YABookgate

[Midwit]

Even in TV, you can see the divide. Women watch their TV shows and soap operas but men only watch the news and sports.

Men watch shows because they think the ideas are interesting or because the shows themselves are about cool shit, women watch shows because characters like Tony Soprano or Gene Hunt make their lady gardens tingle.

 

[Wodanaz]

There will never be another Agatha Christie or Mary Shelley in our lifetime, we're too far gone as the supposed-fairer sex.

The Bronte sisters did shit like sport shooting in their free time. People these days just browse their phone, men and women both.
Personally I'm waiting for another Frank Herbert.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

I think that it may just be that the written word is better at communicating information that tends to interest women more than men. Romance and YA (which tends to have romance as a prominent component) hinges heavily on the characters' emotions and mental states, which prose is very well suited to explore. The things that men tend to focus on more, like action and technical details, are just easier to get across in a visual medium.

If we use romance/sex for example. Women can and do read their 400 pages novels for their two sex scenes in a book and enjoys it. A man uses a porn film, skip some scenes and watch what he wants and then the switch goes off. At least for me, the moment I cum, I shut off everything related to desire, doesn't matter what. It is very related to the objective of the action, rather than the meanings and feelings of those involved.

Y'all are overthinking this. Women are currently more socially disposed to written material because a greater portion of their lives is consumed in written things. While men are more socially disposed to other forms of art because the more visual and interactive nature of men's lives.

Women prefer to watch a game of basketball than play it, men prefer to play a game of basketball than watch it. Women prefer a office job, while men prefer a blue collar job, even if pay and benefits favors one or the other. The choices men and women make for entertainment is entirely based on the extent men and women interact with the world around them.

 

[Commissar Fuklaw]

The soaps are wild to watch, incredibly entertaining in their absurdity, but so is wrestling, which is the masculine counterpart. Battle manga/light novels are masculine soaps as well when you think about it. I'm a big fat faggot for romance manga specifically because of the visual element. I don't need to read about emotions and stuff, just show me they're blushing because they touched hands or something. I'll admit I prefer the works of female mangaka because their characters are better written, they know how to drag out the fun drama and they're not afraid of doing fan service of their female characters without it feeling unearned. I suppose what I'm trying to say is if there was a book that combines a masculine soap and all of its quirks that men enjoy, with the fun sexy drama of a romance manga, you'd have a hard time not having men and boys read it. It's certainly something I'd like to write myself.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Women prefer to watch a game of basketball than play it

Sports anime is popular for this very reason (not getting into fujoshi bait) lmao.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I'd love it if all the big publishers just started using AI to write all these romantasy/gooning/coomer books for women. Just push all of these faggots out of the industry.

In the meantime, I'd love another Robert. E. Howard or Fritz Leiber or Ray Bradbury. Hell, I'd settle for another Seabury Quinn or E. E. "Doc" Smith. Give us some fun shit.

I'll admit, manga popped off because it's not mangled by fifteen people in a single run. The execution isn't always top tier, but young readers just want something fun. Demon Slayer, Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, and so on. All meant to be fun while trying to have some character arcs.

I'm not the most knowledgeable on women writers outside of the more well known ones. Don't care for a lot of them. Did enjoy a lot of the old-school mystery writers like Christie and Sayers. Also love the pulp/sci fi/fantasy ones of the old-school variety. C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Andre Norton, etc.

That being said, I find a lot of modern American/Western women writers to be boring. I think it's because they tend to focus on things that don't interest me. Gail Simone's not interesting to me. Yeah, cool, you did something to highlight sexism. Can you actually write something genuinely entertaining? Can you engage me?

I love Rumiko Takahashi's work. Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2, and Uresai Yastura were kino. She knew how to balance the more emotional character based narratives in a way that made use of the medium while also keeping me engaged. I can't recall any Gail Simone comic, ever. Hell, the only female comics personality in America that I can recall liking the work of was probably Ramona Fradon. . . (rip).

probably also worth noting that it feels like i keep seeing "OMG WOMAN IN NERD SPACE, SO PROGRESSIVE" BS in every area I go to check out genre fiction. YA stuff's adjacent to everything and the only names I recognize are Riordan and Rowling. I don't blame kids for liking Riordan. I vaguely remember a blogpost from fucking forever ago by RIordan or someone that knew him. It was for some kinda Tom Swift/Rick Brant site and was talking about how Rick Riordan was getting inspiration from classic juvenile fiction for his new series. This was a little bit before Percy Jackson became a thing.

Anyways the publishing industry's just getting itself shot in the foot. There's a lot of lower end indie operations and Amazon-only authors. I get they're aiming at what sells, but it feels like some of this bullshit was because they tried to kinda falsely push shit and it turns out that noone's buying the sixteenth black power fantasy at that scale.

