#it's not particularly helpful but it's summat lmao

[cassmouse]

Current history project research progress: Hitting my head on the desk, tearing my hair out, and yelling 'WHY MUST HISTORY BE SO ELUSIVE??????' to no-one in particular

[drjosrx-blog]

Why are the books so pink?

A short conversation about publishing, book marketing, and jacket design.

Dear Dr. Jo in the role of cultural critic, 

I love end of year book lists, but I can't help but feel overwhelmed by how pink all of the books are this year. It would help me if you provided a critical take on this trend. 

Thanks, Becky

That is a very interesting proposition, Becky!!! Can you tell me what books you’re thinking of, as a sample? 

https://jezebel.com/our-favorite-books-of-the-year-1831011108 

These ^  are good examples, but I think I first realized it when Ling Ma’s Severance came out. Last year too—The Idiot, the Lucia Berlin. 

Oh wow you mean literally pink in color? I thought you meant it metaphorically, to mean gendered!

Haha yeah.

Lmao...Do you think it’s more than the whole ‘millennial pink’ trend? Which I guess came out of...advertising?

What gets to me is that these amazing books are so visibly marketed at women.

Now this I do have thoughts on.

I find it pandering and somewhat excluding to literary fiction writers who are female and writing about women. Like it's the chick lit marketing bleeding over. Maybe it's not new, but the blush tone stands out so much to me that I'm overwhelmed differently.

I think something is very weird about marketing and publicity in publishing right now. I wrote a piece critiquing their methods (the Instagram of a cover next to some flowers and a manicure thing) a while ago, and i got a lot of pushback from people in the industry who said, ‘this stuff works what do you want me to do about it’!!!!

Oh, the book Sympathy too.

My friend Oli’s book!

You gave it to me! I wonder what options she was given. Look at this, just as a comparison—this book could be written by any gender about any gender:

Yeah, I see your point. I remember when I was a kid, being confused that this copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin on my mums bookshelf had this picture of a hot lady on it. And it turned out not to be chick lit at all, but a historical drama, It's so confusing!!

Maybe pink is just being degendered? I do hate the association with eg: Glossier, The Wing, Thinx....that branding movement that’s been saturing our culture. 

That's evidence it's not degendered.

Right. So maybe the question is: why does this stigma exist in your (or our) mind(s), to flip the angle a bit? It’s because chick lit is bad right? And women being segmented into a market is insulting?

Yes, particularly for the writers I’ve been naming. Like, I'm certain these are excellent books that should be read by everyone. And the marketing segmentation seems exclusionary.

I agree in theory, but I keep tripping up in the idea of how weird it is that a color should mean so much! It’s arbitrary, all the cultural associations we’ve pinned on it. I mean, it’s true, but it’s bizarre. 

Haha, I think you're right. But it’s also that the color means so much AND it works on me, Like, every book Chris Kraus blurbs I also tend to buy and like. But that doesn't bother me as much because she's not selling me everything else

So it’s personal too. 

Definitely personal, Book marketing is just weird because it's so personal and you can't help but judge the book and yourself by the cover.

Oh man. Right. So, the pink cover is a direct adjudication of your identity as a market and your worth in the publisher’s eyes. What an extremely neat psychological summation of a very old saying. Down with pink.

Dr. Jo’s Rx for the publishing industry: Find a different fucking color.