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On Cover Flipping

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Written by: Kelly on May 9, 2013.

I love a good conversation about book covers, so when Maureen Johnson stepped up and called for discussion and commentary on gendered covers, I started thinking. First, go read post which contains some of the redesigned covers created by readers. The long and short of the post is that female-authored books tend to have covers with a feminine slant, while male-authored books tend to have more literary covers to them (or more masculinely slanted covers).

This is actually not a new discussion at all. It’s something Kiersten White brought up a few months ago on Twitter, in relation to John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Would the cover look different if it were Jennifer Green instead? That’s not a knock on the book nor on the quality. It’s a good question about what we assume of books penned by male authors, as opposed to female.

Maureen’s post set off a number of really interesting reactions, some of which I saw stemming from her post and some which took a part of her post and went in a different direction. Justina Ireland wrote about feminism and about how she can like girly covers. Amanda Hocking wrote about how she’s complex, and how she like both those things which are girly and those which typically aren’t. Trish Doller wrote about her own cover and how books with similar themes as her own have different covers than hers (which is much more romantic in nature than the book itself).

I could write at length about any or all of these topics, but what has been sticking out in my mind is that of the male voice in YA. More specifically, the male voice as written by a female.

The male voice as written by a female whose names appear on covers like this:

All of these male-voices YA titles are written by women whose names are initials on the cover.  More specifically, all of these first YA novels featuring male voices have initialized author names on the cover, degendering their names. Note that Marissa Marr and Kelly Armstrong’s first middle grade collaboration, which is a male-voiced novel, uses this technique too.

Obviously plenty of females use initials for their names. Many of the authors listed above likely do just that. But what’s interesting to me is that this trend doesn’t happen much the other way around. And maybe it’s that there are fewer male writers whose first books are written in a female voice.

I can think of one first YA novel written by a male with a lead female where his name is initialed.

Maybe what’s as interesting to me as the initial use is that all of the covers above are either images that are gender neutral or they feature a male on the cover. These books appeal to both male and female readers in equal measure for both those reasons.

Does using an initial or two in place of an author’s full first name, though, impact reader perceptions of the book or the voice within it? In other words, had S. D. Crockett’s After the Snow had her first name on it — Sophie — would readers see the book differently? Would they not believe the male voice?

I have a lot more I want to say on covers like C. Desir’s Fault Line, but since it doesn’t come out until the fall, I’m saving my comments until then. I’ve had a lot of pause for thought lately, and I think that Maureen’s bringing up this topic of gendered covers is an important one. I think about it from the point of view of a librarian who works with teens and who adamantly believes that there is no such thing as gender in a book. Sure, covers can tap into the visually appealing elements that are socially associated with females and those which are socially associated with males. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with a cover that has a couple kissing on it — if that’s what the book is about, then it’s going to find its audience pretty well.

So then I wonder: are names and the way they appear on YA covers a marketing technique, too? Is using one’s initials to “degender” a name a means of reaching that elusive male readership if the book features a male voice? Would boy readers not believe the authenticity of any of the books above or others if the name on the cover was Emily or Erin or Sarah or Stephanie or Christina?

There’s a lot to chew on, and I’d be curious if anyone can think of examples either way: where the male-led novel written by a female has her initials as her author name or where a female-led novel written by a male has his initials as his author name. As I said before, this is a trend I’ve noticed in first YA novels, but it’s possible there are instances where pseudonyms are used. Lay them on me!

Comments

  2. R.A. Nelson is a male who writes female protags. Aside from his debut, his covers have all featured girls on them. http://www.amazon.com/R.-A.-Nelson/e/B001JPC6TI

    When Simon & Schuster bought FREEFALL, I was sure I was going to have to use initials throughout my career, since it was my first novel and it has a male protagonist. That seemed to be what most authors were doing when they were in that position. That didn't end up happening. My publisher didn't suggest it, so I didn't do it. My debut didn't get a "girly" cover. My second novel has a female protag and DID get a cover with a girl on it.

