#ya book cover trends

[pisoprano]

look i dislike the corporate artyle book cover trend as much as the next person but we cant pretend every book looking the same is something new. if you stepped into a bookstore in 2013 there would be approximately 57 books whose cover art consisted of a girl in a ballgown with her back half-turned to the camera photoshopped into a vaguely fantasy-like landscape. i was 11 years old fighting for my life to find the right maximalistic girl and her single-adjective book title we cannot forget the horrors i went through please be respectful of my experiences

[aouiaa]

Loser!Ellie Hcs

Imagining Loser! Ellie who makes fart noises with her mouth when you bend down to pick up something, and makes fun of you for “farting.”

“Ewww, that one was nasty!”

A scoff leaves your mouth as you stand up, looking back to send a death stare her way to which makes her walk over to you, giggling.

“It’s okay, everyone farts.” she says with a cheeky grin.

An eye roll from you further causes Ellie to full on laugh and wrap her arms around your waist, pressing kisses to your neck.

She would be so silly with it too. Finding different ways to comment on you “farting.”

“That’s some narly tooting there, babe.”

“Woof, another left the cannon!” she says, pinching her nose while actually fanning the air to shooing away the smell as if it was real.

“A bomb just dropped, take cover!”

Imagining Loser! Ellie who invites you over to her house when you first started dating to review her concerningly large comic book collection.

“How many do you have?!” you exclaim, looking over the many boxes filled with comics.

“I had to do some things to acquire such items that I rather not corrupt your mind with.” she says in a rather poor attempt of sounding suspicious and menacing.

“God, you’re such a loser! you laugh, and watch as Ellie immediately drops the act and turns into a big giant tomato.

A little shy “no” leaves her lips to which makes you smile and lean over to kiss her, “It’s okay, you’re my loser.”

Imagining Loser! Ellie who also has a smaller collection of space related books than the rather getting out-of-hand comic collection.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who has the deadliest grip over the last chicken while sending a death stare your way when you do that one trend on her to see if she’d grab her phone instead.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who’s laughing to the point there’s tears in her eyes when she suggested the both of you paint each other. And when revealed, hers was very detailed and while yours…’was insteresting.’ Ellie’s words…

Imagining Loser! Ellie who makes fun of people who dress “cringe”, but also wears this.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who write love songs for you in her little journal of hers and even plays them on her guitar. You’ve even caught her once.

Upon walking into your home, you hear muffled talking or singing. Presuming it’s Ellie, you walk into the room to see her with gutiar in hand. Immediately when she sees you she stops what she’s doing and look up, her face turning red.

“Oh—shit, you’re home early…” she says, laughing nervously, settling her guitar aside and greeting you with a hug and kiss as usual.

A little laugh leaves your lips as you reciprocate the greeting and ask, “What were you doing?”

She pulls away from the embrace and looks down upon hearing the question. Playing with her pinky and ring finger, she responds, “Oh, ya’ know—just…playing.”

“Just playing? But I heard you singing.”

An audible gulp is heard from the nervous girl as she looks up at you, “I was writing a song.” she finally admits.

A wave of surprise washed over you, “Oh—wow. Can…I hear it?”

“Uhh, maybe later..”

You chuckle and nod, “Alright then, my little musician. You can work on!” you quip.

A nervous smile presents itself on Ellie’s lips, “Shut up.”

Loser! Ellie who does let you listen to the song, but is stuttering and messing up the whole time!—Poor girl, you make her nervous :(—To which earns her a kiss on the cheek and a “You got this, baby. Just relax” To which she actually does! She Some might say it was the kiss that did it.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who has a special spot in her journal filled with doodles of you.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who has multiple unfinished paintings of you that with time will be finished, just has to find time in her super busy schedule—that consists of sleeping and bothering you—to finish them.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who sleeps with stuffed animals.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who HAS to absolutely listen to music when doing anything, literally doesn’t matter it could be showering, dishes, getting ready, etc. There’s music playing.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who’s a big ‘Savage Starlight’ nerd and actually at some point sent in one of her best fanart to the official insta page, but never got a response. :(

But the girl can’t take failure as an option and is still hopeful saying, “They’ll open my message…eventually.” with a sad little huff.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who’s screaming from the bathroom when she actually gets a response back!

You knock frantically on the door to startled by the screaming and when she does finally open the door you’re met with her phone being shoved into your face, “Look, Look, Look!”

A slightly irritated sigh leaves your lips as you look at Ellies phone—which has mysterious residue stains on it—and see the instagram post.

Once reading the caption praising Ellie for her work, you look up from the phone and at her, “I thought you were getting killed, Ellie! God…”

“Aweeee, you care about me?” she says, putting her hands on her chest.

“No, I came to make sure they finished the job.” you reply with a cheeky grin.

“Oh wow…well in that case, gimme my phone and get out!” she frowns.

You roll my eyes playfully and chuckle, giving back her phone, “Make sure to flush.” you say, closing the door.

“That was one time!” you hear a muffled shout.

Imagining Loser! Ellie whose phone is filled with multiple pictures of you. Some of you, sleeping, doing chores around the house, cooking—and some with you seeming to be yelling at her in the photo for not helping, and terrible pictures of you that you beg her to delete, but she protests saying they’re “beautiful” to her.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who steals your chapstick since she always loses her’s within a few days of having it.

“Ellie?” you call out, searching in your nightstand for your chapstick.

“Yeah, babe?” you hear her voice become more clearly as she walks into the bedroom.

“Have you seen my chapstick? My lips are terribly dry…” you huff, unable to find it in your clutter.

“Uhh, no.”

*Imagine her in the background, sneakily swiping your chapstick back and forth on her lips as you annoyedly rummage through your stuff for it.* LMAOOO

Imagining Loser! Ellie who does feel bad and buys you a ten pack of chapstick, stealing one of course for herself.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who buys those princess or even soda chapstick ones.

(Okay i’ll stop talking about chapsticks…😭)

Imagining Loser! Ellie who seems to never drink water, but instead drinks like Arizona, Dr. Pepper, or Canada-dry, etc.

Imagining Loser! Ellie who’s rather disgusting when eating. Having dried up residue on the side of her mouth from dinner which was hours ago only to lick it off.

“Mmm, that burger was good.”

“You’re disgusting.”

Imagining Loser! Ellie who sometimes, but not all the time, thinks about how lucky she is/was to get—or “pull” as she says to her friends—someone like you.

Loser! Ellie who loves you for loving her despite her quirks!

How you can help Palestine, Why you shouldn’t support tlou/ buy the remastered, Educate yourself, #FREEPALESTINE.

a/n; Who wants Dina or Abby hcs? 🤭

Perm taglist: @elliesprettygirl, @dyk3ang3l, @ellies2fingers, @r3starttt, @slut4mascss, @k1ssesworld

Ellie Only fics: @herelieskrisy, @mikellie , @slaysksmska, @mina-281, @teawithnosugar, @kitkatkittycat111

[writingquestionsanswered]

Worried About Traction/Why Write?

