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	dejana 2009-12-16 09:27 pm UTC (link)
	This post has made it painfully clear that I'm probably missing out on some great books by writing off covers like these as smutty romance. vows to look twice next time Of course, that also leads to the "How do I hide the cover of this book I'm carrying around" problem... (Reply to this)(Thread)

	dracobolt 2009-12-17 01:05 am UTC (link)
	This post has made it painfully clear that I'm probably missing out on some great books by writing off covers like these as smutty romance. This. I kind of want to look into Susan Grant's books now. I do love me some pirates, space or otherwise. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sablemouse 2009-12-17 01:07 am UTC (link)
	That's why I tend to buy my romance in ebooks. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sandglass 2009-12-17 07:48 am UTC (link)
	The dust jackets of other books! I was "reading" Al Franken's Lying Liars for the longest time, because it was the perfect size for some smutty books I had. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	dejana 2009-12-17 07:59 am UTC (link)
	Haha, that's brilliant. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	squeakthemouse 2009-12-18 01:14 am UTC (link)
	Haha, I like this idea! is totally going to try this next time (Reply to this)(Parent)

hurricane
2009-12-16 09:31 pm UTC (link)

Susan Grant is the reason I'll even look at romance novels, to be honest. Several years ago I grabbed a copy of The Star Princess that had been shelved in the sci-fi section at a Barnes and Noble. It's not hard science fiction by any stretch of the imagination, but I really like the worlds she builds and the characters she creates.

One of her more recent books, Moonstruck, is awesome.

*ahem* Anyhow. So yeah, I got tipped off on this by Ms. Grant's blog, and the whole thing--ugh. I'll be buying that book because I know and love the author...and probably wrapping it in some sort of book protector because that cover is embarrassing! I don't have a problem reading romance in public, but--oooh, yikes.

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	phosfate 2009-12-16 09:42 pm UTC (link)
	It looks like gay porn, Harlequin. (Reply to this)

	sablemouse 2009-12-17 01:12 am UTC (link)
	Uh... never judge a book by its cover? I admit I've gotten over the covers that I see and reading the blurbs at the back and just dive straight in to see if I can stomach the contents. btw, love your icon! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	superluminal 2009-12-17 02:27 am UTC (link)
	I'd say thanks, but I picked it up from the Spock/Uhura comm. http://community.livejournal.com/spock_uhura/tag/fan:+graphics (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sablemouse 2009-12-17 03:57 am UTC (link)
	It's such a lovely moment. Thank you for the link to more pretty XD (Reply to this)(Parent)

OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY

feenix
2009-12-17 01:20 am UTC (link)

Not gonna lie: I looked at this, and I was like, "...there's a problem with shirtless muscle men?"

Then again, I'm shallow. Very shallow. HEY WHAT'S A LITTLE GRATUITOUS OBJECTIFICATION BETWEEN FRIENDS.

In all seriousness, though: Doesn't the author herself have at least some say in what goes on her book covers? So, I'm guessing Ms. Grant is...ah...signing off on the beefcake.

Taking a bit dimmer view: Maybe, just maybe - and I'm not familiar with Susan Grant at ALL - she's (or even more dimly, Harlequin's) marketing her work more as romance than sci-fi? Harlequin's primarily a romance publisher, after all.

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	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY dejana 2009-12-17 01:39 am UTC (link)
	Doesn't the author herself have at least some say in what goes on her book covers? Not really. See the controversy over the cover of Justine Larbalestier's "Liar," for example. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY feenix 2009-12-17 02:28 am UTC (link)
	Oh. Oh. ...why do I have a feeling that I may end up dragging this into UFB territory? Because seriously wut. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY dejana 2009-12-17 02:30 am UTC (link)
	It was changed, at least. Behold the power of internet outrage! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY deliciouschaos 2009-12-17 03:18 am UTC (link)
	Authors usually have to be ridiculously powerful to have a say over their covers. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY superluminal 2009-12-17 04:18 am UTC (link)
	http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/rebels-and-lovers-making-of-cover.html Linnea Sinclair gave Bantam pictures of Starbuck and Logan Cale for her latest cover, and she pretty much got what she wanted. This is not usual at all, though. Linnea said it's the first time they asked her for such detail. It's not a bad cover. Harlequin should take note. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY sarracenia 2009-12-17 04:59 am UTC (link)
	Wow. I hope asking authors for at least a little input continues as a trend, because god do I hate most covers. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Somehow, I have a feeling I failed it somewhere in this.

