Cover Woes

Not mine, other people’s. By now I hope you’ve heard about Justine Larbalestier’s problems with her book featuring a short haired black lead but the cover featuring a long haired white girl.If not go check out the blog entry because the woman is a complete pro in handling it (authors and would-be authors take notes!)

Cover woes are nothing new. authors have no control over them, but often get to be the ones to hear about readers’ disappointment with cover and character clashes.

In fact, here’s another one. In Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre the character is a slightly chubby woman. Not at all like this woman on the cover:

Maybe I’m just too used to these sort of covers. They irritate me, but not as much as this sort of thing does:

I’ve always hated books where the author name was larger than the title. But this, this is…This is not a Dan Brown book. Dan Brown BLURBED the book and got a bigger place on the cover than the author!

That’s just fucking ridiculous.

I mean, the racial thing is too, incredibly so. If “black covers” don’t sell, then don’t put a person on the cover period.