If there is one plus to ebooks being less cover-obvious, it is that potentially-embarrassed men won't be as apprehensive about buying books with "girly" covers.
Reshared post from +The Mary Sue
Yesterday author Maureen Johnson Tweeted about how many times she’s been told by men that they wish her books had “non-girly” covers so they could read them without fear of embarrassment. Her books don’t get “girly” covers because of their content, she explains, but because of her gender: “If you are a female author, you are much more likely to get the package that suggests the book is of a lower perceived quality. Because it’s ‘girly,’ which is somehow inherently different and easier on the palate. A man and a woman can write books about the same subject matter, at the same level of quality, and that woman is simple more likely to get the soft-sell cover with the warm glow and the feeling of smooth jazz blowing off of it. This idea that there are ‘girl books’ and ‘boy books’… gives credit to absolutely no one, especially not the boys who will happily read stories by women, about women. As a lover of books and someone who supports readers and writers of both sexes, I would love a world in which books are freed from some of these constraints.”
Thus Coverflip was born. The challenge, proposed by Johnson, asks for people to take a well-known book and reimagine what the cover might look like if the author was of a different gender. A few of our favorites—including A Game of Thrones by “Georgette R. Martin” andStardust by “Nellie Gaiman”—are at http://bit.ly/15q5OZ4.
A bit of a over blown tempest in a teapot IMHO.
First off, taking already genre ghettoed books and changing the covers to your biased perception of what you would think a publisher would put on the cover is silly.
Second, most of the mystery writers I read are from English women, and I do not see a difference between their covers and male writers covers…so should you now flip both genders covers, or just the men’s?
What about non-fiction?
I guess we can file this under first world problems.
I don’t know that I agree, @bd. While not probably quite as extreme as, say male vs female comic book cover poses, or the whitewashing of YA cover figures, I think there are key differences in how books are covered/marketed between male and female authors. The examples given in the brief gallery (I didn’t drill through to the site), the Martin one in particular, is, yes, a bit of a straw man but strikes me as completely plausible (and I have a fair number of books on the shelf to judge by).
This may be more of an issue in some genres — F&SF seems to have more issues than Mystery (perhaps because that genre has been more gender integrated in authorship and readership, or is longer established, than F&SF).
interesting
I wasn't aware that really existed, as (short of romance novels) there's no book cover I'd find uncomfortable.
The romance covers I'd compensate for, by asking of the other person would like to read with me. 😛
@Dave
If I had the time and was good a photoshop I would love to have done this in a way that completely mocked the concept, even in SF&F.
There are a ton of examples of either male authors having “feminine” covers or female authors having “masculine” covers.
Are Lois McMaster Bujold’s covers masculine or feminine?
Are Octavia Butlers covers masculine or faminine?
Are Sheri S. Tepper’s covers masculine or feminine?
and on and on and on.
As to YA, not a genre I spend any time reading since for the most part I disliked them back when I was a YA.
But, do the following covers convey the subject of the book, or are they Gender Biased?
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8127.Anne_of_Green_Gables
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77390.Anne_of_Avonlea
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77392.Anne_of_the_Island
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65840.Anne_of_Windy_Poplars
To me, they show what the book is about.
Also, to be fair (or not) to the person with the mad Photoshop skilz that did the Game of Thrones cover, this was the first edition cover:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/409207.A_Game_of_Thrones
So is the so called “Original” cover a coverflip, or not?