Gendered Covers, Girl Cooties, & Winners of the She-Hulk Cover Flats!

Congratulations to the winners of my contest for signed cover flats of The She-Hulk Diaries, to be released June 14!

Michelle Par

BN100

I'll send you emails to get your addresses.


There's been a lot of chatter on the internets lately about book cover design and gender. It started with a tweet by author Maureen Johnson, who then wrote "The Gender Coverup" in the Huffington Post.  Here's the gist of it: women are given cover art with feminine coded stuff and men are usually given  gender neutral covers. Allow me to summarize the basic points:

• Men assume rightly that their readers will be male and female.
• Women assume rightly that most men will not be inclined to pick up their books if they see a woman's name on the covers and/or any kind of female gender coding in colors or imagery.
• Critics do not take books with gender coded covers seriously, putting women authors at a disadvantage for the awards and accolades that generate increased sales.
• Women assume that the covers convince the critics that these female gendered books are froth.
• Actually, the critics think women's books are froth because they were written by women, and therefore have the dreaded GIRL COOTIES! but the critics can't really say that so they just say, "Look at the cover! It's pretty so it must be pretty shallow, duh!" even though they know authors don't have control over covers.
• Many women authors think that they will be taken more seriously if their book covers don't have gender coding and many women still use initials instead of first names to conceal their gender.
• Gender-neutral covers for women are the literary equivalent of writing V.A.C. on the back of your hand: Vaccination Against Cooties, although girls are seen to be the only carriers of this terrible condition. (Alternative form of vaccination is drawing a circle, circle, dot, dot.)

And women are the ones who are supposed to cater to this sexism and sexual insecurity...because? Why? I don't get it. I do understand wanting to be taken seriously by critics especially if it means more money money money from sales. Things get more complicated when we're discussing publishers' motives with gendered covers. If gendered covers didn't increase sales for most books by women, I don't think publishers would use them. But I doubt publishers do actual market research, so who knows?

Women are the majority of readers. Women are the majority of writers. Hell, women are the majority of the fricking population. Here's what I think: all women readers should demand that publishers make the covers of men's books prettier. All books should have pretty covers. Stephen King, I'm talking to you! (And what is this obsession with door knockers on the covers of books by men?)

Yawn

 More reading on the topic:

• Aja Romano at The Mary Sue: "NY Times to YA Publishing: Stop Being So Girly" 
• Amanda Hocking "My Reaction to the Gender Coverup"
• See a slideshow of coverflips at the Huffington Post

Contest for SHE-HULK DIARIES Cover Flats & Midnight Brunch Giveaway Extended!

The giveaway for Midnight Brunch at Casa Dracula is going so well that it's #8 bestselling on Amazon's Kindle Humor Books! I decided to extend the giveaway of this eread through Tuesday, May 7, midnight. If you haven't gotten your copy yet, please go to Amazon now and get the book that Romantic Times called "hilarious" and Publishers Weekly said was "addictive."

Also, I received a few cover flats of The She-Hulk Diaries, which will be released on June 18. Everyone who's read this book tells me how very funny it is so I'm starting to believe them. I mean, my agent called me to tell me how funny it is. My editor wrote to tell me how funny it is. Assistants are sending me notes saying how funny it is. I've even asked The Husband, and he assures me that when he reads it, he'll find it very funny. (I'm sure he'll read it any week now!)

Hyperion and Marvel are so psyched about the book and are going to have a She-Hulk costume contest at Comic Con! I wondered if they'd fly me there to judge it but they promise me that it will be even better if I watch it online at home, which is the natural habitat for a writer anyway.

Anyway, if you'd like to win one of TWO signed cover flats for The She-Hulk Diaries and miscellaneous promo bookmarks and whatnot (mostly whatnot although I am tragically out of Slinkys), just leave a comment about your favorite superhero. (Mine is the cartoon Batman because his voice was awesome even though he was entirely lipless.)  The contest runs through May 15 and two winners will be chosen by random draw. You can increase your points by Tweeting or Facebooking etc. about my giveaway of Midnight Brunch at Casa Dracula.

The contest is limited to the US, Canada, and the UK.

GRATUITOUS VIDEOS OF THE DAY

I have to wait months for Lost Girl to return so here are some videos while we wait. I love the friendship between Bo and Kenzi. Nice to see such a strong and positive relationship between these very different women.



Dyson's my favorite werewolf on TV even though the actor didn't initially seem werewolfy.