Shropshire author changes name to avoid ‘sexism’
Friday 18th March 2011, 8:23AM GMT.
A best-selling Shropshire author is taking readers into the drama and intrigue of ancient Rome in the first in a new series of books.
And for Manda Scott, of Clungunford, it’s a step in a new direction in a different way – because she’s changed her name to avoid ‘male sexist bias’.
“Previously I wrote the Boudica: Dreaming series and a series of contemporary thrillers under the name Manda Scott, but apparently most men won’t buy a book if they know it’s by a woman, so I’ve had to become ‘ungendered,’” said Manda.
As a result her name on the new paperback book Rome: The Emperor’s Spy appears as MC Scott.
“It’s in the same way that JK Rowling didn’t let anyone know she was a woman at first. The sad thing is that it works.”
Rome: The Emperor’s Spy will be followed in May by the appearance in hardback of Rome: The Coming of The King.
Manda says the new series is a Roman spy thriller and the first book is based around the great fire of Rome.
“I learned that the fire was lit on the night of July 18, 64 AD, and that there were in circulation at the time apocalyptic manuscripts claiming that ‘the kingdom of heaven could not arise until or unless Rome had burned under the eye of the Dog Star, Sirius’.”
- Rome: The Emperor’s Spy is published by Transworld Publishers and costs £6.99.
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*apparently most men won’t buy a book if they know it’s by a woman*
Holy sweeping generalisation Batman!
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Forget the name, this book has the requisite number of fires/explosions on the cover for men to buy it.
I doubt whether ‘The Coming of the King’ will have the cover its title suggests, mind you, but here’s hoping.
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you may think it’s a generalisation, but the sales figures stand at 80% sales to women, 20% to men if the author is clearly a woman – across the board, fiction, non-fiction and all genres (except women’s fiction, where the men write as women). Become genderless, and the sales shift to 50:50 and it’s not a decrease in sales to women.
You do the math. It’s sad, but it’s universal.
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The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If it’s well thought out ,well researched, and presents some new and interesting material it will sell,however only to an interested audience. As a person (of Roman decscent} and being particularly interested in the period, I would buy the book no matter who wrote it provided the fore mentioned rules are contained within. One might say I’m subject driven…
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@Umberto…. Thank you, kind man… you are the kind of person writers dream of…
read and enjoy
m
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i would buy any book Manda Scott wrote, simply to enjoy the fluidity of her words, the characterisation, the sheer excitement of what she writes about. she is a writer beyond praise.
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