Do we really need to turn female authors into clickbait to sell their books?

Surely there's another way.

Let me start off by saying, it’s really hard to sell books. In this New York Times article from last year, it said “about 98% of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies.” NINETY EIGHT percent of books. And because so many books are published every week (up to 600 on what is called “Super Thursday”) authors really are up against it to find ways to get them out there. It’s competitive, and it’s increasingly harder to get visibility or shelf space. There are less magazines publishing book reviews. Scrap that, there are less magazines in general. There’s the classic ‘strategy’ of “getting influential friends to post about it” (but not every author has that), then there’s online and offline marketing (if your publisher wants to spend more money on the book) and then there’s entering into the publicity machine. I can’t help but notice the way female authors are treated once they enter into that machine.