I spotted this on X recently:
Happened to be in Target again and decided to check in on the ‘Fantasy’ section. Unlike last year, any male-centric fantasy is nowhere in sight.
It’s all Chick Lit and Booktok slop.
Modern publishing hates male readers.
Okay. Deep breath. Let’s unpack this.
First: this was Target. A chain bookstore. And chain bookstores carry only traditionally published books—usually the biggest names, the current hot trends, and whatever the publishers have paid (yes, literally paid) to have face-out on the shelf.
Wanna drive your local bookseller a little bonkers? Turn all your favourite books face out. Just… maybe don’t get caught.
Second: traditional publishers, as much as we love to pretend otherwise, aren’t trying to serve some higher literary calling. They publish what they think will sell. And right now, that happens to be the kind of fantasy this poster dismisses. That’s not a conspiracy—it’s capitalism. If soft romantasy with pretty covers is flying off shelves, publishers are going to print more of it.
But here’s where this gets interesting.
Fantasy written by men for male readers? Alive and thriving. It’s just not always on that one shelf in Target. You’re going to find it online—in indie publishing, where the gatekeeping is gone and the stories are as wild and varied as the readers.
Need help finding it? Ask Google. Or ask your favourite AI assistant. Tell it what books you love, and prepare to be buried in suggestions.
That “nothing for me” feeling? It’s a side effect of looking in the wrong place. And let’s be honest, nobody’s best literary discoveries ever happened under fluorescent lighting in a supermarket aisle.
Most indie authors write the books they want to read. Sure, they keep one eye on the market, but they’re not writing for trends—they’re looking for the overlap between what sells and what sets their own creative blood on fire. And that means you’re more likely to find something real, something different, something that makes you want to binge an entire backlist at 2 a.m.
Now, let’s talk numbers.
Traditional publishing in North America released over 10,000 new titles in 2023. But that’s just a drop in the bucket.
In the self-publishing world, roughly 2.3 million books were released in the U.S. in 2023. Recent surveys indicate that fiction genres, particularly romance, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery, dominate the self-publishing landscape. For example, a 2021 survey by Written Word Media found that romance was the most common primary genre among indie authors, followed by fantasy, science fiction, and mystery. This suggests that fiction likely constitutes a significant majority of self-published titles.
And fantasy? While exact numbers are hard to come by without paying for detailed reports, we know from sources like K-lytics that fantasy consistently ranks as one of the top-performing genres in indie publishing. Even a conservative estimate would suggest tens of thousands of new fantasy books each year, many of them written outside the traditional publishing system.
That’s not a drought—it’s a flood. You just need to lift the lid.
One of those books? Might be exactly what you’re looking for. You just haven’t met the right author yet.
And if you’re wondering, no—I don’t write for a genre. I don’t imagine a “target audience.” I don’t even exist when I write. I’m so far down the rabbit hole of my POV character’s experience, the world around me drops away. There’s a little bit of woo-woo in that, and a lot of practice. The words just appear on the screen, and I watch it happen.
So if you’re standing in a store aisle, staring at the “Fantasy” section and feeling like there’s nothing left for you—maybe this is why.
The stories are still out there. The heroes, the worlds, the epic journeys—they never left. You just need to know where to look.
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I don’t have an independent bookstore where I live, just the chain stores, so I was buying on Amazon for my Kindle which led me to the Indie authors, and I have never looked back! Books that the major publishing houses would never look at are every bit as good and often better than the hysterically promoted on TikTok mainstream books. I prefer completed series but there are gems to be found among the short stories and novellas on author’s websites so I would rather browse for them, than try and find something readable in a store.
The only thing I miss using a kindle is the feel of the paper and the smell of a new book, but its a small price to pay to have something I can enjoy reading, particularly as the quality of modern books has gone down and the paper rips as you touch it!
Hi Caroline:
I can’t argue with you on any point. I will say, though, that you get to the point where you don’t miss paper books at all. I find paper quite inconvenient to read, these days!
Taylen