Well, it was 2am my time, and I was totally stamping my foot. Because I started noticing people not including women on covers decades ago, started participating in discussions pointing it out and suggesting ways to fix it years ago, and yet here's another editor/publisher combo claiming not to care that so many people think it's a problem. Foot stamping! Do you see what they've turned me into? I didn't used to be this angry all the time!
Anyway. The real point is: these days, not including women on the cover doesn't just fail to attract a certain segment of SF readers--it actively alienates them. Maybe even causing them to throw borderline-hysterical, childish mini-tantrums in bookstores, yes indeed.
It's still a marketing decision, absolutely--are we only talking about female SF readers? How many of them are there, honestly? How many of them haven't yet learned to count? How many of them have learned to count, but will still be too enticed by "Peter S. Beagle" to just walk past the shelf without picking up the book?
But constantly infuriating a segment of the population isn't quite the same thing as simply not attracting them.
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Re: The real answer
Date: 2007-08-30 03:31 pm (UTC)Anyway. The real point is: these days, not including women on the cover doesn't just fail to attract a certain segment of SF readers--it actively alienates them. Maybe even causing them to throw borderline-hysterical, childish mini-tantrums in bookstores, yes indeed.
It's still a marketing decision, absolutely--are we only talking about female SF readers? How many of them are there, honestly? How many of them haven't yet learned to count? How many of them have learned to count, but will still be too enticed by "Peter S. Beagle" to just walk past the shelf without picking up the book?
But constantly infuriating a segment of the population isn't quite the same thing as simply not attracting them.
Re: The real answer
Date: 2007-08-31 03:33 am (UTC)This is excellently stated, and should be printed on small cards and handed out as needed.
Better print a lot of them, unfortunately.