So I’m thinking about cliche romance covers. You know, heaving bosoms and crap like that. And I know that KEPT is sort of in that cliche cover camp. But it was the highest voted of all the cover options, so I went with it. And I also justify it because it’s an ebook, if anybody reads it in public, few onlookers are going to see the cover image, so no one has to be embarrassed about what they’re reading.
Before I started reading romance, this was my take on it: Harlequin (boy those guys know how to market a brand.) Category romance. Heaving bosoms. Titles like: “The millionaire mistress’ baby daddy.” Okay not really, more like: “His virginal bride” or “The Greek Millionaire’s Mistress.” (This might actually BE a romance title.)
I’m not sure what the big to do is about virgins though. I think maybe we like that whole “vulnerable female,” “big strong male” thing, though a lot of people deny it. But there are OTHER ways to show this besides women who have never had sex. Come on, now.
Anyway, so stuck in my head was the Harlequin Category Romance version of romance. And I know some people devour these books, but I don’t like them. That’s just me. They don’t generally have enough substance, and they’re just not my thing. (Which isn’t to say I think my writing is better or has more substance, I am just not a category romance reader. I’m also not a Sci-Fi reader. It’s not personal.)
BUT, I have always been interested in romance (as a concept), love, power dynamics in relationships, etc. I want to know who is sleeping with who in everything. And I want to know if they love each other, hate each other, think they hate each other but really love each other.
And romance is everywhere. Hellboy? Sure, there’s a lot of explosions and fighting and witty banter, but there is also an entire ROMANCE plot line between him and the fire chick. Buffy? Angel and Buffy. Buffy and Spike. True Blood. Sookie and Bill, Sookie and Eric. (well not quite yet on the show, but it better be upcoming.)
Firefly: Science freaking fiction. Mal and Inanna. Zoe and Walsh. (Firefly is one of the few Sci-Fi anythings I could really get into.)
There is love and there is sex and there is romance in everything.
The problem with the stereotype against the romance “genre” is that people get it in their heads that it’s just romance with no actual catalyst to bring them together. The really great romance happens in the midst of everything else, not as a stand alone feature.
Tom was reading SAVE MY SOUL, and KEPT, and he’s like: “Well, it’s not just romance.” Bingo. Romance “isn’t” just romance. It’s just the major thread of the storyline we’re focused on. There are other things going on. It’s not all: “Oh he’s sexy I want to sleep with him. I like him I wonder if he likes me.” Sure we have this angst, and sure, it gets slightly larger billing than the romantic subthread in most other stories, but it doesn’t mean it’s all category romance. (i.e. thin harlequin books with cheesy covers and very expository titles.)
Which brings me back to covers. I think sometimes we ghettoize ourselves with these covers. (And I get it’s publishers in charge of this, not writers.) I was reading one of those Top 3 wishes for romance novels threads on the Amazon discussion groups.
Almost every single person said: “STOP DOING THE SEXY COVERS.” Why? Because women are embarrassed to buy these books and read them in public. But we’ve painted ourselves in a corner. Without a heaving bosom, or a completely expository title, how will the books get to the right readers? Oh noes, the horrors!
It’s like even we don’t believe that romance readers are very bright. (we being anyone publishing a book, again, not the writer’s fault unless you’re publishing your own work) If there aren’t heaving bosoms or the word virgin or bad boy in the title then we get confused about what’s going on. (And actually “bad boys” might be in the novella series print title hahaha. So I’m a total hypocrite. But if I come up with something better, I’ll use it.)
Stewart thought I wrote urban fantasy, instead of paranormal romance. If I write urban fantasy, men will read it too. If I write paranormal romance, almost every reader will be a woman. I don’t have an automatic problem with this, except for the gender ghettoization (is that a word?) of books that both genders could easily read and like, if not for the heaving bosoms and overwhelming “girlie-ness” of them. And also, we have to ditch euphemistic sex, either write it or don’t write it, but “man root” and sword and dragon imagery is doing nothing for me, but making me laugh. Either turn me on, or make me cry, or laugh (in the “laughing with you” way, some sex scenes are meant to be funny), or something. But don’t give me the obligatory purple prose sex scene, please, God.
It takes two to tango. And in heterosexual romances, that means there are male characters. With more male readers, would writers write better male characters? Maybe so.
All I know is that paranormal romance can reach out and snag some urban fantasy readers and some general fantasy readers just by not overplaying the romance card, and still snag romance readers. Yes, you can’t reach every reader, but romance can gain new readers if it stops looking like the stripper at the family reunion.
YA romance does this beautifully. Twilight is a YA romance. It has all the elements of a romance, and the relationship between Bella and Edward is the primary driving force behind the entire book. Are just romance fans reading it? Nope? Why not? The lack of heaving bosoms might be part of it.
And just to let you know just how deep the romance genre stigma goes . . . When I was in eighth grade, my English teacher was really supportive over the “I want to be a writer” thing. And she told me she had a published writer friend who wrote romances. I nodded and smiled (God I HOPE I nodded and smiled, instead of saying something bad about Romance.) Anyway but in my head, I thought “Romance? Pffft. Those aren’t even real books.”
