One of my best friends is an excellent writer, ready to be published right now. She made a mistake in her manuscript: her protagonist is a young male.
So far, she’s received a few rejections, and that’s to be expected for any currently unpublished novelist. But when I spoke with another friend who is a literary agent, she told me, “Well, teen boys don’t read. Teen girls prefer reading about girls. No wonder she’s having a tough time.”
I spent hours thinking about this. My feeling is, if male protagonists in young adult fiction aren’t as publishable, the unintended consequence will be fewer and fewer new male adult readers when these boys grow into men. Since my protagonists are mostly grown men, that means my audience will shrink. The publishing community is attempting unwittingly to destroy most of the adult thriller market.
The publishing industry is full of self-fulfilling prophesies and unintended consequences. Gender discrimination is just one of many. If you write or read thriller fiction, I’d like to know: what do you think?
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