[david-de-beer.livejournal.com]

>Much in the same way that I think a lot of women don't use gender as a criteria for choosing the fiction they read.

this is what I saw while working in a bookstore as well. Fact -the largest number of buyers and readers are women. Are their choices of purchase influenced by the gender of the author they are considering buying? Honestly, not that I could ever see.

I do remember the occasional man that was biased against women writers. One of them finally came around, when he discovered Robin Hobb, saw that being woman does not make them weaker writers than men.

I don't remember any of my female customers - which constituted between 60-75% of a month's sales - factoring in the gender of the writers. It could be, and I just didn't notice, but I genuinely don't think so.
A hell of a lot of things came into play before a word of text was read, in the decision to make the sale, from the picture on the cover to blurbs by other writers, to the advice of friends and my recommendations, but gender was not one I ever saw as a a decision factor.

>He just needs to be more diplomatic when he answers questions

this is also true.

[fashionista-35.livejournal.com]

But playing a wee bit of devil's advocate here-- and understanding full well that it's the Big Box buyers who matter-- didn't the publisher harm those potential numbers by going on the defensive on that blog? I mean, sure, there were people who weren't going to buy it because of the exclusion of female authors on the cover, however, with his statements, both in tone and content, it seems to me that he did a pretty good job of alienating potential buyers.

Then again, the way kerfluffles like this tend to go, as many people might pick up the book now, as wouldn't, simply because they heard about it through the grapevine.

They need to do what is best for the book as a whole, not for any individual writer in particular, regardless of gender.

The exclusion of female authors was annoying but not debilitating-- the publisher's comments on the other hand? Insulting and condescending. I know which would affect me more as a buyer.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

Well, Jason is a good guy but he has a temper, and sometimes I wish he would stop and count to ten before he writes anything down.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

That probably would have served him well. I think a lot of really good people in business sabatoge themselves by thinking emotionally when they need to think rationally.

He's in good company, though. The people at SixApart still haven't learned how to talk to people when a big, hairy issue comes up.

It's unfortunate that a lot of people (such as me) who don't know Jason Williams might get a rather bad impression of him. Especially when, from our point of view, it would have been just as easy for him to act professionally.

Although, with you to vouch for him, I find my cold, black heart unshrivelling just a little. I still don't agree with him totally, but the fury is abating.

[jennixen.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on the sexism thing.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[sarah-prineas.livejournal.com]

Well said. When buying anthologies and magazines I always notice the gender makeup of the TOC, and I would not buy a book with all male names on the cover or mostly male names in the TOC.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

See, I think he's negating that factor a lot, and he shouldn't. It's pretty much a fact that women buy more books than men.

I think courting the very sizeable market of Intelligent Discerning Women Who Read SF/F by putting at least one female author on the cover will make up for any loss you might have if someone doesn't see that one author.

Chances are they'll at least recognize one of the others. And bonus: you haven't insulted an entire gender.

[catie-james.livejournal.com]

Well said! :)