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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Author Names and Male Readership.

I have had a Harper Collin's review on BEHIND THE HOOD stating this:

"The novel shines a light on a cultural sector rarely addressed in fiction writing, and the fast-paced narrative befits a contemporary thriller fiction novel for a predominantly male market."

The reason I have highlighted this is because I've noticed that my readership so far have been predominantly female.  And lately I have been wondering why.  Today I came across an article on Amanda Hocking's website amandahocking.blogspot.com mentioning the author's name and its relevance to sells.  It says that J.K. Rowing didn't put here full name in because publishers didn't think guys would buy a book by a female. Now this has got me thinking about my book, because I've put my full name on there.  Have I made a mistake in doing this?  And have other authors made the same mistake, even though their book may be more geared towards the male demographic?

To back up why I'm thinking this is because so far I have only had reviews from females on all my book sites.  Plus, on Goodreads I have more females putting my book on their to-read  list than males (although it is only a 15 to 9 margin).  Yes, my book only came out on August the 11th (2011), but I still believe that there may be a case to what the publishers have done in relation to J.K. Rowling.

Also, J.R.Ward, the writer of the Black Dagger Brotherhood (a paranormal romance writer), has also kept her full name out.  However, I believe her series is definitely geared towards females, the romance side of things and the way she depicts the males are obviously to please a female readership.  Yes, she has some characters and story-lines that may interest males (although not my husband, who read it because he'd finished all of his novels, then to my annoyance made fun of it).  But still, did she not include her full name because she also wanted to attract a male readership as well as female? 

So, what do you think?  Does the author's name make a difference?

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