There's always this idea that the publishing world is synonymous to a man's domain, and there are many situations that proved it really is. Author Catherine Nichols' recent discovery about how using a male pseudonym gave her better chances to have her work published is just another demo.

Nichols relayed to Jezebel how she contacted 50 publishing agents using her real name and only getting response from two but upon using a male pen name with the same cover letter and pages in calling six agents, five showed interest.

Three of those said agents even requested for her manuscript. She went on to pitch her work to 50 agents all in all and 17 of those wanted to read her copy. "He is eight and a half times better than me at writing the same book," Nichols concluded, who used George as her alias.

"Fully a third of the agents who saw his query wanted to see more, where my numbers never did shift from one in 25. The judgments about my work that had seemed as solid as the walls of my house had turned out to be meaningless. My novel wasn't the problem, it was me - Catherine," she resolved.

She also noticed how differently these agents commented on Catherine and George's novel. "No one mentioned his sentences being lyrical or whether his main characters were feisty," Nichols said, adding that the responses were overall "polite and warm."

Although George's work was rejected, agents still pointed out it was "clever," "well-constructed" and "exciting" while Catherine's writing, although described as "beautiful" by some, agents always had an adverse follow-up such as "but your main character isn't very plucky, is she?"

As per Independent, there are several explanations of the different treatment Nichols received as a female writer and a male author in the publishing world. It is either's Nichols real name would have put the book under "Women's Fiction," which isn't what it is or basically unconscious bias.

Nichols' finding coincides with Vida's count this year that showed how books with male protagonists are likely to get more awards and attention than those headlined by women. Indie publisher Tramp Press also found out that male authors are bigger influences than female ones.

According to Huffington Post, the company surveyed debut authors and list writers on who in the field influenced or inspired them. There were 148 influential authors that were mentioned but only 33 (or 22 percent) were women.

"I read letter after letter from well-meaning, perfectly nice men and women who list reams of writers they admire, without apparently noticing that the writers they are listing are all of one gender," Tramp Press cofounder Sarah Davis-Goff stated in an essay sent to The Irish Times.