In a manifestation of what I noted in an earlier post; that if your romantic paranormal fantasy is filed on the romance shelf you get a hunk on the cover, on the fantasy shelf you get a babe on the cover in short:
Fantasy:
Romance:
Now there’s a blog post on the Juno Books blog that’s warning of yet another subclassing of paranormal cover art– The Butt Cover. Apparently, if you have an ass-kicking heroine in a paranormal urban fantasy, we need to see some ass. Consider yourself warned.
So early last week I had an issue with Internet access. It was Sunday, I was taking a break from writing, eating lunch and watching a YouTube video. Then, all of a sudden, the stream Read more…
I started out as a seat of the pants writer. My first books started out with me writing on page one, and just chugging along until I was done. It worked for me as far Read more…
That’s the good news. I’m several chapters into book two and I’m enjoying myself. That said, I don’t have a home for it yet. It’s not usual for me to get committed to a project Read more…
4 Comments
RaveBomb · January 11, 2008 at 10:24 am
You realize now that tonight, instead of doing everything that I need to be doing, I’ll be going through all my bookcases confirming this?
S Andrew Swann · January 12, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Always glad to be of service 🙂
But you know you wanted to organize your shelves by cover art, didn’t you?
Anonymous · February 23, 2008 at 6:34 am
Having read the Briggs novels in question, I feel it should be pointed out that they really aren’t “romantic fiction” at all. It takes the main character nearly three books before she even gets involved in anything resembling a romantic relationship. Mostly she just kicks ass, takes names, and occassionally strips naked…but usually only as a prelude to turning into a coyote. Sometimes she even skips the “strips naked” part and simply wriggles out of the clothing afterwards. And one of the few sexual encounters was actually a pretty brutal rape, though you aren’t really even aware that it’s happening even as you’re reading through it.
But getting back to the observation at hand, it’s pretty clear that the reason for this is that the straight-up romance novels are girl-trash, and the fantasy stuff usually skews more towards guy-trash. Cover art that appeals to the intended market helps sell more books.
Genrewonk: thoughts and opinions by author S. Andrew Swann » Blog Archive » Urban Fantasy Butt Parade · October 22, 2008 at 8:34 am
[…] mentioned before the preponderance of a certain type of fantasy cover. Now SciFiGuy has compiled the entire cover trend into a helpful educational video. (via Smart […]
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