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Global SFF, Woman, Representation
Jul. 20th, 2011 09:58 pmI linked earlier to this roundtable (in which I participated) on the World SF Blog on Global Women in SF.
Now Cora Buhlert weighs in on the subject as well.
Of course, it’s likely that those stories didn’t sell because they simply weren’t very good. In fact, it’s very likely. However, over time I also began to suspect that my nationality and the unconventional settings were an additional strike against me. Because why would anybody want to buy an urban fantasy set in the secret underground world of Antwerp or a fantasy about river spirits in the Ardennes, when some ninety percent of the readership wouldn’t even be able to locate those places on a map. Of course, as an international reader was always expected to be interested in urban fantasies set in Milwaukee or Cleveland – cities I can locate on a map but don’t know anything about otherwise. But the reverse obviously wasn’t true.
The question of how open the US/UK/Commonwealth market and readers are to non US/UK/Commonwealth based fiction remains to a large degree unanswered. Even Canadian and Australian (and NZ) fiction can be a hard sell outside those regions if it is based in those regions, from my observation.
Anyway, much food for thought.
Now Cora Buhlert weighs in on the subject as well.
Of course, it’s likely that those stories didn’t sell because they simply weren’t very good. In fact, it’s very likely. However, over time I also began to suspect that my nationality and the unconventional settings were an additional strike against me. Because why would anybody want to buy an urban fantasy set in the secret underground world of Antwerp or a fantasy about river spirits in the Ardennes, when some ninety percent of the readership wouldn’t even be able to locate those places on a map. Of course, as an international reader was always expected to be interested in urban fantasies set in Milwaukee or Cleveland – cities I can locate on a map but don’t know anything about otherwise. But the reverse obviously wasn’t true.
The question of how open the US/UK/Commonwealth market and readers are to non US/UK/Commonwealth based fiction remains to a large degree unanswered. Even Canadian and Australian (and NZ) fiction can be a hard sell outside those regions if it is based in those regions, from my observation.
Anyway, much food for thought.