"Quell the rage that deeply seethes, the extremes of these devotions."

[greygirlbeast]

1. No idea why I'm using the cute Bjork icon the morning. I just couldn't seem to help myself.

2. Still happy about The Red Tree, A is for Alien, and "Galápagos" having all three landed on Locus Magazine's 2009 Recommended Reading List. It's always nice to know someone has noticed

Comments

[greygirlbeast]

I personally don't get the idea of a tramp stamp tattoo in the first place.

I honestly don't believe this is the sort of thing anyone put a great deal of thought into. Tattoo = edgy, if you're the sort of person who would never do anything more edgy than read a crappy paranormal romance with a tramp-stamp cover. Marketing finds one image they believe to effective in selling books (that it actually is effective can never be proven), and then they grind out multitudinous permutations of it.

As to why the ink usually appears on the woman's back, my theory would be that marketing understands most of its customers are female, and hopes female books buyers interpret the covers as a weird sort of faux-empowerment message. If you show the front, on the other hand, there's the danger of frightening off women who might feel that buying a book with frontal female semi-nudity could cause them to be perceived as lesbians...

[catconley]

Oh noes! Lesbians! Better put a big shirtless man with ripply abs on the cover, too! Oi :)

I just read "Galapagos" last night in Eclipse Three. Really, really well done! The whole anthology has been great.

[greygirlbeast]

Really, really well done!

Thank you!

[greygirlbeast]

You may not see them as edgy (I don't either), but the average B&N/Wal-Mart shopper does, especially in a given context and combined with crossbows and whatnot.

And yes, the marketers are certainly hoping that the readers will want to live vicariously through literary figures perceived to be far more interesting than themselves.