Are publishers undermining female authors with 'girly' book covers?

[ShadeMumsnet]

Author Maureen Johnson has called for an end to gendered book covers. She argues that "girly" book jackets homogenise the appearance of books by women, undermine the diversity of subject matter and put men off reading female authors.

Johnson took to Twitter to issue a 'Coverflip' challenge asking followers to take a well-known book, imagine its author as the opposite sex, then redesign the cover according to the current marketing norms of mainstream publishers. See the responses here.

Do you agree there is a problem with the marketing of books written by female authors? Have you seen a book jacket that completely misrepresented the content of the book? If there is a problem, how do we solve it?

That goes right back to George Eliot & the Brontes, doesn't it?
I help out in the books section of a busy charity shop on weekends & from what I see there I don't think it stands for all women authors. The Tess Gerritsen / Karin Slaughter thriller genre don't have girly covers, and nor do people like A S Byatt and Margaret Atwood.
There are an awful lot of girly ones though, & I do often just assume 'chicklit' without bothering to look inside & see what's actually there.
I'm not sure what we do about it. Maybe Mumsnet could talk to Maureen Johnson and spread the Coverflip challenge? (I had a look through the responses, they make a bloody good point!)

I quite like it though, as it means I can generally avoid chicklit.

Shoes on the cover - avoid. Cupcakes on the cover - avoid.

Hilary Mantel doesn't seem to be afflicted by 'girly covers'.

In saying that, there are perhaps a lot of very good, non chick lit books that are being wrongly marketed.

Hmm... Not sure.
Crime fiction doesn't seem gendered.

Chick-lit has a certain look. If I was a female author of a book written for both genders and it got a chick-lit cover I'd be very angry but I'm not sure if this happens?

I read on kindle these days so covers are less important to me (its a first generation black & white kindle).

I thought the coverflips were fantastically well done, and made their point. Whilst crime fiction may focus more on stuff like blood and scary close ups of syringes (Gerritsen mainly!) it's the mainstream 'fiction' genre that seems to create the most confusion. And perhaps younger authors as well - no-one's gonna suggestion putting a cupcake on an AS Byatt cover!

I would agree, though, that eBooks have diminshed the value of covers somewhat - although a truly striking one still makes an impact.

Do I agree there is a problem with the marketing of books written by female authors?

No, I don't think it's anything to do with female authors per se. I too avoid "chick lit" and "mumlit" like the plague, and agree with Celticlassie that the generic covers are a useful signpost. But often the title is an equally good guide. It's more to do with content - I couldn't give a toss whether the author is male or female.

Something that irritated me (I'm not sure if they still do this, but they did quite recently) was W H Smith labelling a whole section "Women's Fiction" or something similar. I never went anywhere near that shelf, I can tell you!

I think what the article is trying to highlight is that some female authors' work may be getting diminished because of its cupcakey cover art - and showing how you can undermine even major works of literature by putting a cutesy 'girl' cover on it.

Weirdly at the same time traditional 'chick lit' / bonkbuster territory seems to be going all Bourne Identity with quite a number of 'big' authors doing storylines involving assassins and high wire adventure. These aspects aren't making it on to the cover, though!

Covers are still important for e-books. When you scroll through the page on Amazon deciding what to buy you see a cover image and make the choice based on that just like you do in a bricks-and-mortar shop.

One of my favorite male authors, Douglas Kennedy, often writes with a female narrator/ protagonist and always has a strong female character. His books are all set against a particular historical or political background and are well written, good stories. His books always have girly covers - not cupcakes, but girls drifting mournfully around a beach in floaty dresses. I feel these covers really do him a disservice. They just are not representative of what's inside, and put me off until I picked one up on a train. Maybe it had been abandoned by someone expecting something lightweight about a girl's holiday.

there is a fantastic writer called Vicky Zimmerman who writes books about women of a certain childness age which is is marketed full on chicklit. I think it does her a disservice to be honest.

Actually I am dead envious of her in RL as well as a writer. She is a food buyer for M&S!

Yes definitely. Fiction written by women is often deemed only appropriate for women and so labelled that way via cupcakes so men don't accidentally pick it up and get tainted by womanliness. Fiction written by men is just fiction so can be read by men and women quite safely.

It is no coincidence that of our two most successful women writers, both had to write firstly and primarily about male characters and to have a male protagonist - at least for the book that hit the big time - and one had to disguise her gender in her name (Hilary Mantel and JK Rowling).

It's a code - as others say, lipstick/cupcakes/purple/shoes on the cover scream "avoid" at me. Quite useful.

Are there any male authors who write chick lit? Perhaps there are some masquerading behind girly noms-de-plume

Publishers do have a reason for doing this, their research shows more women will pick up a book with a cupcake on the cover than without.

It does do MANY authors a disservice and prevents them from finding the market they deserve, but the publishers would say they gain more readers than they lose.

I, personally, avoid at all costs the "pastel cover" books as I always feel that this means its chick lit, therefore poor quality and lacking any depth.

If what lies within is good quality then I suggest the publishers rethink their marketing!

Vicky Zimmerman, Madamedefarge? She isn't on Amazon.

I know someone who wrote a very ballsy book and it was given a cover with a picture of a woman in a ball gown and a dumb, fairytale-like title. It's devastating to authors when this happens and it does a lot - and it's devastating for them to hear all the snobs people on here saying they'd never even go within the vicinity of such a book.

Publishers do have a reason for doing this, their research shows more women will pick up a book with a cupcake on the cover than without.

Fair enough, but why do they want women in particular to pick it up? If I was a novelist, I wouldn't care about the gender of my readers, I'd just be grateful to them for reading the book and hope they enjoyed it.

I like the type of book that I like. I don't care if the author is male or female - nor the protagonist.

shackleton I'm a definite snob when it comes to books, I get so little time to read I've got to get it right!

"why do they want women in particular to pick it up"

Could it be that men and women like me will under no circumstances pick those girly books up anyway?

It is not just the cover that makes them girly, you know.

I haven't noticed Lionel Shriver's books having cupcakes etc on their covers. There is probably a reason for that.

The fact that she uses the name Lionel rather than her given name of Margaret means she is allowed to be read by men so no need for cupcake warning imagery on the front cover.

I avoid any book with 'girly' covers, for a myriad of reasons.

The example covers I saw on the internet weren't chicklit though - I read fantasy and fantasy covers can be very gendered.There are good female writers out there who will be missing out on potential male readers because the covers they end up with are "girly"and not representative of the book itself..
Sometimes they'll be missing out on me as well.
I think part of the point was that women will read books which appear to be aimed more at men,but the reverse isn't as true,and that is a loss to authors and readers too.

Girly covers help me avoid the crap that's out there, so for that reason I vote to keep them. Not really relevent for my Kindle though...

I was really annoyed at Lucy Mangan's book being given an uber-girly cover - yes, it was a story about being a woman, but Lucy Mangan couldn't be less pink-and-cupcakes if she tried. Big fail by the publisher there.

Yes, 'girly' covers don't always cover 'girly' books. A lot of them do, but some don't.

I think if an author like Marian Keyes was marketed differently some of her rather darker subject matter would be more widely read and still be funny.

Having said that, I avoid pastelly covers too (after having been bored and annoyed in equal measure by some foisted on me during a lengthy hospital stay).