Love tech? Enjoy SF? Hate romances? Then you're part of a pattern—and e-publishers should pay attention

Science fiction and classics are easily among the more popular genres dear to TeleBlog readers. Could this mix be more than just the result of SF’s appeal to our smart, tech-loving regulars who, along the way, frugally enjoy their free classics?

Might SF works reflect more of the spirit of old classics than modern literature does, regardless of criticisms of the prose of Asimov-style writers?

Often, in works such as Isaac Asimov’s, we see less emphasis on character than on action, ideas and interesting situations, if you go by the opinions of many a critic. And even though many female SF fans belie the usual genre stereotypes, most readers of SF are men—perhaps for those very reasons.

TeleBlog survey: Seventy-six percent went for sci-fi

No, this isn’t to say that SF fans ignore other genres such as thrillers, or completely diss modern award-winning literature, even if I suspect SF is a big component within the prestige category. But tellingly, in our recent TeleRead blog survey, 76 percent of the participants listed “sci fi/speculative fiction” among the genres they’d browse in a bookstore if they had an hour to kill. Thirty-three percent went for “classics/public domain.” Just 11 percent mentioned romance/erotic—the very favorites of Jane’s DearAuthor audience.

What does this mean for e-publishers? If they want to reach men fitting the SF/tech/classics pattern, they do well to advertise on sites such as Manybooks.net and Feedbooks. While economy-minded, pub domain fans can be won over with the right titles. The money is there to spend. Another Teleblog survey, in June 2007 revealed that 53 percent of the participants said they planned to buy an iPhone. Even more significantly, as Robert Nagle observed, “the huge number of people who bought 20+ books and e-books per year offers some hope for publishing.” In other words, all that frugal reading of free classics doesn’t interfere with purchases of books.

Egghead male readers vs. the population at large

Now back to SF/classics connection. In the Gene Expression blog,  which inspired the present post, Razib says it’s “somewhat peculiar” that many SF readers “find fiction from the past more engaging than popular contemporary works. Aupelius’ Golden Ass gets my attention; most contemporary fiction does not. I am arguing here that this is partly due to the fact that in the past those who read copiously were, on average, much more like me than they were like the typical human. Not only were readers by and large men (usually of some means and comfort), but they were often also disproportionately eggheads who were eccentric by their nature. How many elite scholars were there such as Claudius who were not attracted to the public life of politics and do not appear in the annals of history? With the printing press, cheaper paper, and the rise of mass literacy, things changed, the distribution of taste shifted. And so did the distribution of genres.

“So am I full of crap?

“Addendum: I also think there is a supply-side issue; female authors tend to produce a particular type of work. This is evident within science fiction; female authors are underrepresented in hard science fiction…”

Read his entire post for context. What do you think?

More fun with semantics

I’ll add one more thought. The definition of “classics” can be rather tricky. I wonder if Razib was paying too much attention to the older ones in using that word. How about writers from the 19th and 20th centuries such as Jane Austen, Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald—masters of character-driven books? That is why, in the second paragraph, I said “Older classics.” But could there be surprises even with the adjective added? Razib himself acknowledges that character-driven novels could indeed be centuries old

Meanwhile let me emphasize that all kinds of readers are welcome here, whether they fit the SF/old classics mode or the romance/new classics mode or are “literary” or not. Whoops. Here’s more fun with semantics: Mightn’t some SF fans argue that Jules Verne is just as literary a writer of classics—for different reasons—as Jane Austin is? Both lived in the 19th century. But more importantly, just how much can we separate action from character? Guess who said the following? “Action is character.” Not Verne, not Asimov, but Fitzgerald himself. Perhaps we could refine Fitzgerald’s statement to read, “Imaginatively conceived and depicted action.” That the difference between Verne and a hack pulp writer.