My "Sassy Lady" Cover Conundrum
I've noticed something popping up a lot lately, so therefore, I feel the need to ramble. Or maybe rant. No. It's definitely a ramble. Ranting is reserved for someone who is upset by something. In this case, I'm just confused.
How many of you have seen books with a cover like this?
Or like these?
Or my personal favorite, the booty shot.
My question is...why? Why does this type of cover seem to be a recent trend?
I've seen books like this coming across my Pinterest account as suggestions to put on my "Wish List" board for things I might want to read. Well to be honest, I have NO IDEA if I want to read these books. Do you know why?
It's because the cover tells me literally NOTHING about them. Let's look at this one as an example.
(Disclaimer: I haven't read any of these books, so I'm not trying to bash the writers or cover designers or anything like that. I'm just working through my confusion.)
Do you see why I'm struggling?
Let's look at the words now.
This book is called White Raven by J.L. Weil. According to the subtitle, it's a bestseller and it might be part of a series since it says "A Raven Novel."
Okay.
Great.
I still have no idea what this book is about.
And here's the thing. As I proved with my above cover examples, this isn't the only book in the world that has such a confusing cover. I just don't understand why this type of cover has so much popularity. There isn't anything wrong with it exactly, but it doesn't make sense to me why someone would see the cover of this book and think hmm, that looks interesting.
Like I said, ALL these books could be great reads. If you've read them and they changed your life with their literary awesomeness, please, let me know!
The other covers are a little better, some of them at least. They'll toss in a knife or a glowing hand that make you think assassin, witch, etc. But again, why is some generic pretty woman/girl the fallback for conveying that this is a book about assassins or witches?
Is it a gender thing? I'm assuming these books are written with a female-focused target audience. Does the publisher/author/whoever think girls will see a sassy lady on the cover and think this is the book for me.
Personally, I look for books with covers I HAVEN'T seen before, covers that make me say, dang, that's cool. And then I pick up the book!!
What's that? You want some examples? Sure thing.
So I found a Barnes & Noble blog post for the best sci-fi/fantasy books of 2019 and scrolled through to pick some cool covers. Here are the first five books I saw that I WOULD NOT be able to resist picking up.
Again, I haven't read any of these, but just look at how INTERESTING the covers are. None of them are alike, and none of them feature a sassy female at the front and center.
Also, I'm realizing as I look through the list of B&N covers I picked that not all of them say much about the contents of their pages either. The hand/candle one, for example, is super cool looking, but only really tells me the book is about something magical, witchy maybe? Not exactly sure.
I might need to revise my confusion then. Perhaps my problem is more with the repetitive nature of the sassy lady covers, and not so much that they don't reveal a lot about their content. Using the hand/candle book example again, I'm not so bothered by the fact that it doesn't tell me much since I have literally never seen a book cover like that before. The uniqueness of Middle Game's cover is what would make me pull it off the shelf in a heartbeat.
So moving forward with the repetitive idea, I always thought the point of a cover was to make you want to pick up the book. When I see a book cover with a sassy lady on the front, I skip right over it because at this point, I've seen so many covers like that, my eyes are just trained to ignore it. When I see a cover like the ones I listed above, I pick it up, read the back, flip through it, in short, I give the book a chance!
Getting a potential reader to pick up your book is the first hurdle, and a cover has the power to do that, so make it EYECATCHING!!
What do you guys think? Do you understand my confusion? Am I crazy? What makes these sassy lady covers so popular? Please, PLEASE explain.
UPDATE: I received a helpful comment on this post that really shed some light on my confusion. A fellow reader said she picks up books with sassy lady covers because she knows the story will revolve around a strong female protagonist, which she loves! Here. I'll just quote her directly so you can see it in her words.
"I think that they're meant to say: this is a book about a strong female protagonist. The one with the feathers implies there is probably some sort of fantasy involved. To be honest, these are the books I pick up. I have been so freaking tired of reading books that are inadvertently about men and men's stories (even the end of Divergent, like how???). These covers imply that the novel is going to revolve around a young woman and her story/coming of age quest, and if you're lucky, it won't be a romance novel. I pick these up hoping they won't be. I relate to female protagonists and usually enjoy the book better. These covers to me evoke a certain relatability for young women. Maybe that's not your jam, and that's cool, but I think that that's what they're trying to say. Yeah, the book with the burning candle hand is cool and implies some sort of horror/fantasy, but does it really tell you anything more than the covers with women? I personally don't think so. It seems to me to just be a different set of interests. Yeah, the titles for the books with women on the covers seem to be kinda bad marketing, but I think the covers aren't anything bad. Just a bit repetitive, sure."
Thank you anonymous book lover!!!
P.S. If you all like reading my rants/rambles about book covers, I have another post about it here.
How many of you have seen books with a cover like this?
Or like these?
Or my personal favorite, the booty shot.
My question is...why? Why does this type of cover seem to be a recent trend?
