If you want broad appeal, just copy bestsellers. Obviously, make sure there's a character for all audiences to connect with (obviously a male and a female). The question of action vs romance is sort of irrelevant. From my understanding, bestsellers exploit suspense, which I think is hardwired in most humans to supersede all other elements. You could be writing about a sixty year old grandma opening up a bubble gum shop, so long as you can keep your reader hungry for answers. This might mean adding stuff in your story that isn't really necessary for the story itself, but will help compel a lot of different people to keep reading. The only junk I've ever read (Dan brown, Lee Childs) kept me my brain asking questions on every single page. So, romance, adventure, technical jargon--all of that takes a back seat to suspense, which appeals to most of us, regardless of gender.
In the genres that matter, it's about 50/50. https://www.statista.com/statistics/470748/favorite-book-genres-gender-usa/ In fact, it would be better to say, that statistically readership in fiction is more or less even across the board, and that romance is predominantly for women and business/politics for men. Both are equally deplorable so no one need get offended...
Matter for sales? I'm not snarking, not in this particular moment , but "matter" is ambiguous. (There's a pay-gate for that link.)
Plus, the link appears to go to a study that relies on online polling. If that's what they're doing, you'd need to see more about the methodology to draw any conclusions. Typically, such online polling is not scientific. I'd have to pay to see more, however.
Well, you can sort of figure it out by looking at percentage of books that are romance (it's ~ 35%) and the percentage of readers of that genre that are female (~80%) and then do the same for chic lit. What's obviously going to happen is that those other genres will have a more even demographic. Anyway, my apologies everyone for that link!
Drifting back: The implication here is that a mere friendship with a woman is as valueless as a dead-end job. But I'll bet that this guy is OK with being friends with men? That may offer some clues as to why your female reader is dubious--if her entire sex is unworthy of being friends with someone as magnificent as your whiny MC... see the possible issue?
I'm not seeing your statistical argument here. Nothing in the facts in your post here rule out the possibility of women being eighty percent of the readers of EVERY genre. Your argument seems to depend on some unstated fact.
You have to look at the genres, their percentages, and then weight them. For example, from everything I've seen, sci fi is 50/50 male female.
I feel as if, again, there's some fact you're not mentioning, perhaps because it's so obvious to you. But it's not obvious to me. Why can't sci fi be 50/50 and every other genre in the world be 80% female readers--or more? There's nothing that says that total readership needs to end up being half women and half men. I'm not saying that it's necessarily true that women read a lot more than men. I'm purely addressing a statistical argument that seems to be missing a piece. If some random person were making the argument, I'd assume that they don't understand statistics. I'm pretty confident that you do understand statistics. So I'm wondering what the missing piece is.
All I'm saying is that in some genres, literary, sci fi, historical, it could be fifty fifty, so long as other genres like romance chick lit l, maybe YA, and mystery have readership that is more female and those makes up most of all fiction. That way total readership could still be 80% female. Does that make sense?
Ah! You're not saying that some genres MUST have X percent of men. You're saying that it's POSSIBLE that they do. Yeah, sure. I'm not sure how those genres are the ones that "matter", but I'm tentatively assuming that the statistics on that page somehow communicated that those genres have more sales.
I just saw it as if people are going to spend their hardworking money on a product which is their time, which I value most. I want to give them their money's worth, which is their time. I was just curious asking a deeper question of insight of what both genders seek of interest in books. I am not set on gender categories but rather than what is selling in the market trend. When I first wrote the chapters years ago, all it was launch pad for catastrophic event that would propel him into the far future. I never had in mind on a set gender of liking and didn't even once come across my mind. I just wrote how I saw fit, as a story. When you have a male beta reader say a female isn't going to take much interest in it and next thing I know. Soon afterwards I have a female beta reader review and she wants to burn it. How would you react and feel? Obviously I knew I did something wrong for her harsh critic, but she did give me the light what I needed to change on it. So now those chapters are past memories into the main core of the story. I am a novice writer, still learning what Tropes are even.
No, but I think it takes care of itself in terms of priority. Presumably most males here are not writing the genres that predominantly cater to females. Still, it's important to remember that your reader base no matter what is going to be at least approximately half female. In terms of sales, probably romance matters most.
Well, that's part of the question we're discussing. They might be. That is, not "cater" in the sense that that's who the advertising folk are targeting, but that may be denial on the part of the advertising folk. In the end, the readership may still be predominantly female. Which is not entirely unlike what you said.
Look at the king of cross-market sales, Harry Potter, which has inroads everywhere, yet it's written very specifically for middle school boys. There's a lot to learn from that. The trick isn't to write your story for every group, but to choose an audience and then knock it out of the park for them. Other audiences (middle-aged women, for example) will pick up on the story's awesomeness, and then you get a broad audience snowball effect. But it's almost out of your hands, which is why it happens so seldom.
Well I would argue Romance and sci fi have nothing to do with each other. That's why it's important to go by genre.
Sure, but we have yet to discuss a genre that's dominated by male readers, and the thread is about male versus female readers. Edited to add: Actually, after reading @Steerpike 's message, I'm going to withdraw my "sure". There's absolutely no reason why romance and science fiction can't share elements.
Romance, or at least some elements of writing romance, seem to cross-over into every genre, and almost every book. There is quite often in science fiction, though not always, some romantic or interpersonal element that draws from romance, though in science fiction those elements don't comprise the main story line.
Even if there are differences in personality traits and interests between men and women, the differences sit on overlapping bell curves. There are lots of disagreeable women, risk adverse men... I'm very risk adverse, and that tickles the core of my toxic masculinity. And no one really knows how many men read women's fiction and romance. I got interested in romance literature after a lifetime of Conan and Die Hard, and I love it. When I buy a Nora Roberts romance, the clerk will assume I'm buying it for my wife, but I'm not. It's for me. All of your traits are on the same overlapping bell curves as everyone else. Anything you write well will appeal to some men and some women, but it will probably help you to write things you're actually interested in.
@33percent: Hey. I want to try something. I’m seeing some red flags here. And I’m really, really curious. If you want, you can email me a few chapters of your book, and I will see if I can tell what’s going on. I will PM you my email address. Let me know, if you want.
