Is this all that surprising? There are way less women developers and designers than mem.

Sorry for the typo, I meant men*

Sunny makes a fair point, but it would be interesting to see if a female author (publishing a similar book) would have the same stats.

maybe a lot of men were buying this book for their wife's christmas present, this could have effected the statistics quite significantly.

It it the fact Jon.
Overall people who are IT professionals, men are there more and less women. Its 80/20 - see http://aneventapart.com/alasurvey2010/

A lumberjack who " smacks ". Not every women is in to that!!

Make the lumberjack take his shirt off?

I'm a female web developer (but I have a wife, so the shirt trick would be wasted on me), and read your initial writings about SMACSS with interest. I work with a big and complex online newspaper (with a bunch of more or less related services), and have built and improved our own architecture over the years. Thus, I find it interesting to compare your suggestions with our own practices - but I don't have time to invest more in it than whatever time I spend browsing the online version.

So for me, I guess what stops me from buying the e-book is the knowledge that I won't find time to read it anyway (and if I magically find the time, I have the last additions to the A Book Apart series waiting for me).

Maybe we just all bought it for the Kindle (when I save money, I can buy more; I don't need a fancy membership; yay, more shopping!) or maybe it's because we don't want to be lumberjacks when we grow up. I'm not a native speaker so I don't know what "smacked" means but from what I've seen on Urban Dictionary, I don't want to be that either.

But in my case it's the Kindle thing.

If we consider ALA Survey 2010 as an accurate indication of gender divide in the industry (showing a roughly 80/20 ratio) I'd say there are other factors at play. Just throwing ideas here:

1. Your core Twitter crowd may be more predominantly male (there may be an historic reason based on your inner circle or inner circle of your biggest referrals).

2. Female developers may tend to hold on the impulse-buying and sit and wait for things to develop further. This is a gut feeling based on personal experience, I have indeed observed a male dominance amongst front end developers but if I was to only observe the very high-end of the talent scale things even out quite bit. And high-end talent scale may behave differently.

3. Your sample is just too small to reflect the industry gender divide.

4. This last one was the one that came to mind first. Although I am reluctant to point to it as a significant factor because of the sample size (branding perception would usually start playing significantly with high numbers) I cannot ignore it: your branding has a beard. I know it sounds silly but this take the number of visible beards on this page to 2. A 2/2 ratio of faces/beards is very high and may affect the perception of the brand's gender target, consciously or more likely, subconsciously.

I hope it helps

Think you could figure out a rough breakdown of the genders of your Twitter followers? That would be a small step in pursuing verification for the theory about your readership.

I have put off buying but it has nothing to do with the book itself. When I buy a tech book, I don't care for author's gender, only the usefulness of the book information.

This female front-end dev was linked directly to the intro of the free version (have started my first project using it, it's going well so far!). If I were to buy a copy, I'd probably choose the Kindle version too. So I'm probably not showing up in your stats.

I can't speak for all the 20% of female devs, but of the handful I know, none would be put off by the branding or marketing you've done so far.

I'd guess it's the small sample size that's skewing your stats, Maybe the stats will shift proportion as the book reaches further away from your starting circle.

Your brand/image doesn't come across as particularly aggressive, marketing-obsessed or show any disrespect for your female colleagues (which are things that make me shudder and leave a site), and you don't indulge in tedious mansplaining. I like the low-key, matter-of-fact attitude you present to the world - it promises a high signal-to-noise ratio.

I am in the same boat as Hilde (with the exception of my other half being a husband). I am a web UI dev with a full plate and though a shirtless lumberjack might make me take a look it won't make me buy something.

I think almost all the points in the comments made are accurate except the beards did not have a negative impact on me and author gender is not a purchasing factor for me. I do think the impulse buying difference between men and women could be a factor as well as the membership.

I am in the same boat as Hilde (with the exception of my other half being a husband). I am a web UI dev with a full plate and though a shirtless lumberjack might make me take a look it won't make me buy something.

I think almost all the points in the comments made are accurate except the beards did not have a negative impact on me and author gender is not a purchasing factor for me. I do think the impulse buying difference between men and women could be a factor as well as the membership.

I think it may be the fact their are very few women web developers, Most women in the industry are designers and not all designers code.

First, I wanted to say that it's awesome you took the time to ask about this, and actively solicited first hand info from your female readership (of which I am not one, btw). It's great to see people in our field recognize and try and address gender bias and disparity.

As a side note, the "Get Smacked" tagline seemed a little aggressive/unwelcoming even to me, and at odds with the friendly lumberjack. Don't know how you'd take the bite out of it though (exSMACSSly what the doctor ordered? I got nothing).

Honest, I don't think you could have done a better job promoting the book. Well, unless you somehow manage to squeeze a vampire or a sexy pirate in there...
But seriously, the lumberjack is not a con here. I actually find it cute (and makes me think of this everytime I see it). To me, blaming the lumberjack is saying that if you put unicorns and rainbows and flowers more women'll be inclined to buy it.

In my experience women wait out to buy things, until there's a sale or the seller has a mental break down and starts giving things away for free.
At least I'm thinking "I want to read the book, but I have no time to do it... Maybe he'll write about his book in his blog and slips some tips for free, and I'll get all the gist of it in three short paragraphs". If a year has gone by and you vow to not write a word until more women buy the book... maybe then I'll get one. But then again, I won't have time to read it...
Women never seem to have time...
It could also be that we seek knowledge or answer on forums, blogs, Google... instead of books. It doesn't require that much time and doesn't involve so much reading to get the answer you seek.

On the other hand, it could be that that 20% front-end women developers are worrying about making the layout work in IE6, and not on more fundamental things like architecture.

Maybe have a female friend promoting the book? You saw how it was with Stephanie in Startech... apparently women have a high clustering coefficient.

I'd put it down to small sample size. The lumberjack is cute in a cartoony way. I'm a woman and I bought the book soon after it was offered. I think you've got a solid take on CSS architecture and that's what persuaded me to buy.

I must admit, I appreciate you bringing up the issue and questioning the numbers. This is a good conversation to have, but I hope it doesn't get belabored.

Could I be presenting myself and the book in a better way?

Kudos to you for even considering this! Many men in the dev community would simply dismiss this discussion as meaningless or divisive (see: hackernews, etc.); the fact that you are actually interested in the cause and whether there is something you can change is a huge breath of fresh air, and inspirational to me, as a male developer. Once again, good on you!

I don't think you had a problem relating to the women in the live audience when I saw you speak at #a11yyow event.

Just be aware while men will interrupt to ask a question, many women will wait to be acknowledged before asking a question. I've often noticed at events that women with hands in the air are overlooked. So scan, scan, scan your audience.

I teach upcoming Multimedia Designers (MMD) and Computer Science (CS) at an Academy in DK. Stats here show women tend to outnumber the men in the MMD classroom and visa versa in the CS programme. MMD is very creative and focus' on IA, where CS is programming, which is math heavy and is more often not the favourite subject amongst women. My experience is that most of my female students mentally block, when it comes to HTML/CSS till they realise that it's not really programming, but a language. I believe this is some of what you are up against, when it comes to selling your book.

Shudder. There is a difference beweten a Gosling sexy mini-beard and a full-on lumberjack-there-are-things-living-in-it beard. I guess some people don't care about the distinction ?