Anonymous asked: Okay answer me this, so I've read how trad publishing is going to shit, but self-publishing I doubt I could gain any traction with. Then why fucking write, ya know? People say, "write for yourself," which sounds like a lot of goody bullshit. I want people to love my writing, I need some type of validation. So, how the hell do I get anyone to care about my stories?

Just a quick note that this ask came in off Anon, and I wasn't sure if it was meant to, so I put I'm posting it Anon to be on the safe side.

So, I don't want to get too much into the "is traditional publishing dying" debacle, because it's a conversation that's complex and nuanced and outside of my energy reserves at the moment. What I will say is that the traditional publishers--the Big Five in particular--still dominate the market, especially where print books are concerned. And although self-publishing can respond more quickly to trends and shifting tastes, traditional publishing continues to evolve.

Having said that, even if traditional publishing was stronger than ever before, that wouldn't guarantee you a book deal. Even in the best of times, the odds of being traditionally published are between 1 and 2%. Even if you get a book deal, that doesn't guarantee your book will be a best-seller. Hundreds of thousands of books are traditionally published every year, and far fewer than 1% of those books will become best sellers. Being traditionally published doesn't even guarantee your book will be sold in brick and mortar bookstores. I can point you toward traditionally published books that have been out almost a year and still have fewer than 10 reviews on Amazon. I can point you toward many more with fewer than 30.

And, while we're on the subject, I can show you self-published books with thousands of reviews (positive ones, btw...)

The point is, it doesn't really matter how you publish. What you write, how you write, and how you market is far, far more important. But the reality is, most of us aren't writing the kinds of books that are going to be best-sellers, BookTok sensations, Oprah's Book Club selections, or get optioned for film rights before the ink on the book deal is even dry. So, when you say you need validation, what does that look like for you? Does it mean seeing your name at the top of the NYT best seller list for five weeks straight? Seeing your book on eye-level shelves at an international airport? Hundreds of fans showing up to your book signing? A-hundred thousand followers on Twitter eagerly awaiting news of your next release? Or, does it look like someone... anyone... enjoying your book enough to leave a 5-star review... someone calling you their favorite writer, several fans re-posting your cover reveal because they're so excited for your upcoming book, or someone writing to say your book got them through a difficult time in their lives? Because, while I would never tell you not to dare to dream of achieving the former list of expectations, I will absolutely tell you the latter list of expectations is well within your grasp. So, if that's validation enough for you, write for those people. If it isn't, and it's not enough to write for yourself, then I think all you can do is try. Write the best stories you can write. Get them out there. Promote the hell out of them and see what happens. Maybe you will be one of those lucky few who see their book at the top of the NYT best seller list for five weeks in a row. Or, maybe you won't, but you get a two-page e-mail from a fan who says your story changed their life. And maybe, after all, that's enough. Here are some posts that can help you start building a following ahead of publishing, whatever route you end up choosing. Building a buzz on social media ahead of publishing and consistent promotion afterward can make a big difference. Even if you publish traditionally. Guide: Getting Your Writing Noticed on Tumblr Guide: Author Platforms-What, Why, and How? Guide: How to Promote Yourself as a Writer/Author via Social Media 12 Sites for Sharing Original Fiction

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[silver-stargazing]

aggressively arospec week: canon arospec characters

◦ Sophie Chi and Jo Ephron from Dear Wendy are aroace.

I just finished this book (incredibly charming read btw) and I've got to say: I am really digging this trend in YA aro representation of having characters already know they are aro before the start of the book. They've already been through the whole self-discovery journey and have come out the other side confidently aro. Obviously, aro discovery and coming out stories are incredibly important but they shouldn't have to be the only kind of story told about aros.

[Image ID: Book cover for Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao. The cover consists of two people, Jo and Sophie, lounging on a green carpet while happily chatting. The color scheme of the cover is predominately green and purple. /end ID]

[eerna]

speaking of acotar i saved my sister from reading it recently lol a work friend had recc'ed it to her and she asked me for a second opinion since she knows i read a lot. i told her it was basically just shitty fairie smut and she was immediately put off. i believe her exact response was along the lines of "and people read that in public?!??"

HELL YEAAAHH save her!! No fr, like why is this 17 year old I know posing with those books on Instagram??? Like????? I don't like the idea of shaming someone for reading erotica, but at least don't parade it around bragging... It's fascinating how SJM's team and every copycat that followed managed to score a marketing goldmine by making the books look like regular fantasy instead of erotica. They removed busty ladies in ballgowns and muscly dudes with ripped shirts from the cover and now they look like a regular dragon adventure. And automatically people are less ashamed of showing it off, they read it in public en masse and spread its popularity and recommend it even to people who don't like erotica - after the SJM boom but before the romantasy genre was established I was recommended SO MANY smut/romantasy books under the guise of regular high fantasy. Say what you will about YA trends, at least those are age appropriate for EVERYONE so it makes sense they get the most attention. Now, hearing a 15 year old complaining that all her friends read are smut books so she has no shared reading interests with them made my heart break a little.

[livvyofthelake]

booktok is honestly sooo annoying when they get all “kids shouldn’t be reading this these books aren’t appropriate for kids they have sex and mature themes etc” as if 12 year olds aren’t hitting up ao3 to read about two guys from their favorite tv show fucking. as if children need to be like. protected from Adult Topics until they’re 17. like damn girl i agree that there is a weird trend in book marketing right now that seems to be pushing for younger audiences in genres that have in the recent past been more clearly identified as adult. i agree that the cartoon covers of adult romance novels is a weird branding choice that makes those books look like they’re for a young adult audiences when they’re not. i get it. even cassandra clare’s shadowhunter books have sex in them now (pg-13 sex but please remember that 15 years ago even that was frowned upon) to cater to the “new adult” audience as well as ya. and i realize that all of this is happening because it’s becoming harder and harder for ya readers to transition out of ya and into like. literary higher level adult reading. and i think this is probably tied to the internet age stealing our attention spans and the decline of media literacy and things like that. like i get it. but also i think you should let 12 year olds read icebreaker. if they’re “traumatized” over it that’s honestly just a learning experience and they’ll figure out how to read books in their demographic. it’s a book it’s not gonna ruin their lives… 12 year olds aren’t babies you don’t need to go all book banning on them jesus. their parents probably aren’t paying attention to what they read either i’m gonna be honest with you. my parents didn’t give a fuck what i read at 12 i guess they figured i was old enough to just do whatever. and they were right because i was fine. and the new generation of middle schoolers will be fine too. if a kid wants to read you literally need to let them we are in a drought of media literacy rn i fear giving the 12 year olds icebreaker and acotar can only help at this point. well i mean i probably wouldn’t GIVE them those books my point this whole time was to let them read whatever they choose to read. i wouldn’t put those books in a middle school library but that’s not going to stop a precocious sixth grader from finding it on their own. matilda wormwood was reading moby dick at seven years old and we think she’s a badass but suddenly the middle schoolers aren’t allowed to read about sex? get real 🙄 if i was 13 and wanted to read acotar and someone tried to tell me to read harry potter instead i’d scream. a) don’t recommend harry potter and percy jackson to any kid over the age of 12 and frankly in harry potter’s case 10. they will get so mad at you you are in fact misinterpreting that kids reading level don’t do that shit. and b) kind of the same point but stop acting like middle schoolers are babies holy shit you’re gonna create a world where children are so sheltered they become stupid…

[inkyami]

Do you have any tips for book cover designing?