feenix
2009-12-17 04:48 am UTC (link)

I just don't know where.

Anyway.

tmyk, then. As IANAA (I am not an author), I'd thought she'd have at least the power to say, "You know, I think this misrepresents my book." Hm.

I think that it does kind of reinforce the more negative stereotypes of romance to have covers like that, though - that it's essentially written porn. I may have said that I'm shallow in my original comment, but I also wouldn't be caught DEAD reading that in public. Or probably buying it from a bookstore (and I'm a guy who bought Legal Drug ~~accidentally~~ from a brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble!). Considering the story - granted, I've only read summaries that were condemning the cover, so they might be biased - seems to have the romance angle as a tangential aspect, while the proposed cover is ALL ABOUT THE SEX, that's quite the disservice, IMO.

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	Re: Somehow, I have a feeling I failed it somewhere in this. breecita 2009-12-17 06:17 am UTC (link)
	I'm shallow and I would gleefully read it in public and LOL @ anyone who gave me pretentious shit about it. Though to be fair I do happen to hate cropped-head naked chest covers, but not because I'm deeply ashamed of my reading tastes. I just find mantitty less interesting than hot tattooed shoulders or scruffy profiles. <3 (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY platedlizard 2009-12-17 03:51 am UTC (link)
	I didn't get the reference, so I googled it and now i don't even (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY

bitca
2009-12-17 02:38 pm UTC (link)

Taking a bit dimmer view: Maybe, just maybe - and I'm not familiar with Susan Grant at ALL - she's (or even more dimly, Harlequin's) marketing her work more as romance than sci-fi? Harlequin's primarily a romance publisher, after all.

Susan Grant got her start in the romance market, so that's where she's best known.

However, speaking as someone who watched Susan Krinard's SF/F/Romance novels from Luna fail miserably, it's really hard to get a crossover audience. My husband read the books, and there wasn't enough worldbuilding for the SF/F side of him. For me, primarily a romance reader, there wasn't enough romance. So then you get neither audience reading them regularly and they just don't sell.

It's a VERY tricky line to walk, and most authors can't pull both sides in. La Nora is the exception with her In Death books, perhaps, but I'd be willing to bet many romance fans find them lacking in the romance part every now and then.

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	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY oxfordcomma 2009-12-17 07:05 pm UTC (link)
	OT but that icon is EXCELLENT. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY meril 2009-12-17 09:01 pm UTC (link)
	and even there, Roberts has to write under a pseudonym (even though it's clear that it's also Nora Roberts) because it's such a departure from her romance work. I mean, cross-genre near-future sf/crime fiction/romantic suspense? I'm just surprised so many of her romance fans read it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY

velvet_mace
2009-12-18 07:41 am UTC (link)

Yeah, it does seem an uncomfortable merger to me. Romance is very intimate -- you pretty much want your story to be about two characters. Sci-fi is very big picture -- about societies and large scale interpersonal dynamics. This isn't to say you can't have a kind of a kinky romance where you have an alien and a human exploring the differences the species as they discover each other, or a bit of ordinary romance humanizing some sweeping epic crisis, but most romance readers don't seem to be interested in kinky alien/human sex or epic battles, they seem to want to read about two characters being cute and riffing off each other and for the background to kinda remain just that.

But the background is the draw for sci-fi readers, you can't just have generic space-pirates doing vaguely described space piratey things. It's got to be somehow unique and intriguing.