So even in 8th grade, when I knew even less shit than I know now, the snobbery was there.
Also, KEPT is out, but Cynthia Eden has a book that came out today: Midnight Sins. Check it out! She’s a fabulous writer.
November 25, 2008 at 6:14 pm
LOL you’re right it is a real book!
I like your cover cause it’s more of an embrace cover. Avon seems to still be in clinch happyland especially with their historicals. Y’know the dreamy swooshy dress and hair and Fabio open chested shirts. Hehe. I still notice those.
You brought up an interesting point about male authors writing romance. I know Harlequin has a few male authors (under pen names I believe) and my critique group has an AWESOME male author who’s shooting for the Presents line. He’s a wonderful writer. I’ve only read like two Presents and they were pretty good stories. I probably wouldn’t buy them as a steady diet and I sure can’t write category (I tried, but I think my brain has a block on writing it :-/). Ack.
November 25, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Damn, I’ve been tainted by the “Judge a Book by it’s Cover” site, because I think they’ve mentioned that book before. hahahahahaha
holy hell.
Okay, moving on. I’m glad my cover isn’t “too” cheesy. It’s a skill I want to keep developing.
And cool about the other stuff in your comment. I have no specific reply haha, other than, cool.
November 25, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Actually I should say: “I’m glad you don’t think my cover is too cheesy.” Because saying it as an empirical statement makes me sound vain, and I know some people will look at it and go ewwww.
November 25, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I don’t hate clinch covers because some are very pretty, but the concept of the clinch cover, combined with stereotypical titles (any combination of the words Wicked, Sin, Duke, Mistress, Lover, Scandal, Ruin, et al), does the genre and its readers a grave disservice.
I don’t really understand the reasoning that clinches help readers identify a romance since all romance novels have the genre emblazoned on the spine and they’re all placed in the romance section of a bookstore.
In 2004, the reception of Lydia Joyce’s debut was very positive despite the book featuring a typical gothic scene of a darkened house and a few roses instead of a clinch. And her subsequent books, until her Dec release, have only featured an opaque portrait of a female model. It’s also very telling that once an author becomes a BIG NAME, the clinch nearly always disappears.
November 25, 2008 at 8:40 pm
haha Evangeline, it’s like I said, they think romance readers are morons and can’t figure out the genre of what they’re reading by reading the spine.
And good point about: “once an author becomes a big name…” Very true.
So why are the rest of the books being pimped with covers women are both embarrassed to take to the counter, and embarrassed to read in public settings for fear of ridicule.
November 25, 2008 at 9:39 pm
A few days ago, Dorchester Editor Leah Hultenschmidt blogged about clinch covers. She tracked sales for clinch covers vs. similar books without a clinch, and the clinch covers sold more. (And I’m tired of using the word “clinch.”)
So your guy and gal on the cover is a great choice. And you know the Magical Musings’ ladies love a cat.
November 25, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Hey Edie, that’s very interesting. Maybe it’s a new generation vs. old generation romance readers thing? Because there is a big contingent of people who A. don’t like clinch covers (and I love the word haha) and B. are embarrassed to take them to a counter or read them in public.
I wonder if there is a compromise. Sexy covers that don’t scream: “romance novel” in the sense that readers don’t like.
I think a lot of it has to do with how tasteful the whole thing is. Like I’m not sure whether or not you’d called: Jo Goodman’s “The Price of Desire” a clinch cover or not, but we see a fully exposed female back, and she’s in the arms of this guy. And it’s quite sexy. But it’s tasteful. And a very very gorgeous cover.
Larissa Ione’s “Pleasure Unbound” has a couple on it, it may or may not fall into the “clinch cover” category but it’s a gorgeous cover. And there is something about both covers that are a tiny bit understated.
Though something I’m starting to wonder about . . . are more net savvy people, less likely to go for clinch covers? Because there is a lot of online complaint about this. Maybe these are two very different markets and it isn’t a question of which is “better” but how you reach each respective market, and how you define that market.
Of course to know that, they’d have to do some more in depth demographics studies.
November 25, 2008 at 9:55 pm
*That is, not “that are”
November 25, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hey Edie, that’s not the post for the clinch cover article. It’s about covers but has nothing to do with what you’re saying. Did you get the link copied and pasted in wrong?
November 25, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Exactly. But…it still won’t draw non-romance readers to them because a) they’re in the romance section & b) they’re still stuck with cheesy titles. Pam Rosenthal is someone who has been fortunate enough to have beautiful, tasteful, yet sexy covers and titles that don’t tip the cheesecake-cornball scales.
The trouble with clinch covers is that the average person associates the genre with “bodice rippers” and “silly Harlequin novels” and when a browser walks past a H/S display with its secret babies and Billionaire’s Virgin Mistress’s Lover and then sees ST romances with nearly similar covers, they don’t see the difference at all. Because of this, there is little crossover appeal for romance–historicals especially (but that is also because of the genre’s emphasis on “wallpaper” historicals that fans of historical fiction feel insulted over).
