The Reality of Romance Covers
11 February 2014
Everyone in science fiction knows romance novel covers are awful, right?
Are all romance covers like those above?
No. They are not.
Let’s go back to last year, about a claim Mike Resnick made that I’m disappointed that no one called him on.
Here’s what Resnick said (click for pic of text, quoted below)
And a lot of it abounded in bare, raw, pulsating flesh, totally naked from the neck to the navel. No question about it. It’s there for anyone to see—and of course, since such displays seem to offend some of our members, to picket.
You know where I found it?
In the romance section. I’d say that just about every other cover shows a man’s bare torso, lean and muscular, usually with a few more abs than Nature tends to provide. The man’s head is rarely portrayed. Clearly these are erotic covers, designed to get a certain readership’s pulse pounding.
Personally, I’d love to see pulsating flesh on a book cover—at least the first few times. Never have. That would be science fictional.
Last year, I posted a screencap of 25 (I said 30 yesterday and was wondering why the math didn’t add up) covers that was sort of a side commentary to the SFWA Bulletin issue. I don’t mind admitting I read erotic romance, nor do I mind admitting that I write the stuff. Part of the reason I’ve read so much was to get a sense of the market.
I’ve gone and made a current screencap, too.
In both cases, there’s no censorship about what I’ve read. These are, in order (most recent in upper left, oldest in lower right), the last 25 titles I’d read in the erotic romance genre in both pics. The only thing I’ve done is filter out the non-romance titles I’d read.
Itemizing Resnick’s points:
- Covers with men.
- Who are totally naked from the neck to the navel.
- Man’s bare torso […] usually with a few more abs than Nature tends to provide.
- The man’s head is rarely portrayed. (How many covers without heads?)
- How many covers with men who are naked, frontal, and without heads?
Difference is? This new batch of covers is infected with teh gay as several are M/M books or have M/M subplots. More men, therefore more likely to meet Resnick’s criteria, right?
So, here’s 25 books from last year.
Here’s 25 books from this year, ~8 months later. Four of the 25 are solely M/M, and two (Tiffany Reisz’s) have M/M subplots with concomitant sex scenes.
Note: the cover for Where Nerves End got lost somewhere in the ether, but here it is for reference.
- Covers with men. 2013: 13 (52%), 2014: 20 (80%)
- Who are totally naked from neck to navel. 2013: 4 (16%), 2014: 9 (32%), though 3 of those are M/M.
- Frontal enough naked neck-to-navel such that one can see excess abs. 2013: 1, 2014: 1. (Tempting Adam has a frontal cover, but his abs are within the realm of normal.)
- Headless men (I counted them as headless if you couldn’t see most of the face). 2013: 2, 2014: 8
- Frontal headless men. 2013: 0, 2014: 0.
Lest you think my taste is different than the reality of the market as a whole, here’s a curated list that’s a combination of Amazon sales and Goodreads reviews. Scan down the first 100 covers on the first page and tell me the results are significantly different.
Let’s be clear here: several of the books I read (two from Maya Banks, two from Natasha Moore, one from Cathryn Cade) focus around sex clubs, and a sex club forms part of the plot unifying Tiffany Reisz’s series.
Even those covers are less lurid than the SFWA Bulletin cover for Issue 200.
Just sayin’.
As if all that weren’t enough, this Mary Sue post nails it.
I call bullshit on Resnick’s alleged experiment.
Link: Silvia Moreno-Garcia nails it.