I recently ran across a social media poll about covers. An author asked their followers about the kinds of covers they liked for books, particularly romance novels. The answers weren’t terribly surprising to me—but I did wonder what readers expect from their book covers.
The Book Cover Poll Results
The poll was run on Instagram by a romance author with a relatively large following. People were allowed to vote for their favorite kind of cover, out of a set of options selected by the author. The results suggested the following:
• Cute, illustrated covers are the most popular choice for romance novels
• Readers were split on text-only options
• Photographic or “man-chest” covers were the least popularThis isn’t totally surprising to me. Over the last decade or so, we’ve seen the dynamics around romance novels and their covers shift. The market is changing to adapt to the newer sensibilities of younger readers who are coming to the genre.
That doesn’t mean older readers aren’t itching for something new though. I personally have never loved the photographic “man-chest” cover, although it’s become a staple of the genre.
Why Are Readers Gravitating to “Cutesy” Covers?
The bigger question is why readers are gravitating toward the illustrated style in the last five to ten years. I think there are a number of reasons for this shift.
One is that readers are looking for something different, just the same as “man-chest” covers were (somewhat) different from the older style of Harlequin romance covers. By the time Gen X and millennials were getting into romance reading in the early 2000s, these covers looked dated. They were your grandmother’s romance novels, the ones you stole and secretly thumbed through. They were something we all mocked.
Now we’re seeing the same sort of response to the “man-chest” covers. Younger readers are seeing these covers and saying, “Oh, my god, how cringe, how very Y2K of you.”
Part of the reason for this is saturation. The “man-chest” cover is ubiquitous for almost any romance novel published post-2000. They’re everywhere. And, at this point, they signal you’re reading a steamy romance novel.
This is another issue. Romance novels are considered dreck read by the barely literate, and so it’s considered somewhat shameful to read one. We still haven’t escaped this stigma. There was a very brief window between 2010 and 2015 where readers seemed poised to embrace their smutty books.
Reading Romance Is Still Embarrassing Apparently
Post-2015, we see a rise in demands for so-called discreet covers. Someone somewhere invented slip covers that you could use to hide the cover of your romance novel.
From this trend, we also saw authors start offering alternate covers for their books. Sure, you could get the generic man-chest cover, but for the more discerning reader? You could get a minimalist or text-only cover that wasn’t nearly as suggestive. Some of these covers look downright literary by compare.
This is also, to some degree, why the “heaving bosom” portraits of the 1980s and 1990s went by the wayside. Readers didn’t want to be caught dead with something that signaled they were reading bad romance novels. And so, for a little bit, we embraced the man-chest cover—and now we’ve seemingly ditched it for these cute illustrated covers.
Sales Data Suggests Something Else
That said, I don’t think man-chest covers are going anywhere anytime soon. Why? Sales data suggests something else.
While illustrated covers might be the “hot new thing” right now, many of the covers that perform well are on books that a) being published by larger houses and b) being heavily promoted by those same publishers.
That’s not to say that books with illustrated covers by indie authors aren’t selling; they are. The sales data, however, suggests that those man-chest covers outperform most illustrated covers, especially when we’re in the indie author sphere.
Why?
There’s a key point that the poll respondents may have missed. It’s that a book cover is an advertising tool. The cover telegraphs what kind of book you’re picking up. Like it or not, man-chest covers correctly telegraph that you are likely picking up a steamy romance novel. Other cover designs, even if they’re “prettier” or more pleasing, aren’t necessarily telegraphing the right thing to the target audience.
I’ll point to my own anecdotal evidence on this point. My sci-fi Zodiac series titles are vastly outperformed by Evan and the Alpha. Evan and the Alpha is consistently my best-selling book. Why? The title and cover telegraph exactly what you’re getting in this book. The Zodiac books, with their “modesty” covers, don’t telegraph the message as clearly.