Some are general, some are self-explanatory but still good to remember:

The cover is both the essence of the content inside and a big selling point. "Don't judge the book by it's cover" and all that but people DO judge, big time. So, it's great to try to put some thought into it and to try to reflect the story. My favorite covers are always the ones that have a nod at the mood and therefore are seen as a part of the story. It doesn't have to be "cram all the plot into the cover". A beautiful elaborate design/drawing pretty much stands by itself, but Penguin book's edition of Clockwork Orange with a glass of milk photo? Iconic. Timeless. Simple.

It’s always great to study the current trends in the genre to see what is popular AND what is clearly becoming over-used. The target audience is also important. You typically wouldn’t do a super-minimalist cover for a YA book where you see thousands of readers in the blogs asking for a pretty picture. Or a pretty not-unlike anime hero for a nuclear physicist’s memoir that is read mostly by his friends and peers. (I mean you absolutely can, of course, I’m not gonna stop anyone XD Subversion of expectations is great at times, too.)

The book cover 9/10 implies that there is text too, so you need to keep in mind free space in your composition for the title, author’s name, annotation/blurbs and technical info (ISBN & QR codes etc).

Also, from a technical side — the book is a Shape (duh), so while you draw/design the spread of the cover keep in mind that it will be perceived from the three sides.

I've mentioned the cover reflecting the story, and for illustrated covers it also might mean evoking the needed atmosphere/aesthetic through style. You don't have to (but can) go full on stylized in-the-period mode, but it's always great to research art and book design that could relate to your text and leave some nods to it — it sets the mood and gives a certain expectation to the reader.

Obviously, I ramble from the commercial point of view a lot; designing a book cover for portfolio or just for the love of it would free you of half of these concerns.

[spaceorphan18]

Hey, I remembered your displeasure with Agatha Christie's book covers!

I'm so annoyed by all the boring covers of romance books right now, for example. I don't know if it's just the German editions or in the U.S. too, but we have a glut of kind of monochrome covers right now, mostly pastel (but sometimes dark if it's supposed to be spicier) with the (often boring and bland) title on it in a fancy font.

It's so boring, it says nothing about the book, it's not individual at all and it looks like the ten books next to it. It doesn't make me want to read it at all. Also, when I see ads or recs I can not even remember the book by cover, because they are all the same!

I just had an ad on Insta that reminded me of it again, I've attached it here to show what I mean.

Oh my gosh, dear! Where's @ckerouac -- we have had numerous conversations about the distaste of certain genres of fiction lately. And, you know what, I'm gonna diatribe a bit, it'll be good since I have to go back to work today.

Book cover marketing has always been a thing but lately everything has become more homogeneous -- which is intentional by the publisher, so it'll get you to buy the same kind of book that you've read before. I do agree that it's boring, and takes away a book's individuality. But nowhere is that more apparent than the romance genre. Why? Because these books are (for better or worse) a dime a dozen. Publishers, and even readers, don't necessarily take these books very seriously, and consider them all, in some respects, to be interchangeable.

The romance genre, right now, can be broken up into three-ish big categories (there are some side ones, I'll talk about that in a second) -- and I've labeled them Rom-Coms, Soft-Core Porn, and Hard-Core Porn respectably. (No, seriously, at work, this is how I label them in my head.) Now, all of them have explicit sex in them (that didn't used to be the case actually) but you'll see why I've broken it up that way in a sec...

The Rom-Coms

These books are basically your equivalent to Hallmark movies -- cheezy plots, lighthearted shenanigans, and reliant on very tropish things like -- there's only one bed! (Though a ton of them are friends to lovers and/or (lite) enemies to lovers). There's also this trend right now where sports related books (especially hockey, interestingly) are becoming popular. They are also all guaranteed to have happy ending -- just look how happy the couple is on the cover!

Anyway, the covers of all these books are cartoonish in nature -- implying that they're supposed to be light and fun and easily digestible. They kind of imply comedic hijinx (though the comedy in most of these is questionable). But mostly, if you trip over one of these covers - it's basically like a rating system, you won't have to worry about tripping over any kind of hard core kinks in the smut.

The Soft-Core Porn

Okay, so first of all, yeah - I know I'm not using 'soft-core porn' entirely correctly. Let me be clear, these books are just as explicit as the other titles I'll get to in a second, but these are kind of the middle range of romance books. (And, the one you posted above - the second I saw it, I was like, oh yeah - I know exactly what type of book it is.)

These books are all the drama focused books. There is a range from -- soap opera-y love dynamics to somewhat twisted love situations, but they're going to stay in their somewhat mellowdramatic lane. These are also the books where they may not guarantee a happy ending.

These covers are usually the worst in that they're so bland, but they are doing something. They're simple, and somewhat melancholy (as either the situation or the ending will probably be sad), hence the pastel colors. They also kind of evoke that CW Teen drama-esque feel (while some of these books origins might be YA, none of them are YA in content).

The Hard-Core Porn

You can thank EL James's Fifty Shades of Gray (or maybe Stephanie Meyer's Twilight) for the uptick in popularity for these books. These books are rough -- dealing with very dark subjects such as rape, incest, and death. But also sometimes some supernatural elements. But also, these are going to have the kinkiest types of sex -- such as BSDM, etc. (It's also an interesting aside, that these books have always been around -- but it wasn't until Fifty Shades that made them come out into the light a little more. This stuff used to be saved, mostly, for things like fanfiction).

The covers are all black, with pops of bright colors (usually pink - to signify the feminine romance angle or red due to the color's sexual connotation), to incite a warning to the reader. They're intentionally striking so to let you know that these books aren't playing around.

Also. It should be noted that, unlike the first two categories where you get a story involved, these books are primarily just smut. The story is loosely there as a framing device, and only a backdrop for the huge amount of kinky sex going on in these books. These books don't care about plot. They're intention is to be porn.

