A harmless question:

[james_davis_nicoll]

Let's say someone said "I don't even consider looking at a publisher's line if I know they focus on books by guys." Which publishers would that eliminate right off the bat? Let's arbitrarily say "more than 60% by men."

Back in 2011, I spent a lot of time trying to work out gender balance in both protagonists and authors for the big SF publishers, an effort that died because it was inexplicably difficult to find complete listing for all of them for the same year. But still, back then the more than 60+% Forest of Penises Club would have included: Angry Robot, Bantam Spectra, Baen (although they're close enough the year I looked I could see them hitting 40% books by women*) ChiZine (although I didn't count their anthologies, so I don't trust that result), Del Rey, Golden Gryphon (same disclaimer as ChiZine), Haikasoru and of course Tor.


I wonder what the numbers look like for 2015 for the following publishers?

Ace Books
Angry Robot
Baen Books
Bantam Spectra
ChiZine
DAW Books
Del Rey Books
Eos
Golden Gryphon Press
Gollancz
Grand Central Publishing
Hadley Rille Books
Haikasoru
HarperCollins
Luna
NESFA Press
Night Shade Books
Old Earth Books
Orb Books
Orbit Books UK
Orbit Books UK
PS Publishing
Prime Books
Pyr
Roc
Small Beer Press
Subterranean Press
Tachyon Publications
Tor Books
Tor UK

* Of the two publishers Neville Doherty owns at least in part, Baen has always had a much higher fraction of women authors than Tor.

Comments

[bibliofile]

Is Aqueduct too small for consideration? As a feminist press, they're likely at least 50-50.

[kjn]

Baen was relatively simple to do, though depressing. I got it to 88 men and 15 women for 2015 (counting by the date on their publishing schedule). Here I used only the names used visibly on the web page.

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!
Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ (https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=303).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Really?

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I always wonder if they measure that by number of times the page is "visited," and how they determine the difference between a visit and passing through.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Slow Sunday in Russia, apparently.

ChiZine

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Shall I pass this question on to Matt Moore?

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

For Small Beer Press, 2015: Four books by women, three books by men (though two of those were by the same man, Ayize Jama-Everett).

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

As well as I can decipher from their webpage, because their Edelweiss is a mess.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Such a great insult. "Your Edelweiss is a mess!" "Those words can only be wiped out with blood!"

[rosefox]

Eos is Harper Voyager now.

Since you're counting Skyhorse imprint Night Shade, you might want to count their Talos imprint too.

Are you leaving out Aqueduct because it would skew the numbers? :)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

My first thought when I saw the question was, "My publisher only does half a dozen or so SFF books in a year, but the gender ratio sure is consistent no matter what." Not sure it would be a helpful inclusion though!

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I overlooked them.

this better?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

47North
Ace Books
Angry Robot
Aqueduct Press
Baen Books
Bantam Spectra
Blind Eye
ChiZine
Circlet
DAW Books
Del Rey Books
Gollancz
Hadley Rille Books
Haikasoru
HarperCollins
HarperVoyager
Lethe
NESFA Press
Night Shade Books
Old Earth Books
Orbit Books UK
Orbit Books UK
PS Publishing
Prime Books
Pyr
Roc
Saga
Saint Martins
Simon451
Small Beer Press
Subterranean Press
Tachyon Publications
Talos
Tor Books
Tor UK
William Morrow

[rosefox]

Also, can you maybe not equate "penises" with "men"? Given that I can name two trans women with SF/F books out this year and neither you nor I has any idea what their anatomy looks like.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Yes. Sorry.

[alicebentley]

Going by their website and the publication dates at my distributor, the most recent book from Golden Gryphon Press was Nov 2010.

[rosefox]

Yeah, I don't think Bantam Spectra exists anymore either--it's been folded into Del Rey. I haven't seen anything under the Orb imprint in ages; I think it's all Tor now. Pretty sure Orbit gets all the SF/F at Hachette and Grand Central doesn't do any. And Luna hasn't published anything since 2013.

Notably missing from this list: S&S/Saga, S&S/Simon451, Amazon/47North. Since you're including very small presses, I'd add Lethe, Blind Eye, and Circlet. I'm sure there are others missing but my brain is kind of mush right now.

You could also consider the SF/F output of lines that do significant amounts of it but aren't exclusively SF/F, like William Morrow and St. Martin's.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Also this is my 2011 list. Which somehow is five years old.

[alicebentley]

Somehow.