    So, for my books, it felt like my name and gender weren't the consideration in choosing the cover art. Instead, it was about the characters and which readers would be more likely to be interested in their stories. Of course, since I don't use initials, there is no way to know if my LTT cover would have gotten different treatment if it had been written by "M.R. Scott" instead.

    • RA Nelson is a great example!

      It's interesting that some authors do the initial thing (by choice or by career-forced choice) and some don't. Freefall was a male MC, and your first novel. I don't want to stereotype, but the book is very male-friendly — as in, it definitely has an authentic male voice and tackles guy issues in a way that's just realistic to teen boys (and it appeals to female readers too, obviously). There are books like Carrie Mesrobian's forthcoming Sex & Violence which tackles exactly that, and it's a male mc. She's using her name, too, and it's her first book. Both your book and Carrie's book have great gender neutral covers, too.

      Thinking about how your second book, with a female protag and female cover, in light of having used initials is interesting. Would it have been more neutral? Though I also think your cover is pretty strong for a female-appealing cover, since it's dark and fairly plain, aside from the cover model.

      Thanks for chiming in because now I've got even more to think about with this.

  3. I thought J. K. Rowling (writer of the Harry Potter books) was a man for the longest time. Never read any of the books, don't care for the subject. Interesting…. Now that I have read this I will probably assume most initial author books are female.

    • JK Rowling stated that she initialized (is that a word?) her name so that more boys would be drawn to read her books. I guess the publishing world assumes boys won't read books written by women, but girls are just fine with reading books written by men. In reality, Rowling actually doesn't have a middle name, and created the "K" because her grandmother's first name was Kathleen.
      In a slightly-related note, I remember my sixth LA grade teacher telling our class that the best YA books have protagonists that are the opposite gender of the authors. I remember thinking at the time that was true for some of my favorite novels – Harry Potter and His Dark Materials. Not sure if anyone else feels the same way.

  5. Ditto GenieBeth. The first example that popped into my head–and perhaps the most well-known–has to be J.K. Rowling. I seem to remember reading once that they used her initials PRECISELY BECAUSE they didn't want boys to shy away from the series.

  6. Anna Hutchinson on Twitter noted SE Hinton as another noteworthy female who used initials to publish her book featuring teen boy main characters.

  7. SE Hinton was the first peson that came to mind for me too. Mostly because I almost fell over when I read it in high school and my mom turned to me and told me her name. 🙂

    • You know, embarrassingly enough, I've never read The Outsiders but all of this discussion really makes me want to.

  8. Well, I was going to comment on Rowling, but everyone else seems to have done so! I will add that in the German editions, maybe others, the covers say "Joanne Rowling."

    One I noticed was LaFevers. In her MG series, Theodosia, she's RL LaFevers, even though it's a female protag, but the YA Fair Assassins series is published under Robin.

  9. It really is a shame that so many authors have to do this. The only subversion I can kind of think of for this is Darkness Before Dawn by J.A London, which is written by a mother and son and narrated by a female.

    • I didn't realize that JA London was a mother/son team. Thanks for pointing that out, as it's a great example (and definitely a "feminine" cover to it, though it sounds like it fits the story).

  12. I can think of an example that's not yet out–Vicious by V.E. Schwab. It has two male MCs and as we know, V.E. Schwab is actually Victoria Schwab, and she has two YA novels out, The Near Witch and The Archived. The Near Witch and The Archived both have female protags as well as females on the covers. I don't know who made the decision that Vicious should be published by V.E. Schwab, but it seems as though it's a case of re-branding and trying to pull in a wider audience. I'll be curious to see if any adults decide to track down Victoria's other books after reading Vicious.

    Also, I'm ridiculously proud of myself for coming up with this one, hehehe.

    • The decision to go by V.E. Schwab was for a few reasons. Tor actually insisted I keep my name–they didn't want me using a pseudonym–but I am trying to crack a notoriously male genre–both writers and readers–and would rather win that war from the inside out. I wanted to go by my initials so that I wouldn't be dismissed at a passing glance due to gender. The second reason for the modification is because I have quite a contingent of young readers–middle school age–from THE NEAR WITCH, and I didn't want them to just stumble on VICIOUS, which is very dark and very violent!