Study Shows Women are Now Publishing More Books Than Men

A new study by Joel Waldfogel, an economist at the University of Minnesota, has revealed that, since at least 2020, women are now publishing more books than men for the first time in history. His study set out to gain insight into how much men and women have contributed to the number of books published in the last 70 years. It analysed data from Goodreads, Bookstat, Amazon, and the National Library of Congress. 

The growing presence of women in the publishing industry is not due to a decrease of the number of male authors, but instead is attributed to increased interest in works written by female authors. This is despite the fact that, according to British journalist Mary Ann Sieghart, men are still hesitant to pick up works written by women. Of the ten best-selling female authors, only 19 per cent of their readership is male, contrasted heavily by the 45 per cent male readership for their male counterparts.

In the 1970s, women writers published three times fewer books than male authors. Waldfogel found that women’s share of published titles increased from around 20 per cent in the 1970s to over 50 per cent by 2020. Overall revenue in the industry rose by between a tenth and a fifth. This rise has contributed to increased revenue within the publishing industry for both male and female consumers.

The resultant growth of the industry has meant that by 2021, female-authored books sold more copies on average than those written by men. As a result of this, Waldfogel suggests that the industry now offers a diversity of authors that wasn’t previously available to readers. This influx of published female authors presents narratives and perspectives that would have otherwise remained obscured – a win for audiences of all genders.

Words by Violeta Paez