So, those are the big three, but there are other things to note....

Historical Romance

Alright, so, historical romance has always been popular, and twenty, thirty years ago, it was what really sold. Even during my tenure of selling books, there was a large array of historical fiction -- I once did an entire display of books with the word 'duke' in the title.

The reason I'm using the same Julia Quinn novel as an example is that there's been a shift in design of romance covers. The one on the left is what it used to be -- kind of evoking that materialistic femineity of a time long past. They also often featured two hot people on the cover, usually in some state of undress (see below). It was meant to be provocative -- and, as marketing really hasn't changed all that much, show you exactly what you'd be getting.

These days, historical romance is now designed like the cover on the right -- and usually falls more into the rom-com genre of book design, only having a more historical twist on it.

The other funny thing about these books is that they were once supposed to be the most scandalous and are now kind of quaint. Even the rom-com genre of books have more explicit sex than the Julia Quinn books from twenty years ago. (It's kind of funny -- we had a discussion at work about how Bridgerton would basically be PG-13, if it weren't for a few steamy scenes.)

[Also as an aside, there are the Harlequin Mass Markets -- which are the cheapy, dime a dozen books. Historical romance and the Harlequins were kind of the same thing, and that's all the romance genre used to be. Harlequin is mostly forgotten these days, at least by anyone under the age of fifty.]

And... then there's a gap I'm missing when it comes to romance, but that's because it kind of crosses two genres - romance and fantasy.

Romantacy

Thank you Sarah J Maas for this craze. The thing about these books is that while there are definite patterns to them (and there are...) these books get to be a little different. The reason for this is that they fall into the fantasy category -- and one element of the fantasy category is aesthetic.

They have to get you on board with their fancy designs because they're selling you a different kind of product -- one that relies on unusual worlds and more supernatural and fantastical elements. So, almost by design of the (sub-)genre, they're going to stand out.

And it's funny -- while these books do cross the genre barrier, they are more romance than fantasy, they're just using fantasy as the packaging instead of the real world.

*****

So there you go - a run down of the romance genre and it's marketing. Like I said above, the whole point of all of this is to tell you what kind of book it is, rather than what the story is. It's purposeful in that -- you'll pick up the book and know whether you're getting a happy or sad ending, or what level of smut you're going to get. It's purposefully intentional to keep the reader coming back to get more of the same thing as before.

But, yeah, it does strip the books of individuality (you want individuality? go read general fic - the publishers say).

I did not know that the outside of US markets did it, too, but I'm not wholly surprised. And every genre and category of books do this.

Anyway - thanks for letting me indulge! :)

[remyfire]

I don't know if I'll keep this post up because this is not what any of y'all are here for, but I have to get it out somewhere. This is just a lot of gritted-teeth venting, so if that's not your style, scroll on, I love you, I hope you see a cat photo soon.

Truly every day of my life I find myself gritting my teeth when I see another joke or article or post or anything at all about booktok romance novels, that specific style of book cover, the disdain about promotional graphics like trope maps, that whole kerfluffle because I just! Wanna be like. Hey guess what! None of us wanted things to go that way either!

Like it really is remarkable sometimes to remember how readers don't necessarily get to see us smaller romance authors gritting our teeth and bitching in our spaces because we hate the trends that are being pushed forward, but also we have to compete somehow, right? We have to be sell books. We have to find a way to be picked up and read in this oversaturated sea. We have to try and gain traction against those people who hire 50 ghostwriters at a time for pathetic rates to churn out romance novels so they can release one literally every month. We have to fight against the 99-cent expectations even though we're lucky to make 35 cents per book sold if we offer it at that rate.

I think one of the most insulting things that publishers did was decide that it was the author's responsibility to go viral on booktok. That way, the publishers got to save a hell of a lot of money on marketing budgets, right? No, we won't be arranging tours unless you're lucky, we won't be pushing your book as hard as we usually should. It is your job to have a social media following that is broad enough that you make your books go viral, not us giving it a boost as your publisher. If you don't go viral on booktok, we will probably not be signing you for another book, sorry, bud.

Cannot express to you either how many of us erotic romance authors especially were gritting our teeth when the cover trend started leaning toward basic primary colors and splotchy abstract shapes. I completely understand that not everybody wants a shirtless man with a 12-pack just slapped on the front cover of the book they're reading—I actually thought it was brilliant when I saw several self-pub authors offering both the traditional steamier cover but also an option of paperbacks with a more tame, understated cover that just makes it look more like a literary novel. But god, it felt so lazy, these aforementioned abstractly illustrated covers. They told me nothing about the book. There was barely a sense of themes or important objects and these shapes had no defining characteristics that set any of the characters apart and they just looked like YA novels, which is fine for YA novels, but how do you market your extremely high-heat romance novel in that cover trend? If you throw together those blotchy illustrated shapes, people are going to think it's sweet or closed-door, and then they get in there and there's 12 graphic sex scenes on the page, and they're furious about it. I loved seeing illustrated covers that were more detailed start to make a move forward, especially because it meant starting to separate the American cultural assumption that illustrated = childish. Letting them be sexy, letting the author be able to represent any kind of protagonist they wanted without being restricted to the tiny selection of mostly skinny white able-bodied cis models on stock photo sites? Incredible. Love that. Want more of it. Wish it was easier to get publishers to really buy in on that.

The fact that readers will complain about promotional things like trope maps when the publishers require the use of them. The publisher makes them, they hand them over, and now you are the one who will be using it because that is contractual and because even if it wasn't, you want your goddamn book in front of people's eyes. And if you are self-pub or indie, if you don't have a substantial marketing budget to spent thousands of dollars on ads, promotions, and whatever the hell else, you are all but required to follow the trend because that's the only way you're gonna get people to share your shit.

And god, the way that it's all reduced to just 'booktok romance novel.' I get what that's referring to, that exact grouping of authors and why they're frustrating, but holy shit, I wanna know how many of those readers have picked up a self-pub or indie romance by a marginalized author. I'll see people complain about the quality of romance novels as compared to the quality of romantic fanfiction and I wanna shake them by the shoulders and say, "It's there! It's out there! It's self-pub and indie romance authors out here doing the goddamn work and you! Aren't! Looking! For it! Because it's easier to mock the genre instead!" Especially self-pub/indie queer romance authors who are marginalized, they are out here revolutionizing the genre and not getting anywhere near the accolades they deserve.

It's just irritating and exhausting. It's frustrating enough to have your genre used as the constant butt of jokes, treated like it's a substandard genre, like all it is is trash, using 'bodice ripper' as a disparaging term for modern romance novels when that is a relic of a very distant past and a historical pinpoint about which we can have an in-depth discussion about the decades-long process of making it socially acceptable for a woman to talk about her sexual desires rather than the 'bodice ripper' days when a woman had to have them forced on her instead before she could ever dream of admitting that she might know her own body and its cravings.

