I also am a publisher.
Sometimes I need to do Publishing Business
In my position as CEO of Raconteur Press, I put this up on the RacPress Substack on Thursday. Short of ideas for Friday, I’m reposting it here.
Men's fiction. FOUND IT!
We've been part of the solution for a while now.
It’s nice to see that mainstream folks like the New York Times, GQ, Chicago Tribune, CNN, and various social media have realized that “Men aren’t reading.”
It’s also nice to see that the big fish are starting to own that tiny little detail that “Men don’t read books written for women.”
Welcome to the party, pals. We’ve been preaching this for … how long now?
This revelation is inevitably followed by a paragraph, or a comment, or a video decrying that “No one writes for men anymore!” Millions of innocent pixels have been sacrificed by experts1 clutching their pearls about how “No one is writing for men! Woe!”
Ahem.
We’re right HERE. Raconteur Press is right bloody HERE. Every time I read an article or a comment by someone bewailing the lack of publishers putting out books for men, I wonder—how many Raconteur Press titles are on their bookshelf?
We have anthologies about Space Marines!2 Space Cowboys!3 Creepy warfare with magic!4 Plasma Pulp!5 Giant Stompy Robots! and yes, Moggie anthologies that tend to appeal more to the distaff side of the species, because they like adventure, too.
And if that doesn’t fluff up your manly skirt kilt, have you seen the covers6 of the Pinup Noir series?
And we’re publishing novels from John Van Stry — they’re good and crunchy.
We’ve got pirates, and barbarians, dime detectives, and 1980s trouble-shooters coming up later in the year—we’ll have at least 67 anthologies on the ground by the end of 2025—and 80% of them are aimed at MEN.
If we’re not to your masculine druthers, there are plenty of other NextGen presses putting out quality books aimed towards the male audience — patronise7 publishers like Jumpmaster Press, Cannon Publishing, Wargate Books, or Three Ravens.
If you’re complaining about the lack of books for men … we’re here. We’re all here. Other than telling Mike to oil up the G-string and shake his money-maker, I don’t know how else to get your attention8.
Pointing out the issue is all well and good, but here’s the thing: men don’t stand around crying about their problems. Men do something about their problems. We’re doing something about the dearth of men’s fiction and boy’s adventure. What are you doing to support it?
Ian Mc Murtrie, CEO
Raconteur Press
1 “Ex” defined as an “unknown quantity” and “spurt” being “a drip under pressure.”
2 How much more hairy-chested do you have to be than Marines in space?
3 Come on — cowboys!
4 Two words: Battle. Yeti.
5 Inspired by Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Make some noise!
6 The only way anyone could get more of a Manly Clue than the cleavage on that red-head would be for us to strip Mike, slather him in clue musk, and have him do the clue mating dance in a field full of horny clues at the height of the clue mating season. Don’t make us do that.
7 See what I did there?
8 Please don’t make us do that.
Just for public safety…. Leave mikes clothes on…
> “Men don’t read books written for women.”
All those experts noting this usually follow it with, "but they should!"