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Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY

evilsqueakers
2009-12-17 11:45 pm UTC (link)

Well, if you look in the UF/Romance department, I know that Jeaniene Frost is consulted about her covers for the Night Huntress series. (She generally squees on her journal when she's given the chance to view.) But I also think that's a rarity in and of itself. Patricia Briggs gets some input as well, I believe. The only other one I can say offhand is Yasmine Galenorn's faerie series. But none of those are space pirates.

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Re: OH THE HUGE MAN-TITTY

nagaina
2009-12-19 06:03 am UTC (link)

Not usually. In my personal case, the cover for every book I've ever written was painted sometimes years in advance as part of stock cover art produced by a well-known RPG game artist (Tim Bradstreet) and which got slapped on multiple books to get maximum bang for the buck (for ex: the covers of Road of Sin and Dark Ages Clan Novel Tzimisce are the same picture of the same character who features heavily in both books). In fact, the only time I ever had anything remotely to say about book-related art was when I begged my developer on bended knee to limit the instances of hentai tentacle porn in Road of Sin despite the ready availability of opportunity to insert lots. For a refreshing change, I was taking seriously on that. Instead, they replaced the naughty tentacles with full frontal nudity!

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	superluminal 2009-12-17 02:25 am UTC (link)
	This book is to SF as furries are to normal people. http://io9.com/comment/17633666/ LOLWUT? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	the__ivorytower 2009-12-17 03:14 am UTC (link)
	So, varying in range from sane to batshit weird, because people come in an exciting rainbow of flavours? Wow, the english language called, they want their metaphors unmixed. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	feenix 2009-12-17 04:38 am UTC (link)
	You mean furries aren't all fursuiters/plushies who fantasize about fucking their neighbor's toy poodle up the ass and pop a boner when they see a hot German Shepherd unsheathed? Say it ain't so! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the__ivorytower 2009-12-17 05:30 am UTC (link)
	You may need to sit down. This could take a while. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	feenix 2009-12-17 01:00 pm UTC (link)
	For the record, that last comment was sarcasm. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the__ivorytower 2009-12-17 06:32 pm UTC (link)
	So was mine? ;; (Reply to this)(Parent)

queencallipygos
2009-12-17 02:37 pm UTC (link)

I get the general thrust of the article and agree, but there's one detail that s bugging me:

Count this as another vote for novels about space pirates to have covers depicting space pirates... preferably sexy ones.

erm...who's to say that the cover doesn't do that? because, hell, who's to say what space pirates do look like? They COULD look like that, you know...What are we expecting, Jack Sparrow in an astronaut helmet or something?

Mind you, I do agree that this is a dodge to make the book look less "geeky" and attract a "female audience" or some crap, but...it sounds kind of like the Io9 article wanted to trade one stereotype for...another one.

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	tequilaghost 2009-12-17 05:44 pm UTC (link)
	What are we expecting, Jack Sparrow in an astronaut helmet or something? Expecting, no, but that would be awesome. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	singe 2009-12-17 07:23 pm UTC (link)
	Heh eh eh heh, you said 'thrust.' (Reply to this)(Parent)

	virgo 2009-12-17 05:55 pm UTC (link)
	I can't stop giggling over "man-titty." I am clearly 12. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	oxfordcomma 2009-12-17 07:09 pm UTC (link)
	I'm pretty sure that's a coinage of the Smart Bitches for the express purpose of giggling, so carry on! :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	khym_chanur 2009-12-17 11:38 pm UTC (link)
	Reminds me of a story about author C.J. Cherryh: after complaining about the heroine of her books being illustrated as wearing a skimpy bikini-type outfit, the next cover had her clanking around in full-out plate-mail armor, even though the heroine just wears normal clothes. (Reply to this)

	velvet_mace 2009-12-18 07:30 am UTC (link)
	I'm rather pro man-titty, but sadly anti-romance. For something that's supposed to be about swashbuckling space pirates solving murder mysteries, it somehow manages to seem ho-hum and cliche ridden. (Reply to this)