Steam Press is open again to submissions, so I thought this would be a great time to look at a few trends in the submissions we’ve received to date. Note that for all of this we’re talking pretty small samples sizes, given that we’ve been running for two years and have received in the order of 150 subs.
In the past two years, 52% of submissions have been science fiction, 45% have been fantasy, and 3% have been horror. Tthis excludes the 10% or so of submissions we’ve been sent that don’t meet our submission criteria – including British crime novels, children’s educational picture books, and philosophical treatises. In total, 63% of submissions have been by male authors, and 37% by female (based on my interpretation of the name the author submitted under).
59% of the fantasy submissions we’ve received have been by women, which I think is very interesting given the relatively low number of women who have submitted. My maths is terrible, but if only 37% of total submissions are from women while 59% of fantasy subs are from women, that seems to suggest a rather strong preference for women who submit to Steam Press to be submitting a fantasy book. I think this indicates that subs from women were around 60% more likely to be fantasy than you’d expect if gender was unrelated to genre.
64% of sci fi was written by men, so the sci fi gender split is roughly equal to the gender split overall, while all of the horror we saw was written by men.
What do I take from this? I’d like to see more horror, for one – I knew we hadn’t seen much, and apparently I was right but hadn’t realized how dire the situation was. No one is bloody sending us horror. Fix this, please.
Also, I’d be keen to see more submissions from women. I’d particularly like to see more sci fi from women, and definitely some horror. If New Zealand’s version of Caitlin Kiernan is reading this, please get in touch.
Looking at what we’ve published / have on the way, we have (roughly) four sci fi novels, three fantasy, and pretty varied short story collection. That seems to mirror the ratios of genres in our submissions reasonably closely, actually, and I’m surprised as I’d have said I prefer sci fi over fantasy as a rule.
Curiously, the two books that we’ve got signed for 2014 are both fantasy (one reminiscent of China Mieville crossed with Joe Abercrombie, and one about a twelve-year-old witch (just to mix things up)), and these are both by men. And in fact, the gender split of what we’ve published / are soon to publish is strongly leaning towards being dominated by men with 6.5 of 8 written by men (the .5 being Matt Cowens of Mansfield with Monsters fame, though this does exclude Katherine Mansfield, what with her being dead). That means that 82% of Steam Press books were written by men, though blah blah small samples sizes, but still.
Which is an interesting figure. I definitely don’t think it’s anything to do with “quality”, as such, and (thoroughly anecdotally) I do remember there being several novels I’ve read that I thought were well written and would probably sell well, but I didn’t want to sign them as they just didn’t quite float my boat enough. All the novels of this ilk were by female authors. To me this suggests that for some reason there is a slightly higher proportion of women who are writing well but just not in a genre / style that quite hits the mark for me as a reader. I’d be really surprised if those novels weren’t picked up pretty readily by someone else. So it goes.
So yes, our call for submissions: Steam Press is open to subs again now, and details are athttp://www.steampress.co.nz/contact.html
The one change is that while I don’t *think* our selection of what to publish has been at all determined by the author’s gender, publishing history, or anything else, if you do want to submit please feel free not to tell me who you are, and don't worry about the cover letter etc. It’s the story that gets assessed by me, reviewers, and readers, so I’m not too worried about your name, previous successes, or cover letter sales pitch. If we love your work then we’ll want to publish it. End of story.
Cheers!
Stephen
In the past two years, 52% of submissions have been science fiction, 45% have been fantasy, and 3% have been horror. Tthis excludes the 10% or so of submissions we’ve been sent that don’t meet our submission criteria – including British crime novels, children’s educational picture books, and philosophical treatises. In total, 63% of submissions have been by male authors, and 37% by female (based on my interpretation of the name the author submitted under).
59% of the fantasy submissions we’ve received have been by women, which I think is very interesting given the relatively low number of women who have submitted. My maths is terrible, but if only 37% of total submissions are from women while 59% of fantasy subs are from women, that seems to suggest a rather strong preference for women who submit to Steam Press to be submitting a fantasy book. I think this indicates that subs from women were around 60% more likely to be fantasy than you’d expect if gender was unrelated to genre.
64% of sci fi was written by men, so the sci fi gender split is roughly equal to the gender split overall, while all of the horror we saw was written by men.
What do I take from this? I’d like to see more horror, for one – I knew we hadn’t seen much, and apparently I was right but hadn’t realized how dire the situation was. No one is bloody sending us horror. Fix this, please.
Also, I’d be keen to see more submissions from women. I’d particularly like to see more sci fi from women, and definitely some horror. If New Zealand’s version of Caitlin Kiernan is reading this, please get in touch.
Looking at what we’ve published / have on the way, we have (roughly) four sci fi novels, three fantasy, and pretty varied short story collection. That seems to mirror the ratios of genres in our submissions reasonably closely, actually, and I’m surprised as I’d have said I prefer sci fi over fantasy as a rule.
Curiously, the two books that we’ve got signed for 2014 are both fantasy (one reminiscent of China Mieville crossed with Joe Abercrombie, and one about a twelve-year-old witch (just to mix things up)), and these are both by men. And in fact, the gender split of what we’ve published / are soon to publish is strongly leaning towards being dominated by men with 6.5 of 8 written by men (the .5 being Matt Cowens of Mansfield with Monsters fame, though this does exclude Katherine Mansfield, what with her being dead). That means that 82% of Steam Press books were written by men, though blah blah small samples sizes, but still.
Which is an interesting figure. I definitely don’t think it’s anything to do with “quality”, as such, and (thoroughly anecdotally) I do remember there being several novels I’ve read that I thought were well written and would probably sell well, but I didn’t want to sign them as they just didn’t quite float my boat enough. All the novels of this ilk were by female authors. To me this suggests that for some reason there is a slightly higher proportion of women who are writing well but just not in a genre / style that quite hits the mark for me as a reader. I’d be really surprised if those novels weren’t picked up pretty readily by someone else. So it goes.
So yes, our call for submissions: Steam Press is open to subs again now, and details are athttp://www.steampress.co.nz/contact.html
The one change is that while I don’t *think* our selection of what to publish has been at all determined by the author’s gender, publishing history, or anything else, if you do want to submit please feel free not to tell me who you are, and don't worry about the cover letter etc. It’s the story that gets assessed by me, reviewers, and readers, so I’m not too worried about your name, previous successes, or cover letter sales pitch. If we love your work then we’ll want to publish it. End of story.
Cheers!
Stephen
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