So where do we go from here? It’s incredibly naive for everyone to continue to spout the statistics of romance readers and its chunk of the market when, as I referenced on my blog, the romance readership is stagnant.
November 25, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Hey Evangeline, that’s true. But in some ways I’m also thinking about what I can do with my own stuff. I’m not targeting bookstores, so I don’t have that handicap. And I’m going to “Try” not to have titles that are too cheesy hahaha.
I think that’s what cheeses me off, that ST romances are so easily classed with Harlequin novels. (And I realize that Harlequin puts out more than category romances, but, Harlequin as a brand is in most people’s minds is synonymous with category romances. I like the bodice ripper “concept” but don’t like the purple prose sex scenes that usually come with them.
And you’re right about historicals. Historical romances don’t typically get historical details right to the degree that other historical fiction does. And therefore it isn’t taken as seriously. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t some historical romances that do take accuracy seriously.
I think the romance readership IS stagnant, but I think there are many things publishers could do to combat that. They aren’t really working very hard at branding romance as something “cooler.” Paranormal romances are about the closet I’ve seen to something more hip and edgy, but even that doesn’t always hit the mark in the way it’s marketed, IMO.
November 25, 2008 at 11:04 pm
And the bodice ripper comment wasn’t supposed to be about Harlequin, haha. I really need to proofread before I post comments.
November 25, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Oops. This is the right blog about the clinch covers.
November 25, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Thanks, Edie, I’ll go check it out now!
November 25, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Interesting, Edie. I’m not sure I’m totally convinced though. Due to the LOUD and virulent dislike of clinch covers by so many both readers and authors. It makes the genre get mocked more. And though I know the KEPT cover leans a little that way, it’s also not the only image on there, and I’m not selling that cover as a print release.
I do think it’s telling though that in the comments section she says before this, they’d didn’t have any proof one way or the other. THey didnt’ do studies. How can a company that sells a product NOT do demographics studies, market research, or any type of statistical comparisons of what’s selling and what’s not, and why?
It’s not magic. There is a reason something sells or doesn’t sell. I would think people who have a vested financial interest would want to find out why, and work from there.
Also, something else not taken into consideration here is the fact that since most of these were debut authors with not huge marketing budgets, they were most likely all placed on the shelves spine facing out. You don’t see the covers with the spines out.
So what draws people then? Name or title. We have no way of knowing if the non-clinch covers got picked up off the shelf much at all. The title might have driven people away.
The ones that did well also could have been lucky enough to be alphabetically shelved right next to someone with a strong readership. It’s natural to pick up the book sitting right next to another book you picked up.
Also, if the bookstores ordered more copies of clinch covers than nonclinch covers, they are more visible on the shelves since there are more of them. Sometimes when a book is ordered in larger quantities, they are faced out, another thing that makes a reader in a bookstore pick up a book.
So there are a lot of factors here. I’d be really hesitant to say that clinch covers are “the” way to go. Especially without better market research behind it that takes all factors into consideration.
November 26, 2008 at 4:53 pm
My personal taste is not a clinch cover. Yours is very well done. Sensual but without a read clinch and not showing skin. And of course, you can’t go wrong with a cat.
November 26, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Thanks, Edie! I wasn’t sure if mine fell into the “clinch cover” category or not. And if it did, if it was tasteful enough to forgive it for that haha!
And yeah, the cat was popular, plus I liked how she just drapes over the title bar like that. All books should have cats on them.
November 26, 2008 at 7:22 pm
You know, bodice ripping is not all that bad, from a guy’s standpoint.
November 26, 2008 at 7:49 pm
bwahahahaha, I like bodice rippers, except when the sex gets really weird and words like “manroot” get used. It’s really okay not to give male anatomy creative names.
November 26, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Manroot? Ugh!
Before that the worst I’d see was ‘milky missile.’ Talk about ripping a reader right out of the mood.
November 26, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Oh (sorry for the double post) I had to look up what a ‘clinch’ cover was. Yours ain’t one.
November 26, 2008 at 10:51 pm
hehehe Kel! “milky missile,” Holy Lord is this a new abstinence program?
January 15, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I just finished writing a horror novel set in New York City entitled IN THE MOUTH OF ILLUSION.
Here is what its about: A visit to a hospital in Manhattan turns into a myriad of horrors for Mitch and a small group of individuals begin to dive deep into the mind of a psychologically vicious and mentally anguished patient named Eden. They enlist the help of an enigmatic psychologist who must piece together the mysteries involving Eden s’ violent past.
From Karl.
January 15, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I have a question: Can a horror novel blend itself into the romance genre?
Karl.
January 15, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Hey Karl,
if you ask me, this is already happening with some paranormal romance. A lot of the paranormal romance genre deals with fantasy elements but it’s darker fantasy elements that blend with some horror elements.
Like vampires and werewolves. Classically part of the horror genre.
What we have happening in a lot of paranormal romance is either a lone “decent’ vampire or werewolf. Or we are hearing the story from the “bad guys’” side, but they don’t look so much like bad guys in their own world.
Then of course we have the vampires and werewolves that have totally been defanged, but to a large extent, there is some horror and romance blending in the paranormal genre. It just varies widely from author to author.