It's frankly embarrassing to see my genre so poorly understood. That's all. The one genre that is devoted to making sure that every marginalized person can have a happy ending of their choosing—marriage, pregnancy, queerplatonic, no sex necessary, no marriage or kids necessary, whatever feels right—rather than just the skinny white able-bodied cis people, that's the one that is always getting the potshots taken at it, and it's really a goddamn shame.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

What is your favorite thing about SGE series and why?

I have multiple favorite things, so you can expect me to elaborate for a while.

One of my favorite things from the series is Soman’s novel concept of "psyche travel," and for christening it with an actual name.

I’ve only seen this concept in a few other, more science-fiction or speculative type of stories, like the Divergent series, The Giver quartet, "The Veldt," a fascinating short story by Ray Bradbury (which TOTSMOV41 is very much inspired by) and the Artemis Fowl series, which involves time manipulation that wasn't strictly time travel (which is far more commonly seen in fiction). And I love Soman's more fantastical spin on psyche travel! To me, the concept was previously called "mental landscapes" or simply "simulations" of reality. "Psyche travel" as a term is just far broader and more versatile, and I feel like you could do more with it, experimentally.

In fact, I would've loved it if Soman could've left more room in his tight plots to explore human consciousness and "the cauldron of the unconscious" more in TCY, so I will be doing exactly that with the themes in my longfic TOTSMOV41. If anyone wants to know more about TOTSMOV41, I'll redirect you to this table of contents/introductory post.

My fic's entire premise reflects how much I loved that one scene in ACOT. It was absolutely brilliant, especially with the edited views of what reality once was, how subjective memory could be. Plus, in that moment, ACOT managed to combine a few of my major interests: psychology and how generally error-prone the human mind and memory are, surreal imagery in literature, and delving further into SGE’s soft, irrational/nebulous, thematically-relevant magic system. (The way I see it, problems are more often unintentionally created than intentionally solved with magic, and we understand little of it, what goes on magically, really, and can't logically extrapolate what the characters could possibly do said magic. So, the magic is framed as unstable and flexible, even while it does reflect the state of the world and the important relationships in the tales. Thus, that's how I might classify the SGE system. You're welcome to disagree on which type of magic system it is though!)

The following points are probably more obvious:

First, Soman’s prose and images overall are enthralling, and his use of VERBS, especially, rivals few authors that write for a younger demographic, at least in my opinion. It’s often just so well done. It's the little things, like using "scalded" or "pinked" instead of "blushed" that I love. Soman's use of language is so inventive at times, and I love trying to imitate it. Verbs can make or break a piece of writing in my mind.

Also, I love the extravagance and length and readability of this particular book one sentence that I think is underrated for the sheer exasperation embedded in it:

“After chastising her for slipping in the Ever ranks, explaining every assignment thrice, and berating her to cover her mouth when she coughed, Pollux finally left in a circus of hops and falls.”

It’s fabulously sweeping and exhaustive.

In addition, the third person omniscient pov is less common nowadays, I think. So much of middle grade and YA is in first person these days, so it may be a trend, for its immediacy. Though, I tend to prefer third person, even if my preference also generally depends on how well the work was executed.

I love SGE for its basis in fairy tales since I loved reading the classic Grimms' fairy tales before I discovered SGE—they were probably my favorites for a while (and still sort of are, alongside SGE). And they inhabited my storytelling before I ever discovered more subversive things existed. Thus, it's the overall darkness and the dramatics I find compelling about Soman's work.

The cleverness in the writing, when it’s well-executed, is phenomenal. And this applies to two aspects: first, Rafal, obviously, and second, the plot structure itself.

When I say Rafal, I mean specifically during the moments in which he shows off his conniving craftiness, his prowess at outfoxing others. And I love any instances of scenes in which he tricks or outwits people and systems.

Someday, I’ll have to remember to discuss the Fala-shoe-fairy-kiss scene from Fall, one of my favorites ever, in a future post. Those particular thoughts must be somewhere in my scads of drafts... I’ll have to look for them. For now, I will give you any thoughts I have now:

I'm referring to the scene in which Fala lures a fairy with a golden kiss and traps it in his shoe without a single word of verbal explanation, and he expects everyone to intuitively follow his genius thought process, the solution to their dilemma. Then, everyone, except Aladdin, manages to catch on, when they watch his demonstration.

Here's an (exaggerated?) approximation of how I'd imagine his internal monologue could've gone:

Watch and learn, youths. I’m better than you. In innumerable ways, and this is one. But fear not! I will lead you to success. No one else is capable of doing it. Yes, I will take on this burden myself. Give me all the credit. But don’t even bask in my cleverness, even if it deserves your attention. My actions speak for themselves. Just get the task done. Now. We don’t have all day to dilly-dally like inane cowards.

I will redirect you to this post, if you would like to read more about how I happen to interpret Rafal's "trickery," or rather, absence of trickery, perhaps.

And for my second spiel on the series' cleverness, elaborating on its predictable unpredictability, on a structural level, even if I only saw it in hindsight:

I love any kind of legerdemain or sleights of hand, or twisting of plots, except the devastating Fall one, I suppose. And there is something very characteristic of SGE I've observed: there are often, very, exceedingly late third act turning-points. These points are likely hallmarks of the series, to the extent that I've come to expect them by now, especially after Rise, and sometimes, I'm probably actively on the lookout for them when I read other books. Besides, Soman likes to lull readers into a false sense of security, that much we can probably confirm.

Furthermore, these turning-points seem to take two forms and you can literally only expect one of two things to happen.

It's either: 1) the characters reach a point of what should be a settled peaceable resolution, that is then rapidly negated, or 2) the characters reach a darkest-night-of-the-soul moment, the prospect of temptation in the story, often for an individual, and wishes are granted (often in subversive, unfulfilling ways to almost everyone's dismay).

Examples:

1) In Rise and TLEA: you think you are safe, that you're out of the dark Woods (which often represent the darkness of the soul or the human psyche as a symbol) but you're not. There is no built-in "warmth" to the narration, as Soman puts it in one of his interviews. This all is literally the narrative's "liar's tell" or "slip" in the third act, a revisiting of conflict, the reopening of the tale. You know there is more disaster to come. The ride is not over yet, however much you may think or desire it to be so.

In AWWP, characters say and believe the wrong things, are misled, and narrowly miss a possible "happy" ending because Sophie felt alienated enough to choose Rafal, who chose her.

In TLEA, we think everything is resolved, but all of a sudden, we get one more little impact, a jolt, that not all is well or completely restored, the moment Aric kills Lady Lesso.

