Booksquare

As a long-time romance novel reader — yes, Mom, I know, but I never warmed to the serial killers — I know that many of the books will never qualify as “great”. Still, there are a lot of talented writers telling incredible stories with amazing voice and creativity in the genre. This is so for all types of literature, so much chaff, so little quality wheat.

Ugly book covers are suffered by many male authors as well.

What I have hated most about reading romance, and I’m including the entire cowboys, babies, virgins, and daddies obsession, is reading a book in public that had one of those covers. Breasts falling out of dangerously low-cut gowns, well-muscled long-haired men in overly aggressive poses, cutesy, cuddly babies on gender-coded blankets. Romance novel covers, especially in days gone by, sent the wrong message about the quality and content of the novels.

Legend has it that the “bodice ripper” style of cover was geared toward the men who were buyers for bookstores, not the ultimate consumer. After all, women who read heterosexual-based romance aren’t generally choosing their books based on the cup size of the cover model. In fact, a lot of non-scientific studies have shown that more than a lot of women are uncomfortable reading romance novels in public…because of the covers.

With the advent of chick-lit and women’s fiction as a burgeoning business, book covers for fiction geared toward women suffered from similar, if less cringe-inducing, problems. Recall, for a moment, the overabundance of shoes on candy-colored backgrounds, the pastoral settings with weather-beaten houses, misty water colored memories of small town front porches. Just as there is a sameness in a new season’s television shows and designer clothing and wall paint, there is a sameness in book covers geared toward a particular genre.

This bothers ”’Philadelphia Inquirer”’ columnist Karen Heller, who finds this year’s trend toward “dismemberment” distasteful. She feels the books deserve better, though she doesn’t really offer suggestions about what sort of cover images might better represent the books and their content. She notes, incorrectly,

And it’s not fair to gifted designers who must groan when told to do the femmy-lit thing yet again. The beautiful book is an increasingly rare thing. Most times you see one, the author is male. What does this say? All women writers deserve generic treatment while all men are special in their own way?

If it will help Heller, I can point to a whole bunch o’ ugly covers for novels written by men and an equal number of beautiful covers for novels written by women.

Heller believes that covers with floaty dresses and curvy backs halve a book’s audience. Study after study shows that more women read fiction than men. I don’t think it’s the cover images holding men at bay. And the apparently more tasteful covers given to novels written by men aren’t doing much to increase male readership, are they?

People judge books by their covers. This, I know, offends a certain level of literary snob, but is clearly understood by publishers and readers. Book covers, necessarily, must send messages to potential readers. I know that a book with a smiling, probably gassy baby on the cover isn’t for me. Likewise a pregnant woman. But there are a lot of readers out there who see those images and believe the story inside will appeal to them far more than a cover with a handgun or Soviet-era image.

Cover images very often provide the first level of culling when it comes to find new books to read. When you walk into a bookstore, the sheer volume of product is overwhelming, even if you’re able to isolate your wanderings to just a single section. Browsers, as opposed to readers who are looking for very specific items, pull books off shelves because they look interesting. An image, a clever title, an author’s name, a blurb, intriguing cover copy. All of these elements serve one purpose: hooking the reader to buy and read a book.

I agree that gender bias is alive and thriving in the publishing industry. Just look at the silly criteria used to develop the main ”’New York Times”’ bestseller list. Only in the publishing industry would such paltry figures — relative to sales of non-bestsellers — constitute a “bestseller”. In any given month, an author of a romance published by Harlequin outsells the leader of the so-called bestseller list, but you don’t see that being acknowledged by the ”’NYT”’.

Book reviews continue to be male-dominated as well. I’ve seen a definite trend toward including more books and reviews written by women, but it’s still a Y-chromosome oriented business. Personally, I think this has been a key factor in the decline of newspaper book review sections — there’s a time and place for exclusivity, but not in a newspaper that purports to serve an entire community.

“Male” fiction is taken more seriously on many levels, and, yes, the stupid covers play a negative role in this. Women’s fiction suffers from the belief that domestic issues — home and family — are smaller and less important than big issues. This is a perception that predates the Victorian notions of “spheres”, with the feminine domestic sphere treated as less important the manly public sphere.

I have bypassed many novels because they have lousy covers (and held my snobbery at bay to read some because trusted friends have made it clear that the book inside is worth the time), but I cannot advocate making book covers more appealing to men in order to draw in a larger audience. It seems to me that the male authors need female readers and those covers should speak to the women who are buying the majority of books. Why should women have to make their books more “manly” to achieve male readers? Aren’t we talking about grown-ups here?

Book covers communicate to readers, and publishers are fully aware of the messages they’re sending. While Heller thinks publishers believe women are stupid (”The thinking, or so I imagine, is that readers will look at these women’s body parts or backs and identify. “Why that’s me!” or “That looks just like my old friend Susie!”"), I think publishers know the importance of using imagery to reach the right audience for a book.

Because if you think today’s women are going to plunk down hard-earned dollars for a book because a cover model’s back looks like her old friend Susie, then you seriously underestimate female intelligence and savvy.