MG Audience Stereotypes/Market Research - Should we ignore?

Roly

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When people in the industry talk about particular markets for MG novels, there's usually the assumption that there's a split between what male MG-readers and what female MG-readers will read.

How seriously do you think we should take this as writers submitting our work to agents/publishers who take these kinds of divisions very seriously?

For example, do you think there's any credence to the idea that boys won't read rousing action-adventures with battles and blood if it's not starring another boy? Or they won't read something more sentimental? Could Harry Potter have been Hariette Potter and still be mega popular etc.? Honestly, how much should we take this into account when we write and how accurate do you think these assumptions about the middle-grade reading audience are?
 

Polenth

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I'm non-binary gendered, so I've no interest in the whole binaries are the one true way thing. But my life experience would suggest there are a lot of people out there who subscribe to the idea very heavily, and will punish children if they believe they're deviating. So yes, it's going to be hard for a boy to pick up a book about a girl, because that's the environment society has created.

The question of whether you should write to that is a harder one. I don't like having to erase myself. I think it'd be good to have middle grade fiction for the child I was. But do I think it'll sell to a trade publisher? Unlikely as a first book.
 

ssbittner

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I also think that most of the difference in reading material preferred by boys and girls is due to societal pressure and parents saying "You can't read that, it's a (boy/girl) book."

I would go ahead and write what you want. You may be able to find an audience.
 

Samsonet

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I've had boys tell me they can't identify with a female MC. But those boys were teens, not middle-grade-year-olds. My brother doesn't seem to have any problems with it.

I actually don't see books marketed as "for boys" that often. "For girls", yeah, but don't get me started on those. I'm very fond of gender-neutral covers. It annoys me that people seem to think a girl will only read a book with a girl in a dress on the cover, or that boys will only tolerate a girl on the cover if she has a baseball cap.
 

oceansoul

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Personally, this really bothers me and I think it's all down to the parenting/family atmosphere. My little brother never had trouble with reading books with female protagonists when was in Middle school, because my family actively encouraged him to do so.

He absolutely loved the Tamora Pierce quartets (I know these are more YA, but Middle Schoolers definitely read them).
 

SuperKate

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I think you just have to write your story. Worrying too much about the market or how people will respond to it is paralyzing, in my experience.

As for the substantive question, though, I think Hunger Games has shown that boys will read about a girl MC if there's enough action. My own son has loved the Little House on the Prairie books, Amulet, and Zita the Spacegirl, all of which have girl MCs.
 

Debbie V

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My nine year old doesn't want books with female main characters. I don't know why. He'll read them sometimes, but I have to push a little. For example, we took From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler on vacation with us. He read it over Bud, Not Buddy after finishing the other books we brought. Files has a female protagonist. Bud is a black protagonist. My son likes mystery, adventure, and fantasy. He's also looking for himself, or a possible himself as he imagines it, in books. Meanwhile, I'm promoting the We Need Diverse Books campaign.

Perhaps he is concerned about what his peers will say about the books he brings to school. But that explanation isn't enough alone. Maybe he expect girl books to be a certain way. I think I'll bring home all girl protags next week and see what he does. I'm the one who goes to the library.
 

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It affects marketing, and it affects what librarians and bookstore clerks will recommend to kids and parents alike.

I don't like it, but there it is. I write a series that's heavily marketed to boys, and am starting another that's (hopefully) going to be just as heavily marketed to girls. I know lots of girls read the "boy" series. I don't expect to get as much overlap the other way, and I do expect that to affect sales, because our society still has a lot of work to do.

I hope to be proved wrong, but there's only so much that the author can do. Write the best book you can, push as hard as you can, back stuff like We Need Diverse Books, and hope that the kids who need it will find it.
 

Roly

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Thanks guys.

I was actually wondering because I'm writing an adventure fantasy MG (upper) starring predominantly female protags. Do you think that might be a hard sell? Because I see usually male protags in big fantasy adventure stories. Why do you think that is?
 