 

[Registration]

I got curious and went and realized that I read not even 5 books by women in my entire life.

What I read:
- ''Oriental Tales'' by Marguerite Yourcenar
- ''The Most Evil Secret Societies in History'' by Shelley Klein
- ''Frankenstein'' by Mary Shelley (kinda adapted for children)
-''Depois daquela viagem'' by Valéria Piassa Polizzi (it was for middle school, teenage girl gets aids and writes a book about her life after it, I dont remember shit but gave 1 star)

I never even realized this, It wasn't a conscious decision and I did read a lot of manga by women that I love it.

Also books by trannies:
- zero

 

[Gnillik Yot]

I listened to that, and my main takeaway was that the guy's Adderal prescription had run out. Christ was he all over the place.

Wait, is that us?

I think he is by and large correct, but if you're doing long-form content a script or at least an outline is rather important.

My biggest criticism beyond the presentation is the fact that he offered no evidence that there is an audience of young males out there hungry for material to read. There might be a reason the market is what it is. If somebody made a Baen Books for young readers, or hell, Baen Books created an imprint for young readers, there's no data -- other than a gut feeling -- that it would be successful. And that's without getting into the current state of YA librarians and what they're willing to buy and actually put on the shelves. There's also the fact that Baen is distributed to book stores via Simon & Schuster...which sometimes makes me wonder exactly how independent they truly are. Kind of a chicken and the egg conundrum.

A counterargument would be the fact that what YA publishers are publishing is book after book about same sex relationships, trooning out, boring messagefic about evil white men destroying the environment, teen girlbosses in the making and so on. If there's overwhelming evidence this sort of thing sells, well, I'd love to see it.

I agree with all of this. The video makes a false claim on top of the assumptions you pointed out. The guy makes the claim women dominate ALL forms of literature. Not just YA or Romance, which is what we mostly focus on in this thread, but all of it. Horror, sci-fi, epic fantasy, you name it. That is bs. Most big epic fantasy writers are still men, from Sanderson to George Martin to Patrick Rothfuss. Sure, there are women there too, but most of the big names are men. The balance tilts even more dramatically once we go to adult sci-fi. Horror is more even, I notice a lot of women in horror, but there are lots of men dominating the sphere too.

So this guy is just flat out ignorant of what he's talking about. And I will repeat what I said a few pages ago, backing up your point that no one knows that this demographic of YA-reading based young men even exists:

"BookTok & Twitter have accelerated the dominance of women over the YA world. As @Windows 10 Upgrade pointed out above, books that make money in YA are given out by the publishers to the most popular BookTok reviewers to hype up. Nearly all the breakout YA hits in the past few years have gone down this route. This is why when you step into any store with books, they a have a "As seen on BookTok" stand. The strategy works for these stores as it does for the publishers & their authors who go this route. And who populates the booktok ecosystem of reviewers and readers? Woke girls, that's who.

Anti-woke young men are a big demographic in gaming, just as woke girls are the largest demographic of YA. Makes sense the industry is catering to their base. They're doing the cold, pragmatic thing. Imagine what would happen if a YA publishing house started pumping out books primarily aimed at young men instead. Would the BookTok reviewers be just as interested? If not, the publisher needs an alternative eco-system that will be just as lucrative as BookTok. Where is it? Royal Road? This is not a rhetorical question."

I will go further than this and say that publishers have tried at least twice in the past decade to trade young women for young men in YA. Both of these attempts failed, despite being heavily promoted by The New York Post and Vulture magazine. This post is getting long, but I can talk about those attempts and what they should tell us when I come back from work.

 

[Fandom Pulse]

AI gets that female squad turning on the authors though. I busted out popcorn to watch this one writer Colleen Houck get completely savaged by her fans on her facebook page yesterday.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

AI gets that female squad turning on the authors though. I busted out popcorn to watch this one writer Colleen Houck get completely savaged by her fans on her facebook page yesterday.

Meh. Clickbait. This author's books haven't sold well in over a decade. The 2011 book has something like 65000 ratings on GoodReads, everything I looked at since 2015 or so was under 1,000. Her career was moribund long before any issues about AI were raised, unless you're seeing something I'm not.

 

[Registration]

Of course the name most used by poisonous women and trannies also would get a feminist retellibg in a YA book:

''In the tradition of Madeline Miller and Claire North, Lilith is the story of the first woman, who was expelled from Paradise for disobedience. In this retelling of the Hebrew myth [NM1] that justified and explained woman's subjection to man, Lilith will have her revenge - however long it takes.
In the Garden of Eden, at the beginning of time, an outrageous lie is born: that women are inferior.

