And yes

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Baen sample had a larger fraction of female writers than the Tor sample: 1:2.5 as compared to 1:3.7. Female characters to male at Baen ran 1:1.7, and at Tor 1:2.3.

Comments

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

Well, of course theoretically, they shouldn't care, ask any economist you like. And yes all publishers do it, or they wouldn't still be publishing.

However, if it was as simple as that, how come any publishers anywhere have a skewed male/female ratio (at least of authors) at all? Human's being what they are the editorial selection at any publisher can't just be filtering out the pure slush especially since 'is not the right book for us' requires a idea of 'who are we?'.

I just think Baen have a streak of 'we're rational economic actors!' as part of their explicit self image; and other publishers only have it implicitly, or like to keep it away from public view to avoid scaring the horses. Who got themselves the no-DRM, non-Geographically restricted ebook platform, selling at paperback or below prices (the top three things ebook customers always say they want) after all?

Of course they're kidding themselves just as much as anyone else, as there ain't no such animal as a rational economic actor.