What do women want?
It's the age-old, unanswerable question, but one company, at least, is trying to address the publishing version. A recent study conducted last spring by an outfit called contentconnections.com suggests, among other things, that recommendations from friends or colleagues are more influential to female book buyers than, say, reviews or blurbs, and that women may buy a greater number of nonfiction than fiction titles, despite common wisdom to the contrary. Additionally—and this may strike some as underreporting—43% of the 1,601 North American women polled between March and May of this year “are thinking about writing a book.” And, interestingly, nearly half again as many (61%) are “genuinely interested in the publishing process.”
As contentconnections' Women & Books 2007 Survey reports, “Women clearly have something they'd like to say.”
It's hardly a surprise to this veteran observer that women have such strong feelings about books. After all, we've long known that women do far more purchasing of books (and of most others things) than men—and that's true of even “male”-ish titles in such categories as sports, business, narrative nonfiction and biography. (Remember: Father's Day is the second-biggest book-buying season, after Christmas, and it's for the most part women who are doing the buying.) But how come, if women have so much to say, they so rarely say it? According to the survey, in the previous year, fewer than 15% of the nonfiction books on the New York Times bestseller lists were written by women. Conclusion: women might buy and read nonfiction, but they're not writing it—or, if they are, they're not finding as big an audience—as male nonfiction writers.
Call me knee-jerk, but I worry about this: I hate the idea that women who say they have something to say don't take themselves seriously enough to try saying it in print, or that they cling to the idea, somehow, that they shouldn't bother. I hate the suggestion that women book buyers automatically give more credence to what men write or that, somehow, editors (many of whom are female) trust male nonfiction writers more than their own gender. I'm not saying that every woman is as smart as every man (actually, I'd say most are smarter), but, come on: 15%?
There are exceptions, of course. As I look at the bestseller lists for recent weeks, for example, I see Nora Ephron's delightful I Feel Bad About My Neck and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and, of course, Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, but when it comes to the more serious stuff, it's all guys. And while it may be more earnest than, say, Jon Stewart's America (The Book), Women: A Celebration of Strength, the historical pop-up book for grownups from the not-for-profit Legal Momentum, is just as engaging and interesting a history lesson as, say, the bestselling posthumous Reagan Diaries.
But such books rarely sell in record numbers, probably partly because they don't get the play—or placement—the mainstream titles do. But maybe someday they will. According to contentconnections, “Women's Issues” is by far the topic of greatest interest to respondents, and the average woman's bookstore visit lasts about 40 minutes—plenty of time to look beyond the bestsellers tables for the more important, if less public, fare.
Agree? Disagree? Tell us at www.publishersweekly.com/saranelson
