Author sends out her novel's opening pages under a male name. Guess what happens...

[jukebox]

The male version is eight and a half times better at writing the exact same book.

She sent out the same opening pages 50 times to agents as herself and 50 times as a 'George'.

I sent the six queries I had planned to send that day. Within 24 hours George had five responses

 

[wlu29]

Would be curious to know the gender of the publishers

 

[Cracky]

Interesting.. but please explain why the two most successful series in recent memory were written by women... one of which is complete shit.. 50 shades of grey.. the other is wonderful in it's own way..Harry Potter...


Im not saying there's not a problem, but Im skepticle about how big of a problem it is at the same time... Perhaps, the book comes off from a male perspective and the expectation is that a male should have written it..

 

[Aegon Spengler]

Maybe they thought she was George R. R. Martin

Or maybe they thought "Catherine" had plagiarized "Georges" work, if she sent the exact same pages to the exact same people...lmao

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I bet the response to George and Cahterine is the complete opposite on Craiglist personals.

 

[Cold Front]

The whole thing is compete bullocks. She either made it up or it's bizarre happenstance. If there's one area where men do not have an advantage over women, it's in the field of fiction.

Let's see, J.K. Rowling, Danielle Steel, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, Patricia Cornwell, Mary Higgens Clark, Suzanne Collins, Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts, etc.

The list goes on and on and on.

It's nothing new, either. You can go back a hundred years and discover that a large percentage of the best-selling authors in the English-speaking world were women. I once saw a list showing that 30 to 40 percent of the best-selling authors of the late 19th century were women. That was before they could even vote.

Ever hear of Agatha Christie? She sold as many books as any man in the world other than perhaps William Shakespeare - and she did so primarily from the 1920s to the 1950s.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

George's version was way better, to be fair.

 

[Cayenne]

Not surprising. The reason J. K. Rowling used initials instead of her full real name Joanne is because books apparently sell better if the customers believe the author is male. Obviously now people realise she is female but at the very beginning nobody knew her. She also used a completely male pen name for her new crime book. Apparently even customers are unconsciously sexist.

 

[ALAN PARTRIDGE]

George's version was way better, to be fair.

lol

 

[speakhandsforme]

The whole thing is compete bullocks. She either made it up or it's bizarre happenstance. If there's one area where men do not have an advantage over women, it's in the field of fiction.

Let's see, J.K. Rowling, Danielle Steel, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, Patricia Cornwell, Mary Higgens Clark, Suzanne Collins, Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts, etc.

The list goes on and on and on.

It's nothing new, either. You can go back a hundred years and discover that a large percentage of the best-selling authors in the English-speaking world were women. I once saw a list showing that 30 to 40 percent of the best-selling authors of the late 19th century were women. That was before they could even vote.

Ever hear of Agatha Christie? She sold as many books as any man in the world other than perhaps William Shakespeare - and she did so primarily from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Well, that mountain of anecdotal evidence has me convinced.

 

[TSO]

Interesting.. but please explain why the two most successful series in recent memory were written by women... one of which is complete shit.. 50 shades of grey.. the other is wonderful in it's own way..Harry Potter...


Im not saying there's not a problem, but Im skepticle about how big of a problem it is at the same time... Perhaps, the book comes off from a male perspective and the expectation is that a male should have written it..

Three of the top five are written by women(and are complete shit) Harry Potter, Twilight, and 50 shades.

You have to look at their qualities though, there's more women than men, more women read novels than men, and the stories are all simple enough for a retard to follow.

If I were a publisher I'd be printing every crap series like maze runner, hunger games(might be in the top 5 as well) and shit like that to make money. I doubt there's any truth to the article given the direction literature is going. Even these sexist publishers want to make money.

 

[$uicideboy$]

Three of the top five are written by women(and are complete shit) Harry Potter, Twilight, and 50 shades.

You have to look at their qualities though, there's more women than men, more women read novels than men, and the stories are all simple enough for a retard to follow.

If I were a publisher I'd be printing every crap series like maze runner, hunger games(might be in the top 5 as well) and shit like that to make money. I doubt there's any truth to the article given the direction literature is going. Even these sexist publishers want to make money.

harry potter is complete shit? ok lmao never read a book again

 

[Falsedawn]

Three of the top five are written by women(and are complete shit) Harry Potter, Twilight, and 50 shades.

You have to look at their qualities though, there's more women than men, more women read novels than men, and the stories are all simple enough for a retard to follow.

If I were a publisher I'd be printing every crap series like maze runner, hunger games(might be in the top 5 as well) and shit like that to make money. I doubt there's any truth to the article given the direction literature is going. Even these sexist publishers want to make money.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

Someone create a duplicate thread with a really manly user name and see which thread gets more views. Science.

 

[Drago81]

Yeah... not how reliable an article regarding "sexism" is on Jezebel.com. Female authors are sometimes still looked down among the "academic elite", but in general society, I don't think they are disadvantaged at all in writing.

 

[jeremyemilio]

Interesting.. but please explain why the two most successful series in recent memory were written by women... one of which is complete shit.. 50 shades of grey.. the other is wonderful in it's own way..Harry Potter...


Im not saying there's not a problem, but Im skepticle about how big of a problem it is at the same time... Perhaps, the book comes off from a male perspective and the expectation is that a male should have written it..

In fairness, 50 Shades was a viral thing. No publisher discovered her, or accepted the transcript and poured promotional money into it.

She published it herself, online, and then after readers found it and went mad about it, the publishers and film studios started throwing money at her.

If anything, her case kinda highlights the point.

(Also, JK Rowling had a hell of a time getting published.)

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

If she documented it well or if the results of her experiment could be reproduced, then this sounds like something that needs to be addressed.

I'm skeptical, but willing to hear her out.

 

[TSO]

Sorry man, it's written for 6-12 year olds and reads like it.

 

[Perfidious]

harry potter is complete shit? ok lmao never read a book again

Fucking nerds

 

[UpaLoompa]

Many scientific journals have moved to double-blind systems where the authors are now anonymous along with the reviewers. Those journals have most often seen immediate changes in authorship statistics. For example, papers with female first authors prior to a double-blind system were rejected at a higher rate than papers with a male first author. After double-blind rates were in line with submission statistics.