In Rise, when Rafal is revived and reclaims the Schools from Vulcan, setting everything back into their original, proper forms, back to order, we think we've averted all crises, and have reverted back to the status quo. But, that resolution, again, is only momentary. Supposedly, Rhian's Evil, his rot, was awakened, and the moment Rafal considers leaving again and does, to seek out a new replacement student, is when the plot begins to race downhill again. When Rafal leaves, he leaves a gap for Rhian's poor judgement to bleed through, and Rhian hires Hook, effectively setting off the second wave of awful plot events in Fall. Rhian sort of resurrected old conflicts, and breathed new life into them.

2) Before the Great War in TLEA and the climax, we get tonal signposting that nearly "all is lost," that we're approaching, marching towards our imminent demise. There's an ever-present fog of "Abandon all hope, ye who enter" because if there's anything Rafal's good at, it's cultivating an air of stifling oppression. Hence, we have the narrow aversion of the darkest moment:

Agatha (unlike prequel Rafal with Evil Rhian) doesn't use the wrong emotional appeal. She gets through to Sophie, she and Tedros aren't executed, and Sophie destroys the ring, killing Rafal. Despite everything that said otherwise, that said Good would lose.

Lastly, a few other bits I appreciate are the roles the Seers play in the series, the meta aspects of the Storian (or Lionsmane) and the tales in general, and the names of a lot of the proper nouns such as the kingdoms—I don't know why I love some of them. The alliteration is oftentimes fun, and the names feel right and plausible.

[crow-caller]

Your video about Uglies popped up in my recommended, and I think I have a new YouTuber to watch! I distinctly remember the teen dystopian trend as someone who grew up hyperfixating on The Hunger Games in late elementary school and early middle school, so it’s really fascinating to see what came before it. If you’re ever looking for bad books to read, I distinctly remember reading The Immortals series by Alyson Noel as a tween and a few years later realizing how bad it is. It’s very much rife with the Not Like Other Girls Syndrome that I can recall being present in a lot of YA lit at the time. The House of Night series might also be worth looking into.

Thank you! I've actually read The Immortals, at least book one, ages ago. I just don't have a video on it. It's something I've considered picking up again to properly cover, because Evermore was one of the worst YA books I've probably ever read. For once not because of like hate-crimes, just by pure plot and writing. It feels SOmuch like a parody and yet it came out before a lot of its genre siblings

I am doing house of night. One day. Um. Later, it's like 12 goddamn books, it'll be a while before we get a video on it out.

[depressed-toadstool]

Essays Nobody Asked For #1: The Onslaught of Sex in YA

Remember, "essay" is a loose term for this, don't expect anything super academic.

Today, I started a Youtube video about "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros, and within it they mentioned the sub-genre of "New Adult." Now, this term is entirely new to me, but whether or not this category is actually new or simply has risen in popularity is unknown to me. For anyone who doesn't know them term, it, as the Youtuber described, stands for Young-Adult style/level books that include graphic sex. Porn, smut, whatever you may call it.

It's undeniable that BookTok has caused a rise in these "New Adult" books. It's a stereotype of BookTok books to include "spice" (Fourth Wing being no exception), and it's one that is painfully accurate. Now, I'm not here to judge people for wanting to read mature content. Not my thing, and I think the way many people approach books nowadays is a bit concerning, but that's not what this got me thinking about.

It got me thinking about a concerning trend with these "New Adult" books. Just the description had my head turned. "Young Adult fiction, with porn." YA novels, or teen novels, at their core are targeting towards teens. This could range from 13 to 17, and theres definitely sub-genres within YA that separate the "13 year old" books from the "17 year old" books, but in general, if a book is catered as YA, it's catered to the entire age group.

So why on earth would their be a category with it that includes such graphic sexual content? Like I've said, my issue isn't with the sex existing. You can write and read as many horny books as you want. My issue is that it's being clearly advertised to a group I believe should not consume this graphic content. Should 13 year olds be taught about sex and not entirely sheltered from it's existence? Yes. Should they be reading Ice Breaker levels of smut scenes graphically describing people fucking? No.

Books like Fourth Wing and Ice Breaker are catered towards this young age group and I find it very strange, if not concerning. Why are we giving these explicit novels cartoonish and appealing covers, with no actual indication anywhere on it of the mature content within. The back cover description gives no hint of it at all. And beyond these cartoonish covers that are slowly becoming a staple in this new BookTok wave of "New Adult," there's the very writing of the books.

These books are not difficult reads. They aren't advanced or adult reading levels; they're very easy to follow and get into. That is by no means a comment on their quality, but it begs the question of who is meant to read them. If you're writing your book at a low-teen level, who are you expecting is reading it? It's entirely strange that so many aspects of these books are catered towards younger teens, exposing them to literal porn (even if written) at an age I firmly believe they shouldn't be exposed to it.

With that stance comes a lot of argument. A lot of people go "I read this and watched this and I turned out fine." Now, I'm not one to say you didn't turn out fine, but my question is always: Would you have been better? I wholly believe being exposed to highly explicit content at a young and impressionable age like 13-14 can be very impactful, and not in a good way. I, myself, being on the internet at 13, was reading and seeing a lot of comics I shouldn't have, and no, I don't think it's fine that I was. I think there are some issues I face now that totally could've been avoided. It feels childish to continue to hold this "rebellious teen" attitude of "Well I was so cool and different I was fine even though I saw this kind of thing." I think it's important to step back and acknowledge that maybe it wasn't so great for you.

I don't have any sort of wise solution or catch all for this. I'm not saying we need to ban these books or how dare they write them; just that it feels not a lot of people seem to mention how strange it is that they so heavily cater themselves towards a younger audience. Maybe we should start plastic-wrapping them like explicit Manga novels do.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I have a question about publishing, especially in the YA or New Adult genre. Friends and I read a book series recently where the books after the 1st were kinda sloppily written, and I saw that each book was published a year after the other. It happened again on this other book series I'm reading. And it made me wonder if the problem behind this is that some authors HAVE to publish once a year and can't devote time to editing as they otherwise would. (I'm really not saying this to be mean btw)

Subsequent Books in Series Seem Sloppy

I would be curious to know whether these books are self-published or traditionally published. It matters, so I'll answer for both.

In the Case of Self-Published Books - When you self-publish, the only publishing timeline you have to meet is your own, so you wouldn't have a situation where the author "has" to publish once every year and can't devote time to editing. There are a lot of opinions as to how often self-published authors should publish, and since it's common for traditionally published authors to publish every year or so, it's common for self-published authors to aspire to a similar timeline. However, that shouldn't preclude a self-published author from doing the necessary self-editing and/or hiring a professional editor. The truth is, many self-published authors publish two or three books per year or more, and their books are still well-edited.

