SinC's Review Monitoring Project Needs YOU!

By Barbara Fister

Let’s do the numbers:

Mystery reviews in The New York Times
• 1987: 6% female authors
• 2010: 35% female authors

Edgar best novel winners:
• Pre-1986: 17% female
• Since 1986: 31% female

Mystery authors published in the US:
• 1986: 38% female
• 2010: 50% female
(source: Edgar submissions)

Percentage of consumers in the U.S. who buy mysteries, 2010:
• 68% female
(source: SinC/Bowker study)

One of the first projects established by Sisters in Crime 25 years ago was the task of monitoring and reporting on the gender of the mystery authors whose books were reviewed in the media. At the time, The New York Times was paying scant attention to women authors. In 1987, the year that Sara Paretsky, Margaret Maron, Nancy Pickard and other SinC founders gathered at Sandra Scoppottone’s loft in New York to strategize, the Times reviewed 97 mysteries written by men and only seven authored by women. In those days, approximately 38% of the published mysteries were written by women.

Things have improved. In 2010, the Times reviewed 96 mysteries by men and 47 by women. (However, since about half of the mysteries published that year were written by women, the number of published reviews remained skewed toward male writers.) And, in recent years, pre-publication and mystery-focused review sources are more balanced in terms of gender than the mainstream media. One publication – Romantic Times – has consistently reviewed more mysteries by women than men.

Since 1985, we’ve seen enormous shifts in the publishing industry, including a steep decline in the number of book reviews appearing in the mainstream media – even as the number of published books has increased, particularly in the area of non-traditional publishing. According to Bowker, there were more than three million new books published in the U.S. last year, with non-traditional titles outnumbering traditional titles eight to one.

In 2012, we hope to shift gears with the monitoring project to create a dashboard of indicators that reflects changes in the publishing environment. We’re cutting back on monitoring print sources and will be adding online review sources to see how we’re doing over time as the mystery landscape changes.

Is the monitoring project still relevant? Well, to answer that, we need numbers. If we ever get to the point that the number of published reviews reflects the percentage of published books written by women, we might consider our work done. For now, though, that’s still not the case. In the shrinking hole for book reviews in newspapers and magazines, male authors are still twice as likely to get a review as female authors.

Sisters in Crime needs volunteers for the review monitoring project for 2012! If you would be willing and able to monitor reviews published by online sources or in one of the publications listed below, please contact me – bfister @ hickorytech[dot]net.

• The Boston Globe
• Crimespree
• Deadly Pleasures
• Entertainment Weekly
• The Wall Street Journal

Questions? Comments? Feel free to weigh in.


Barbara Fister is the author of the Anni Koskinen mysteries. The most recent title in the series is Through the Cracks. She is an academic librarian and serves on the SinC board as Coordinator of the SinC Review Monitoring Project.

BEST BOOKS? SAYS WHO?

By Marcia Talley
President, Sisters in Crime

There’s been a lot said in the news and in the blogosphere lately about Publisher’s Weekly annual Top 10 and Top 100 books of the year.

Here's the article: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6704595.html

Shockingly, there are no, I repeat, no women in the top ten. In the "fiction section," the only female mystery writers who made the list were Gillian Flynn and Sarah Waters, and of the seven titles selected in the "mystery" category, only two are by women. Sisters in Crime finds this deeply discouraging. For the past twenty-three years, our organization has been working to raise awareness and “promote the professional development and advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry.” When a lop-sided list like this comes out from a respected and influential industry publication, it seems that in spite of our best efforts, it’s "one step forward, two steps back."

The heart of what Sisters in Crime is all about is our Review Monitoring Project: giving women authors equity in the business of writing. Our monitors check newspapers, magazines, and on-line review sites to take note of how the numbers are adding up. Julianne Balmain heads up this effort, and has just complied the third quarter results for 2009. The news is bad.

Three quarters of the numbers are in for our Sisters In Crime Monitoring Project, she says, and the results are not particularly encouraging. Of fifty publications, only two have reviewed more mystery novels written by women than those written by men. One is the Bay Area’s Contra Costa Times at approximately 63% books by women, the other is Romantic Times at just under 78%.

Of the other 48 publications, many of the percentages as of the end of September were worrisome. Several large publications reviewing many mystery novels were heavily weighted in favor of books written by men. Among them are Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine at nearly 81% male, the Los Angeles Times at more than 85% male, the Detroit Free Press at 100% male, the Dallas Morning News at nearly 79% male, NPR Radio at more than 80% male, and the Washington Post at more than 79% male. We still have a full quarter of numbers to report, so these statistics will change. However, what appears to be a downward trend of review coverage for books written by women is certainly a cause for concern.

But the problem goes well beyond being ignored by reviewers. It's also clear that publishers don't take traditional mysteries seriously. Why? Because traditional mysteries are usually women's stories. How do we know that publishers don't take them seriously? In presenting the advanced reading copy of a new novel by one of our members, a bookseller received this notice: "This is not cozy time -- this is bestseller time." Can there be a more clear statement of a publisher's expectations?

And yet, there's a great track record of traditional mystery writers selling well -- the classic British women, of course, the ubiquitous Andrew McCall Smith, and even Lillian Jackson Braun, author of the popular “Cat Who …” books, hits the New York Times bestseller list every time. On the Oct. 7 Bookscan mystery chart, Joanne Fluke is #3 (right behind Michael Connelly at #2), Louise Penny is at #7, #20, #24, #43 and #45. M.C. Beaton is at #12 and #48. And there are more.

Think of how much better mysteries written by women would sell if they didn't have to fight the low expectations of the very people who publish them!

How does this inequality develop? Editorial policies vary, but reviewers generally review
books they like. Are their choices unconsciously affected by preconception?


Several years ago I served as a judge for a popular mystery anthology series, one that had, in previous years, featured primarily male authors. That year, the first to require blind submissions, the judges were gratified to discover that the stories we chose were roughly equal, male/female, and unpublished author/previously published author.

That certainly was an eyeopener for me.

Clearly, women writers are fighting against perception as well as reality. Women writers must continue to advocate for equality of advances, promotional money, reviews, interviews, and awards. And the fact that Sisters in Crime keeps track of these issues and tries to draw wider attention to them is critical.

Other voices weighing in on this issue include:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2009/11/05/pw_10_best/index.html?source=rss&aim=/books/feature

https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:1401285.6538197727/rid:f4307671de2e7e663602c933ec776dfa