Hanson

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I don't know the stats.

and if I did, having studied stats, I'd dismiss them.

Yes, if your MC is excessively gender-centered, it might result in something or other.

But folks, the whole joy , the ENTIRE joy, of MG, is the freedom from gender obsession.

It is.

It really is.


Present credible characters, and the darling MG reader, wont give a damn about gender.

Yes, they're exceptions, for sure.

But for the main, the MG genre, is the one great freedom genre.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Like anything, there are many exceptions, but as generality, yes, I have no doubt such divisions are true. Girls read action/adventure with boy protagonists much more readily than boys of the same age read action/adventure with girls as protagonist.

Societal pressure had zilch to do with it for me. When young, I wanted books with boy protagonists because I could slip inside his skin and become him for the duration of the story. I simply couldn't do that with girl protagonists. My kids were all the same way.

It's always been different with girl readers. It was when I was young, and it is now. They're always been far more willing to read books that had boys as protagonists. I don't have a clue why this is true, but I have no doubt that it is, again, as a generality. But business is usually a numbers game, and generalities mean much in business.

I'm still the same way. I read, and enjoy, a lot of novels with female protagonists, but I'm picky, and all things being equal, I still prefer male protagonists that I can become for the duration of the story.
 

Latina Bunny

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There are exceptions, but yes, (unfortunately), there is a split in the types of MG stories by sex/gender.

I don't have a problem with this, actually. Depends. As long as there are other types of books published, I don't mind the existence of the so-called "girly books" and so-called "boy books". I myself enjoy the supposed "girl" books more than the "boy" books. I always have in the past, and still do. I tend to enjoy the so-called "feminine" stuff like princesses, fairies, and mermaids, as well as superheroes.

In regards to your question, I think fantasy adventures starring heroines are fine. There are girls who enjoy female characters. :) Most boys may not, however. If it's got enough action, then maybe some boys would be interested. It would depend on the focus and how it's written.

I don't blame the boys for not wanting to read female characters. Being female myself, I tend to prefer female characters in my MG/YA readings (with the exception of LGBT fiction, where I prefer males), so I guess it's the same as the boys wanting to read about boys. They can relate better to boy characters, because they are boys themselves.
 

Vimes

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The gender divisions are not just imposed by the publishing world and marketing (i.e. covers very obviously marketed to exclude one gender or the other) - they're just a fact of life. I have boys of my own and I've also taught plenty of boys and the vast majority want a boy protagonist and 'boyish' content (anything to do with bad smells is a winner!).

I wouldn't worry about having a girl protagonist in an adventure tale. Girl-pirate books are quite big at the moment so subversive tomboy adventures are already selling well. Write the book you want to write and let others worry about suitable audiences later.

P.S. One of my favourite MG books is 'The True Meaning of Smekday' - it's a sci-fi adventure featuring an alien invasion with a girl protagonist. Boys love it. There are always exceptions to the rule!
 

Laura J

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We listen to quite a few audiobooks. When my son was younger, 8-11 or so, I would select adventure books with girls as MC or at least dual MC boy/girl. He loved them and I think it helped make him more open to reading girl MCs. But he agreed that he couldn't relate as a well sometimes. But, there is Katinss and Tris and a few others.

I think for MG there is divide among boys and girls. I am a kids party planner and girls will often have girls only parties with girly themes, fairies, princess, spa, but boys will have coed parties and girls will fit I to those themes easier, spies, pirates etc...
 

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When I was a kid, I read every kind of book, but I don't recall seeing boys read a book that was 'pink' or 'girly'. There's a social stigma involved in boys being interested in 'girl things'. I hate it, but it exists.

Also, this isn't a problem limited to the MG audience. To a lesser extent, this can affect other markets. I've heard a lot of people say how women can identify readily with a male main character but men have a harder time identifying with a woman main character--or how stereotypically 'female' stories (chickfic, romcoms) are considered niche to women.
 