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses - and is banished forever from Paradise.

Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah - God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven - is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world and regain her rightful place in Paradise.

Lilith's quest for justice drives her throughout history, from the ziggurats of Ancient Sumer to the court of Israel's Queen Jezebel, and to the side of a radical preacher in Roman Judea. In the modern age, as she observes the catastrophic consequences of a world built on inequality, Lilith finally understands what must be done to correct the wrong done to women - and all humankind - at the beginning of time.

Inspired by ancient myths and suppressed scriptures, Lilith is a thought-provoking and ambitious novel with an evocative literary voice and a triumphantly engaging heroine.''

 

[JJLiautaud]

The things that men tend to focus on more, like action and technical details, are just easier to get across in a visual medium. Maybe there's an underserved audience for books that are aimed at boys and men, but maybe there isn't. Maybe it's like saying 'there's an underserved customer base for woman-centered fishing gear'.

I take you've never read Tom Clancy Red Storm Rising is a fucking gripping read.

 

[Chandelier]

we use romance/sex for example. Women can and do read their 400 pages novels for their two sex scenes in a book and enjoys it. A man uses a porn film, skip some scenes and watch what he wants and then the switch goes off. At least for me, the moment I cum, I shut off everything related to desire, doesn't matter what. It is very related to the objective of the action, rather than the meanings and feelings of those involved.

As Jordan Peterson said, women are drawn to written pornography and men to the visual because women like people and men like things. Smut fiction/fic can run for hundreds of thousands of words because the author is invested in the character; when you examine a smut scene written by a woman vs a man, the difference is night and day. The man is going to focus on getting the fuck on and over with; the woman will focus on the buildup, climax, and aftermath. Plus "I read it for the plot" applies more to female written smut because there has to be a reason for the couple to get together.

This trend remains even when the author's are troons. An MTF always focuses on his cock and it size and those of the characters, and the pooner still writes the same as a woman even if she tries to poon out a canonically male character (fanfic) or write her "gay sex" (original work). A man's smut barely lasts a paragraph while a woman's lasts a few pages.

Now, in terms of plot, yes, a lot of smut shares the same plot. It really becomes drivel. Fanfic has the one benefit of the world it takes place in to be interesting; original work will either be saved or doomed by background characters. I've read plenty of stories where the main couple was fucking terrible but a background character was the best. Sylvia Day is one such author: she wrote a fanfic of 50 Shades, itself a fanfic, and her "sexy main" was a stalker who even tried to rape the female love interest. The best character was the bisexual male model, the roommate of the female main. Go figure.

 

[Generic Anime Girl]

thought-provoking and ambitious novel

>it's just seething at God (done ad nauseum) and liberal feminism

 

[Registration]

>continue to monitor skoob to new additions
>See some fag books
>Wow, so many in little time, click and see who added
>The person who added looks like a terrible tranny
>All his books are sex/tranny/queer adjacent

They will never beat the acusations, trannies are disgusting and hyper sexual predators, making everything related to sex in their lives.

 

[Generic Anime Girl]

Maybe I'm too politics brained but this election has probably just made the state of publishing even shittier for the next few years

 

[Mola Ram]

Maybe I'm too politics brained but this election has probably just made the state of publishing even shittier for the next few years

Orrrrrr the woke tide is finally about to recede and Veilguard has the worst timing of any video game release ever!

EDIT: I knew the rainbows were coming but it's too funny not to imagine BioWare nuking Dragon Age by turning it into a trans affirmation simulator complete with top surgery scars and bulges only to do so at the precise moment every decides they're sick of the whole thing.

EDIT #2: I, uh, see I posted in the wrong thread. Mea culpa, carry on.

 

[Gnillik Yot]

Now see, I was just about to make an elections related effort post on the future of YA, but that'll have to wait a little bit, because I found this on TikTok and it's just too funny. Actually, it's all over TikTok & Instagram.

It appears that the BookTok accounts who were promoting New Adult dark romance smut have all been coming out declaring support for Trump. Bet you didn't see that one coming. And apparently, on BookTok, the line that people are repeating is that the people objecting to dark romance are the woke Kamala girls. The BookTok girls who are most vocally pro-Kamala also seem to be the ones most vocally critical of the sexualizing YA. At least, this is what I have gathered from reading the flame wars in the comments section. Apparently, the two camps on BookTok are. Pro-smut Trump girls, and anti-dark romance Kamala girls.

I attached a screenshot below, but there are thousands more like it:

 

[Welf Welf]

What timeline am I living in, man?

 

[Commissar Fuklaw]

The battlefield of the future with a weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

Pro-Trump hetero sexy time gooner girls vs the sapphic femcel catlady histronic over sexuality frigid spinsters.