Thursday, December 9, 2010

Male or Female?

I pasted my entire book into the Gender Genie. This is what it says about me.
Words: 84232


Female Score: 103938
Male Score: 110220
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
                                                           
Um, I beg to differ. Although I think this is a bit weird, in a way this could be a good thing. There has been some discussion in the blogosphere (See Tawna's post) on writing to a specific audience. Since she writes romance, she wondered if any of her male blog readers would be reading her debut novel. I simply wonder if I'll be able to sell my book in a predominantly male science fiction world.

I'll mention here what I did on her blog. I do not believe it when they say mostly men read sci fi. I've always read sci-fi and I'm sure there are lots of other women out there who love it as much as I do. My goal with my writing has always been to write a book that will be appealing to all kinds of readers. Yeah, I know, not a good marketing plan in that statement. The real goal sounds even worse--write science fiction that my friends would fall in love with because none of them like sci fi.

The truth is that I never think about the author when I read a good book, or care if they are male or female. I don't want my readers thinking about me while they read my book.

Wait, I think I wondered off task. Anyway, my score is only slightly toward the male side. Perhaps that means my work WILL appeal to both sexes? Yeah, that's how I choose to look at that.

*wanders off to investigate something shiny that smells like chocolate*

7 comments:

  1. I agree completely that gender doesn't matter when it comes to reading sci-fi. I LOVE sci-fi and I'm a girl! I'm with you on not caring if the author is male or female too. Most times I don't notice.

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  2. I know a lot of women who read science fiction, although when I read it, I admit I tend to read male authors.
    And I did that test and my work was definitely male. Which is a good thing!

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  3. I just posted a blogfest last nite. Link is here, if you're interested in signing up...

    http://elenasolodow.blogspot.com/2010/12/100-words-for-100-dollars-blogfest.html

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  4. I tried that on several passages I wrote. Anything non-fiction (like an article) was deemed written by a male. (So women can't write lean, objective pieces?)

    Any chapter I put in from a female character POV was deemed female. So, good, I guess.

    What made me smile in a good way was that any chapter I put in that's from a male POV character came out as a male author.

    I felt kinda good that a male POV, at least to this computer program, "felt" male.

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  5. AH! Fun! Great links too! Thanks for sharing. I agree with you. I don't want people thinking about me when they read either.

    I got female. Womp Womp. But it was really close!

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  6. Thanks for all of the great links! =)

    I agree that the mark of a skilled writer is to remove the concept that the book was written by a anyone, male or female. The story should just naturally unfold.

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  7. I read a bit of sci-fi, but I'd like to read more in that genre.

    I don't think about gender when reading a great book. Even though some authors and publishers have gender in mind, there are so many books out there that would appeal to everyone.

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