I think most of us who have been writing for a while, if we were to look back, would admit that when we first approached the idea of writing a book that it was with a certain degree of naivete. I mean, all we wanted to do was write. Who knew, up front, that we’d have to be marketers? And who, in their wildest fantasies, had any idea of the interminably long time frames involved in the publishing process.
It’s been an education, to say the least.
In my more cynical moments, I’ve been wont to observe that publishing (at least in the CBA) is a business run by middle-aged women for middle-aged women. This observation is usually followed by me chastising myself for my cynicism and a stern warning not to think in stereotypes. However, I recently ran across the following on the blog of an agent who represents CBA authors:
“Sometimes I’m given a manuscript that won’t be easy to sell for a number of reasons…Maybe it is commercial women’s fiction but has a male main character—something that is a tough sell right now…” (emphasis added).
I have to be honest, as a male fiction writer, I’ve never considered this before—heck, such a thing never even entered my mind.
As a male, I think like a male, I write like a male. And, having been married for forty-one years, I know enough to know that there is a difference between the way a male thinks and the way a female thinks. So I know that if I had to write a novel with a female main character, there is no way I could pull it off. I don’t think many men could.
But, here’s the question: Would a woman purposely avoid buying/reading a novel for no other reason than it had a male main character?
When it comes to reading, I think the general consensus is people read books with main characters the same sex as they are because they better visualize it from the characters POV. For the same reason, they tend to buy books that have main characters relatively close to their same age.
When you asked this question, my first reaction was, “I’d read a book with a male character POV” but when I thought about the last one I had read with a male POV it was well over ten years ago at least. Think Harlequin used to do male POV romances occasionally.
Normally when a male or female author write a POV from the opposite gender, they tend to use their first and middle initials instead of their full name so that it does not put any stigmas in the reader’s mind.
If you have a romance and have two main characters, hero and heroine, it does not seem to matter to readers.
Thanks, Susette. When you consider that women read more books than men, your comment makes a lot of sense.
AVL
I probably wouldn’t refuse to buy or read a book based on the gender of the POV character, but I think it probably would, at the least, be awkward to have a male protagonist only if the book is women’t fiction. Just my .02 worth.
Thanks for your comment, Suzanne. I agree that it would be awkward to have a male only protag in women’s fiction. I think, no matter who the author, one must write with the idea in mind that women read more than men. I wish the original blogger had been more specific about what she meant by “male main character.”
AVL