Having said that... the harsh reality of self-publishing is a lot of people go into it hoping they're going to have the next big TikTok sensation, so they invest thousands of dollars into their book for editing, cover design, interior design, formatting, promotional materials, and more. Then, the book doesn't sell as well as they'd hoped and they don't make back the money they invested. They may find themselves in a situation where they simply can't afford to hire a professional editor for the second and third book, but they put them out to complete the series and in hopes of making back some of the money they lost on book one.

In the Case of Traditionally Published Books - When you traditionally publish, you do have a timeline set by the publisher, but it's unlikely a publisher would put out an unedited or poorly edited book just to stick with a publishing timeline. Also, traditional publishing houses have in-house editors, so it's not like the author is editing completely on their own. Obviously they do self-edits, and they make the necessary edits suggested by the editor, but it's not like the author would come up against their deadline, turn in the unedited draft, and that goes straight to print.

Having said that... I do think it's worth noting that many readers and industry experts feel there has been a substantial decline in the editing quality of traditionally published books over the years. I'm definitely in the camp of people who've noticed this trend, and I subscribe to the theory that it's just another sad check mark in the column of unbridled capitalism. Publishers aren't putting out books because they love the written word or because they want to encourage literacy... they publish books because they want to make a profit, and like any business, they want to make the biggest profit possible. In today's constantly shifting landscape--where self-publishers are putting out million-dollar best sellers, and where TikTok can launch a book so far into the stratosphere that books two and three could be moldy copies of a 1970s phone book and they'd still sell a million copies--traditional publishers are cutting corners where they feasibly can in order to maximize profit, and those cut corners usually impact product quality.

Fortunately, there are still loads and loads of well-edited, high quality traditionally and self-published books hitting the market every year, so while you may find sloppy subsequent books in a series more often now than you used to, hopefully you'll still find more well-edited books than not. :)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[vintage-bentley]

im a huge book nerd, so i hang out in bookstores, libraries and antique shops to look at books a lot. something ive noticed lately is that every time big stores would put out a stand for pride month with LGBTQ+ lit and/or by LGBTQ+ author, there's contemporary lit only. i haven't seen a classical book by gay/lesbian/bi authors in ages. its all that "They both die in the end"s and "Heartstopper"s, "A Little Life" 😬. Contemporary romlit, all that hot new garbage from booktok. but it's never oscar wilde, or james baldwin, or virginia woolf, or sapho, or em forste, or anna-maria sh, or radclyffe hall, or patricia highsmith. even of the never ones, there are more than just ya and romance or romantasy, like let me see like alice walker at least, or sarah waters, leslie feinberg???

i know that they are chasing the trends and trying to be as unproblematic as possible and "uplift trans and q*eer voices" and also they probably have contracts with these authors. but by doing that they are basically erasing lgbt voices from the past, who were already silenced at the time. younger people don't discover authors from the previous centuries, even decades, on these stands. if you are a ssa teen or ya, unless you are doing your own searching, nowadays you won't find any connection with the people from the past that were like you.

I’ve noticed this too. My local library had an “2SLGBTQIA+” pride month display, and I swear it was ALL trans stuff. It was all books starring trans identifying characters or books about gender identity. I think out of the whole display there was maybe two books about same sex attraction. And of course, all of the books were the modern ones with rainbow covers, “progress” flags, and that tik tok book art style.

And I think it’s because they don’t care. They never cared. They’ve just found an easy way to pretend they care so that they can be hailed as Amazing Allies. I feel that way about everyone that’s jumping on the TQ+ train. They’ve found a super easy way to feel good about themselves, and they don’t even have to put in any work to actually support LGB people. It’s all performative.

Why would libraries and bookstores put in the work to find works written by LGB people throughout history, if they can just pull out every rainbow coloured book they see, and still get praised for it?

[no-where-new-hero]

☕ - booktok and I'm cheating to add the state of YA in general 👀

Disclaimer at first that I don't have TikTok (proudly) so that my experience with social media book discourse is through Instagram (which also has a lot of TikToks transferred over, obviously) but I'm not sure if the IG algorithm shows me different things from what TikTok would. Anyway.

I'm going to start with the state of YA actually because I feel slightly more familiar with this but also I think BookTok/Bookstagram trends are absolutely contributing to its hellscape. I may have talked about this in the post about where LMM would be shelved, but I think YA is losing its own identity. It's no longer about finding your place in the world or coming to terms with identity or dealing with themes that will help provide a bridge between childhood and adulthood. Romantasy abounds as much as in adult fiction, maybe just with a little less sex (though that's debatable). Contemporary feels reducible to a Pinterest moodboard (Portrait of a Thief, which I honestly liked in a lot of ways, suffered from this in my opinion). Fantasy without romance is almost nonexistent, and SF is more and more negligible.

All of these issues are perpetuated by BookTok. In a small video, there's only so much of a story you can share. Romantic tropes, aesthetic pictures, over-the-top dramatic lines sell well on there because they're catchy and cater to a romance- and visual-centric society. But I think it has given the false impression that you can stretch a skin of plot over these bones and call it an animal, and because everyone is accepting that this is an animal, the proliferation of such simulacra continues. Especially when the plot itself is none too strong.

You mentioned the trope problem, and I'll drill down on it because I definitely see this as the fanficification of published literature and the deterioration of rigorous plotting: A, because people enjoy it. B, because a majority of new authors grew up in the fanfic heyday and cut their teeth on that style, so they no longer know how to break free of it. C, because it's easy: you have narrative assumptions baked into rivals to lovers, in there's-only-one-bed, the coffeeshop au, etc. They're in fanfic because they're easy and provide a handy template for the meat of the story, which is the characters. But translating that into original fiction runs the risk of creating a predictable story. Predictability can mean palatability, which doesn't hurt on the whole. But it again inscribes this misbelief that if that's all that's on the market, that's all that people want.

The publishing industry absolutely is perpetuating it too: to sell a book now, you need to give comparative titles, "the books yours will sit next to on a display." There's more and more pigeonholing, which the fanfic style enables.

I could also get into the moral turpitude of some of the books on there (cough anything by colleen hoover not to mention HAUNTING ADELINE cough) but that will sound unnecessarily judgy, so I won't. Suffice to say that I feel sorry for anyone trying to "become a reader" by taking their recommendations solely from an app driven by popularity, shock-value, and the cultural capital of prettiness and success.

(Okay I need a last footnote to say that I understand that ALL advertising is driven by popularity, shock-value, and cultural capital. But you remember in the old days when you could go into the library and find a dusty book that was published in like 1990 or something and it smelled like it was growing mildew and it probably had a horrible cover and the author was someone you'd never heard of and none of your friends knew what the book was but you would bring it home and it would completely change your brain chemistry and everything you thought about the world? THAT'S HOW YOU BECOME A READER FELLAS. As a librarian in training, I'm going to die on this hill.)

[flavia8]

"Cartoon" Book Covers - What's with them?

