Genderflipping covers

[mizkit]

So Maureen Johnson, YA author, threw down a gauntlet a couple of days ago regarding the way books are marketed and asked her jillions of Twitter readers to gender-flip some of their favorite book covers. To make a cover that might have been offered up if the book was by a person of the other gender, or was gender neutral (initials instead of full

Comments

[roseaponi]

A smaller-scale version of the experiment might be to produce editions with variant covers and see what sells. :)

[mizkit]

That's not a project your average publisher's gonna get behind, though. :)

[ext_1792725]

Another author worth a glance on this is Philip Reeve. If you compare the first paperback edition of Mortal Engines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Engines
to the most recent
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mortal-Engines-Predator-Cities-Philip/dp/1407131273
you've gone from a relatively gender neutral cover, in which the girl is the competent one, though you'd have to read the book for proof, to a firmly Aimed At Boys and no girl or adult would touch it with a barge pole.

[mizkit]

Having not read the book or anything, my first impression isn't that the girl is the competent one, but rather that she's, y'know, like, part of the action. But holy crap, you're totally right about the second one, which is...well, it looks like a bad photoshop job, really. Wow, that's awful. Do boys love it? o.O

[herefox]

I don't particularly find the Georgette cover off putting, I've read similar things many a time though I'd probably mock the cover a bit. I often do with Jody Lynn Nye covers though because, while she's an excellent artist, she goes through color phases. It's a pink Jody book! Ooh, this is when she was in her purple phase! The orange phase was decidedly rare and much sought after in retrospect...

It's done with love though, as I said, because she's talented. I think the only times I've been embarrassed with a book is when it's got the total bodice ripper cover on an urban fantasy novel and I forget that it's sitting on my desk at work.

[mizkit]

No, I don't mind JLN's covers either, but they do have a certain style and I honestly can't remember ever seeing one on a male writer's books, is all. (I might be wrong about that, but I can't remember seeing one right now, anyway!) And it's not that I find it off-putting, I just don't find it as appealing as the simpler ones. :)

[elialshadowpine]

Um. Do you happen to mean Jody Lee's art? As far as I can tell, Jody Lynn Nye is an author, not an artist, and the description you give of the art sounds very much like Jody's.

(Unless they are the same person and I'm just not able to find reference, but judging by their respective Wiki pages... I think they are different people.)

If we are referring to Jody Lee's art, I do recall seeing her work for male author's covers (DAW employed her quite a lot for epic and high fantasy in the 90s), but I think at this point her work is probably best associated with her art for Mercedes Lackey's books.

[elialshadowpine]

Augh! My comment, it got spammed. D: LIVEJOURNAL, not all links are spam

[blythe025]

Great post. And thanks for sharing all the links and covers. It's been fascinating reading.

[mizkit]

You're welcome!

[flit]

I saw that and was hoping you would have some pithy comments, because, yessss.

[flit]

And, aha, I tracked down a writeup on some of the studies about this that were done on plays:

http://www.giarts.org/article/discrimination-and-female-playwright