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Quentin Nokov

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I remember in elementary school the boys would sit way down at one end of the table and the girls would sit way down at the other end of the table. My group of friends consisted of 2 boys and 2 girls (including me) and we would sit smack dab in the middle of the lunch table. Even in early middle school the boys sat with the boys, the girls sat with the girls, and I think this attitude extends even to reading books.

The boys are going to read books about boys and the girls will tend to read books about girls. Perhaps because children can relate to characters their own gender. My theory on that is that at a young age (before they're young adults) girls and boys are looking for friends--not girlfriends or boyfriends--just friends and book characters can become "friends", but it's easier to relate to someone of the same sex when kids are 12-13 and younger. You see them associate with friends of the same gender in real life, it's only natural--or logical--for them to do so in their fantasy life as well. There will be the occasional kids (like my friends and I) who can read both--mingle with both genders.

I wouldn't worry too much about gender because there's just about as many girls as there are boys. If you make the character likable from both sides of the gender spectrum you won't have a problem. Like the one girl in my group of friends was a tomboy. She'd play basketball with the boys but she'd also wander off and do gymnastic stuff with the cheerleader wannabes. She was balanced.

A balanced character can bring in both audiences. And if you want, you could always start the story off with a gender-neutral name. Sam; Alex etc. And only later explain the true gender of the character. Even if a boy finds out the MC is a girl, if the story is good and the character likable he'll continue reading.
 
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Bloo

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I read everything I could beg my hands on as a young reader, the Hardy Boys to the Babysitter's Club, bug I was weird like that. But my two favorites were The 3 Investigators and Encyclopedia Brown. EB, you could argue, saapped the traditional gender roles (Leroy was the brains Sally the brawn) but as a bookish boy that's what apealled to me (the same with the Henry Reed books) and the 3 Investigators spoke that to me too.

I kind of lost my train of thought here, but I think readers respond to characters that speak to them regardless of gender.
 

Samsonet

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It bothers me that boys won't identify with girls, but girls will identify with boys. I mean, I don't really know how anyone could change it, but it still bothers me.
 

Laura J

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I think that can be a very mainstream thing. Our homeschool community is very earthy crunchy liberal and you don't see as much of a separation of boys and girls. I know I usually offered a fairy school class at our co-op and one year I got slammed for asking for girls only. (I only had girls costumes and the whole issue of ease of dressing made me only want girls).

In our group you see the kids who have always been homeschooled very blended, all genders, mixed ages. Then again our co-op is called the Island of Misfit Toys, very unusual kids and families, even for homeschoolers.

I think interest wise, they can be different, but only if their peers tell them so. Maybe things will change as this generation raises kids.

But, for me, I will say it was very freeing to understand I was writing my book for a MG girl audience. It is a fairy book and boys are unlikely to pick it up.
 
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Evaine

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Geoffrey Trease got round the problem by always having a pair of main characters in his children's historical novels - a boy and a girl having the adventure together. Cue for Treason is especially good (set within an Elizabethan group of travelling players).
And Cicely Mary Barker painted many boy fairies as part of her Flower Fairy series back in the 1920s, I think. It was later that fairies became almost exclusively female.
 

JustSarah

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Well there are also other factors, like how do you factor in boys that turn out to be women later in life. The big reason I find myself weirded out by gendered marketed is based on gender identity disorder.

Not that I think there is no merit, but there is a lot of variance in my opinion.
 

heza

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The Fablehaven series, which I haven't read yet, btw, seems to start off in the viewpoint of a girl character (Kendra) and is about Kendra and her brother Seth. Even though it's a fantasy adventure, concerns about boys not wanting to read a book where Kendra was the central character led the artist for the newer covers to put Seth as the focus of the covers. I guess that's one way to deal with it.

It sort of irritates me, but whatever. Market.