Aesthetic Preferences

May 30

The readers I interviewed judge books by their covers and are proud to admit it!

Chart 27: Preference For Illustrated vs Real Images on Romance Covers

Illustrated covers give readers comfort in reading books in public. As stated eloquently by Annie Earnshaw for Allure, “Gone are the days of romance readers hiding their smutty, bare chest-covered book jackets in their purses while riding the subway.”³¹

This survey response touches upon this same issue. Books with shirtless men and ripped bodices can be embarrassing to read in public, and these images can therefore influence whether a reader will acquire a physical copy or not.

Andrea, known online as @andreasgalleybookreviews, stated she feels uneasy about book covers that feature real-life images. It's worth noting that Andrea has been reading romance novels for the past 3 to 5 years, which coincides with the time when illustrated covers became popular. She is among the many readers who have been put off by outdated real-image covers.

The illustrated cover “trend” doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. It picked up steam in 2019 with books like Red, White & Royal Blue, The Bride Test, and Waiting For Tom Hanks.³²

It attracted many readers like Andrea and myself. The romance imprints seemingly have no plans to revert to real image photos, and maybe that’s for the best in keeping their readers happy.

McQuiston, C. (2019). Red, White & Royal Blue Cover [Photo]. St. Martin’s Press.

Hoang, H. (2019). The Bride Test Cover [Photo]. Berkley.

Winfrey, K. (2019). Waiting For Tom Hanks Cover [Photo]. Berkley.

Insurrectionist Cover Model

A specific case highlighting illustrated covers’ advantages is that publishers don’t risk their cover model being an insurrectionist. Yes, that’s right. Nicole Snow, author of Stepbrother UnSEALed: A Bad Boy Military Romance, learned the hard way that having real people on your cover can backfire.

As the title suggests, this is a taboo genre self-published book, so while it doesn’t have widespread coverage or reach, this situation reminded me that having an unintentionally controversial model can be a consequence of using images of real people.

Snow, N. (2015). Stepbrother UnSEALed Cover [Photo]. Amazon.

Bodybuilder and romance book cover model Logan “Knuckle Sandwich” Barnhart was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for assaulting law enforcement during the January 6 insurrection. Internet sleuths found him, first referred to as Cat Sweat, after his arrest in 2021, leading to his portfolio and the book cover going semi-viral on Twitter.³³

This led to snarky reviews like: “You could always use that as the pic for the book, ‘Federal Prison Inmate #CatSweat: How I Fell For A Seditionist.’”³⁴