These are just some musings of mine. Just thoughts kinda organized with some things linked. Lately, there have been discussions about the recent trend of "cartoon" covers for books that have been coming out. As like any discussion of art, a lot of it depends on subjective opinion on how the covers look, the feel they evoke, and if it encourages people to read the book. Before I continue, I think it's important to define some terms and scopes and all that. Ready? (Also this is very long)

"Cartoon" covers seem to be the most prevalent in recent romance releases, however, cartoon covers exist in any genre and are not just a recent thing. (Recent here being loosely defined as within the last 10 year) Romance as a genre is derided, pretty much all throughout history until now which is awful. By talking about this, I am not trying to say that romance is a worthless genre that has nothing to say, in fact, I think the opposite! Romance is extremely important and worthwhile, from brain candy romance to literary romance. It is not a genre I read a lot, just because of my interests and such, but I do read them because I believe in reading a wide variety of books and that exposing yourself to different things is extremely important. But, since many romance books have cartoon covers nowadays, a lot of the books I'll be talking about are romance. Also, I am talking about the covers, not the books. Cover does not indicate book quality, but covers do serve as a sort of "appetizer" for them. I also will only be talking about books, as in novels and such (I am not sure how best to put this, I mean books mostly composed of words alone), not comics or other different types of books.

There's also the issue of how you would define a "cartoon". I will be using the definition of "Cartoon" given by the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, with a bit of modification.

Cartoon - a simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated way, especially a satirical one in a newspaper or magazine. (X)

The modification being that humor/satire is not required to be considered a cartoon. Thus, the definition becomes this:

Cartoon - a simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in an exaggerated way.

Regarding Cartoon Covers, the recent prevalent opinion seems to be negative, with a variety of reasons as to why readers dislike these covers, which line up with my own reasons I dislike *some* of them.

For me, personally, they do not have enough thought or effort put into them. The compositions are not very creative and tend to be static, which is quite boring. They are generally quite simple, but not in a good way. Generally cartoon covers look cheap. However, Being simple does not equate to looking cheap. And yes, while there is something to be said here about how cartoon covers are cheaper for publishers and thus that is a reason they have become prominent, this is a separate (though related) issue. Figures rarely have actual eyes or features, and are not really anchored within the "scene" and they look stiff. Limited (if any) shading means these covers lack depth. The backgrounds are often silhouettes that are a slightly different cover than the overall background color. Honestly, they tend to have very limited color palettes in general. Since I am from the U.S, the covers will probably be U.S Versions.

However, there is a distinction to be made I think between the types of cartoon covers drawing ire and cartoon covers that are not. IE "Good" covers and "Bad" covers. Of course, this is subjective and many love cartoon covers I would consider "bad", and inversely many that would dislike covers I love. In order to illustrate my point, I would like to present to you this cover of the Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas.

By the definition above, this is a cartoon cover. (This book is a YA Contemporary bildungsroman) It also matches some of the characteristics of covers I dislike. The composition is simple and the figure is not traditionally "anchored". But, I LOVE this cover. The symbolism of the title being on a protest sign is amazing and extremely fitting for the work. The sign itself serves to anchor the the young girl, and the contrast between the figure and the background, interrupted by the sign adds visual interest and makes the figure and title stand out. To me, it this cover feels "cared for" if you know what I mean.

In contrast, there is this cover of The Hating Game, by Sally Thorne:

This cover is so awful. My first issue is the woman is so undefined that her pose looks unnatural. Her torso looks unnaturally twisted, as if she's both facing the reader and has her back to them. The man looks like a poorly done papercraft (No hate on papercraft itself) blob with his floating hand and the amalgamation of simple "layered" shapes. (Though there's not a lot there) The figures just float, and the composition is boring. This is a nitpick, but I dislike that the words overlap with the woman. Word placement and font are extremely important to book covers.

Some more examples of covers that I think are unappealing and that I think are the types of covers contributing to the dissatisfaction with covers that are "lazy, cheap, and hollow". Some are more unappealing than others.

While I find these covers to be bad, the thing is that a lot of them actually have aspects that "could have been good." For instance, I like the Idea of the Covers for "Happy Place" and "The Heir Affair." "The Charm Offensive" Has a boring cover, yes, but I like the spotlights separating the figures. But overall, these covers seem poorly done, and "corporate." It's especially sad, I think because it discourages people from reading books they may enjoy and creates a negative association with cartoon art. There is also a metric FUCKTON of these types of covers. They're ubiquitous. In contrast, I want to highlight some cartoon covers that I think are good (Though not without flaws), and are not the same type as those above.

For me, all of these covers are leagues better than those above. They are visually interesting and dynamic. The figures don't look lifeless and stiff, and they all look unique to their own book. Arguments about if I should be comparing books of different genres and aimed at different audiences might unfold, but I think that's reductive. Cartoon covers exist in all genres for all audiences. Case in point:

Some of these I like and some I don't. I actually do think that *poorly done* cartoon covers are a legitimate problem. Since the genre most plagued by these covers is romance, it can encourage further dismissal and invalidation of the genre. If romance covers are largely perceived as cheap, hollow and insipid, those perceptions further color the perception of romance as a whole. I do not think that romance is any of those things, or that the covers should cater to people who hate romance. But, romance being generally a feminine interest is, like a lot of things considered feminine, mocked and considered inferior. I worry that prolific bad cartoon covers only serve to reinforce this horrible association. Additionally, the saturation of these covers begins to homogenize the romance genre covers making it hard to identify the type of story the book holds. Romance readers (AND AUTHORS) deserve book covers with effort and thought put into them, that match up with the type of book it is. Silly fun books should get silly, fun covers! More serious books should get more serious covers to match. (Of course, cartoon covers can be both but when silly cartoon covers are the only thing being created it's bad and leads into stuff I mentioned) And I know book covers, like most things, have trends. But still.

Book covers looking similar is not a crime, and it generally doesn't bother me. And I'm not trying to be mean or attack the designers of the covers I don't like, I'm just trying to critique and distinguish certain types of covers. I know a lot of this is subjective, and this is by no means anything definitive. This is just my thoughts on something I noticed. This is not -serious- analysis! I did not do any *in-depth* research. And I'm not even touching on AI images. It's just. This trend of simple, flat, blobby, cheap art in covers worries me. I know the publishing industry is beyond fucked and tiktok is NOT helping. Cartoon Covers can be quite lovely and amazing! That Cover for "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is one of my favorite book covers of all time. But the push for cheap mass appeal is creating/exacerbating problems. There's not even really anything wrong with going for mass appeal, (especially since book covers are supposed to draw the audience in) but when it becomes the ONLY aim, instead of being a fun/creative way to enhance the book/add to the experience through visual means as WELL as to appeal to readers, something very important is lost.