Men's Fiction Still Exists And Sells Like Crazy, Just Not In Bookstores: It's In These Categories On Amazon

The publishing industry experts always ask “why aren’t men reading?” and while that’s partially the case, they are, just not anything that’s set up in bookstores. Amazon has several categories where men read regularly that sell like crazy and get largely ignored by mainstream bookstores. These exist in three categories: military science fiction, litRPGs, and anime-inspired harem fantasy romance.

While it’s easy to see the BookScan numbers talking about how Romantasy is dominating everything, and those numbers for authors are incredibly impressive, there are a lot of people making great money on Amazon through male-targeted fiction that can be compacted into simple genres.

Most of these genres are very formulaic, much like Romantasy is for women, and a lot of authors “write to market,” in this case, writing to the Amazon algorithm.

Military Science Fiction has always been a male-dominated category. Harkening back to Starship Troopers and Robert A. Heinlein, the idea of having a unit in space fighting against evil bug monsters or sometimes just each other appeals to a lot of male readers. These books are often characterized by gruff, brooding protagonists who are bad-ass and reluctant heroes.

The top of the charts are often dominated by the likes of J.N. Chaney, M.R. Forbes, and B.V. Larson. Unlike the very public faces of mainstream publishing, these men operate much more behind the scenes, grinding out books as fast as they possibly can to keep the algorithm chain going. They even often do collaborations with other authors to ensure they keep having new releases to show up on those charts for the voracious Kindle Unlimited users.

LitRPG is often like playing a video game but just reading it. The characters’ progress, sometimes they have levels, get experience points, all in a system where they get stronger. It’s a strange thing on the surface, but stripping it away usually leads to action-packed fantasy situations that give readers an old-school Dungeons & Dragons experience.

The most famous of these series is Dungeon Crawler Carl, and these sprawling adventures are some of the highest sellers on Amazon almost all of the time.

Fantasy Harem Romance is another one that feels anime inspired. Many anime fans might recall Sword Art Online, where it was similar to the LitRPGs in the way that the main character operated in an online world to progress with these women at his side. But the hallmark of it was all of the women fawning over the main character. In these books, that occurs and there’s often a lot more on-screen sexual scenarios that end up a lot more like a romance novel than not.

Amazon places these books in “Mens Adventure Fiction” or “Fantasy Adventure Fiction” as categories. One such example is Warlock by Daniel Kensington which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since its release last year. While this is a genre a lot of men “quietly enjoy” it still sells in ridiculous amounts.

These three genres are dominating men’s fiction right now in genre fiction, and they don’t win awards or get much publicity, but they all have rabid fanbases that consume these books voraciously. They exist, they’re just not in your local Barnes & Noble.

What do you think of the state of men’s reading and fiction? Leave a comment and let us know.

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