A writer and critic has launched a new independent press that will focus on publishing books by male writers.
Conduit Books, founded by Jude Cook, will publish literary fiction and memoir, “focusing initially on male authors”.
Cook said the publishing landscape has changed “dramatically” over the past 15 years as a reaction to the “prevailing toxic male-dominated literary scene of the 80s, 90s and noughties”. Now, “excitement and energy around new and adventurous fiction is around female authors – and this is only right as a timely corrective”.
“This new breed of young female authors, spearheaded by Sally Rooney et al, ushered in a renaissance for literary fiction by women, giving rise to a situation where stories by new male authors are often overlooked, with a perception that the male voice is problematic,” he said.
These “overlooked narratives” might address fatherhood, masculinity, working class male experiences, sex, relationships, and “negotiating the 21st century as a man” – “precisely the narratives” that Conduit hopes to publish.
Cook said conversations about toxic masculinity after the second election of Donald Trump and the popular Netflix series Adolescence means that the “subject of what young men read has become critically important”.
Scott Preston, whose book The Borrowed Hills was shortlisted for this year’s Sunday Times young writers’ award, said “the question of why boys don’t read, and then become men who don’t read, is a big topic right now, what with the next generation of them simmering with rage online, but it’s a question I’ve been hearing for a long time.
“The topics and themes that appeal to men, particularly working-class men, can sometimes be dismissed as unserious or unevolved. A book press willing to tackle that is a good start but the hard part will be cobbling together an audience out of readers who have become neglected.”
The press is actively looking for a book to launch with, “preferably a debut novel by a male UK novelist under 35”, with submissions open throughout the month of May. It will aim to publish three novels, short story collections or memoirs a year beginning in spring 2026.
It “can’t be over-stressed” that Conduit Books “doesn’t seek an adversarial stance”, Cook said. “Nor is the press looking to exclude writers of colour, or queer, non-binary and neurodivergent authors.”
Men have not suddenly stopped reading and writing literary fiction, said Cook – rather, they are simply “not being commissioned”. He pointed to 2020 data suggesting that 78% of those in editorial roles in the publishing industry are women.
“Whenever I send out a novel to editors, the list [of names] is nearly all female,” a male agent told Johanna Thomas-Corr for an Observer piece in 2021. “But it’s not the gender makeup that bothers him, he insists, it’s the prevailing groupthink – the lack of interest in male novelists and the widespread idea that the male voice is problematic,” wrote Thomas-Corr.
The declining prominence of young male writers has been a topic of debate in the publishing industry for several years, in part sparked online by a Times piece by James Marriott titled “Booker prize 2020 longlist: where are the new male hotshot novelists?”
There has “never been an independent publisher that champions literary fiction by men,” said Cook. “Which is not to say we won’t publish fiction by women in the future – but the emphasis at first will be on male authors. We believe there is ambitious, funny, political and cerebral fiction by men that is being passed by.”
Cook is the author of the books Byron Easy and Jacob’s Advice. He regularly reviews books for outlets including the Guardian and TLS, and teaches creative writing at Westminster University. He said that since announcing the new press, the response “has been overwhelmingly positive, especially from female authors and women who work in publishing”.