I've seen books like this coming across my Pinterest account as suggestions to put on my "Wish List" board for things I might want to read. Well to be honest, I have NO IDEA if I want to read these books. Do you know why?
It's because the cover tells me literally NOTHING about them. Let's look at this one as an example.
(Disclaimer: I haven't read any of these books, so I'm not trying to bash the writers or cover designers or anything like that. I'm just working through my confusion.)
So, what does this cover tell me? (I'm just going to look at the picture first, then the words). I see a blonde girl/woman in a ruffly pink dress. It's storming. She's by the ocean. There are white feathers around her.
This story is about...uh...this story is about. Um. I think this story is about-
I've got nothing.
Is she jumping into the ocean? Is she going to fly away? Is she being struck by lightning? Is she controlling the lightning? Is there a large winged creature nearby shedding feathers onto her? What the HECK is going on here?
I don't even know the genre of this book. I'm kinda-sorta sure it's fiction. Is it fantasy? Is it romance? Is it realistic fiction? Historical fiction? Maybe not historical fiction. Her dress looks pretty modern.
Okay, so we've narrowed it down to a story about a female character of unknown age set in the last fifty or so years.
Do you see why I'm struggling?
Let's look at the words now.
This book is called White Raven by J.L. Weil. According to the subtitle, it's a bestseller and it might be part of a series since it says "A Raven Novel."
Okay.
Great.
I still have no idea what this book is about.
And here's the thing. As I proved with my above cover examples, this isn't the only book in the world that has such a confusing cover. I just don't understand why this type of cover has so much popularity. There isn't anything wrong with it exactly, but it doesn't make sense to me why someone would see the cover of this book and think hmm, that looks interesting.
Like I said, ALL these books could be great reads. If you've read them and they changed your life with their literary awesomeness, please, let me know!
The other covers are a little better, some of them at least. They'll toss in a knife or a glowing hand that make you think assassin, witch, etc. But again, why is some generic pretty woman/girl the fallback for conveying that this is a book about assassins or witches?
Is it a gender thing? I'm assuming these books are written with a female-focused target audience. Does the publisher/author/whoever think girls will see a sassy lady on the cover and think this is the book for me.
Personally, I look for books with covers I HAVEN'T seen before, covers that make me say, dang, that's cool. And then I pick up the book!!
What's that? You want some examples? Sure thing.
So I found a Barnes & Noble blog post for the best sci-fi/fantasy books of 2019 and scrolled through to pick some cool covers. Here are the first five books I saw that I WOULD NOT be able to resist picking up.
Also, I'm realizing as I look through the list of B&N covers I picked that not all of them say much about the contents of their pages either. The hand/candle one, for example, is super cool looking, but only really tells me the book is about something magical, witchy maybe? Not exactly sure.
I might need to revise my confusion then. Perhaps my problem is more with the repetitive nature of the sassy lady covers, and not so much that they don't reveal a lot about their content. Using the hand/candle book example again, I'm not so bothered by the fact that it doesn't tell me much since I have literally never seen a book cover like that before. The uniqueness of Middle Game's cover is what would make me pull it off the shelf in a heartbeat.
So moving forward with the repetitive idea, I always thought the point of a cover was to make you want to pick up the book. When I see a book cover with a sassy lady on the front, I skip right over it because at this point, I've seen so many covers like that, my eyes are just trained to ignore it. When I see a cover like the ones I listed above, I pick it up, read the back, flip through it, in short, I give the book a chance!
Getting a potential reader to pick up your book is the first hurdle, and a cover has the power to do that, so make it EYECATCHING!!
What do you guys think? Do you understand my confusion? Am I crazy? What makes these sassy lady covers so popular? Please, PLEASE explain.
UPDATE: I received a helpful comment on this post that really shed some light on my confusion. A fellow reader said she picks up books with sassy lady covers because she knows the story will revolve around a strong female protagonist, which she loves! Here. I'll just quote her directly so you can see it in her words.
"I think that they're meant to say: this is a book about a strong female protagonist. The one with the feathers implies there is probably some sort of fantasy involved. To be honest, these are the books I pick up. I have been so freaking tired of reading books that are inadvertently about men and men's stories (even the end of Divergent, like how???). These covers imply that the novel is going to revolve around a young woman and her story/coming of age quest, and if you're lucky, it won't be a romance novel. I pick these up hoping they won't be. I relate to female protagonists and usually enjoy the book better. These covers to me evoke a certain relatability for young women. Maybe that's not your jam, and that's cool, but I think that that's what they're trying to say. Yeah, the book with the burning candle hand is cool and implies some sort of horror/fantasy, but does it really tell you anything more than the covers with women? I personally don't think so. It seems to me to just be a different set of interests. Yeah, the titles for the books with women on the covers seem to be kinda bad marketing, but I think the covers aren't anything bad. Just a bit repetitive, sure."
Thank you anonymous book lover!!!
P.S. If you all like reading my rants/rambles about book covers, I have another post about it here.
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