The Backlash Against Cute Covers
Which brings me to another point. Those “cute” illustrated covers are starting to generate backlash, precisely because readers don’t know exactly what they’re getting with them.
Many readers have complained that the predominant cover illustration style is well-suited to romcoms. Very few of the books bearing these covers are actually romcoms. Even when they’re being marketed as such, there’s a lot of debate about whether certain books qualify for the “com” part of the genre.
In these cases, readers feel misled by the cover. A book they thought was a cutesy romcom turns out to be a dark or taboo story, or perhaps even an angst-fest. They feel betrayed by the cover.
The issue has been exacerbated by the illustrated cover style spreading beyond the romcom genre. Now you can find books in almost any genre bearing one of these covers. Again, this is a problem, because it sends mixed signals to the reading audience.
Text-only covers or text-dominant designs are another popular option, but they face the same issue. They’ve become largely associated with fantasy and romantasy. So, unless your book falls into one of these genres, using a text-only cover might cause confusion among readers.
Adapting Styles to Fit Different Genres Is Possible
The good news is that these cover styles are somewhat flexible. There is a very specific style of text-only cover associated with romantasy. Another design, using different fonts, color palettes, and techniques could be better suited for, say, a horror novel.
Illustration styles are also widely variable. As much as there is a style associated with romcoms, that doesn’t mean every illustrated cover screams romcom. Technically, older “heaving bosom” romance covers are illustrated as well, but most of us would assume those imply “smut.” A more realistic illustration is going to have more gravitas than a more cartoony one, so choosing a different style can affect the reader’s perception of the book.
The question is which style implies the right thing for the audience. Some illustration styles might seem to be more suited for, say, high fantasy or even sci-fi novels. More abstract covers, especially with text-only, might loan themselves to literary fiction, among other genres. A more realistic illustration style could work for a romance—but equally, it might say something else entirely.
This is why authors need to pay particular attention to both cover trends and trends within their own genres. We all have preferences (I am no exception), but covers are a marketing tool that broadcast what the book is about.
If your cover broadcasts the wrong message, then your book will not find its audience.
A Word of Caution on Poll Results
As a final thought on this subject, I want to talk about the issues with reading this kind of data.
First and foremost, we have to think about the potential audience for a social media poll. This author is fairly popular; they have thousands of followers. That means that there are already potentially thousands of people in the audience, which is great. There may be even more people in the audience, as the algorithm may push this person’s polls to viewers outside of their own following. Even more people could have been reached if the author posted on multiple platforms or advertised.
That said, a few thousand followers is a drop in the bucket. Of course, the exact number depends on the number of active social media users that the algorithm pushed the content to within the dates the poll was running. That means that many more people may have seen the poll, but it was already over by the time it reached them.
Next, we have to consider bias. The author’s followers were much more likely to see this poll than other people, which may mean there wasn’t a representative sample. The poll was biased to include an audience that may share similar opinions with this author—who happens to favor illustrated covers for their own work. And we have to consider that people outside this network would not have seen the poll at all.
Strong opinions can skew the results of any poll. Someone who loves illustrated covers or hates man-chest covers is much more likely to respond than someone who doesn’t have a strong preference. This latter person might think that any cover can be beautiful. They may prefer to make buying decisions based on blurbs or a sample chapter. These people are less likely to respond, since they don’t have strong feelings.
Be Careful How You Extrapolate Data into Conclusions
What does all of this mean? It means we should approach this kind of crowdsourced reader feedback with caution. From the results of this poll, it looks like readers love illustrated covers and would like to light man-chest covers on fire. That might be true for this group of respondents, but it may not translate to the book-buying public as a whole. We have no real way of guaranteeing if the poll respondents were a representative sample. We’re doing bad science if we try to extrapolate the results to predict cover preferences in the larger book-buying public.
That’s why I pointed out that sales data might contradict what this sample of readers seems to be saying. Our poll says man-chest covers are out, but our sales data suggests otherwise. What does that mean for us as authors?
It means polls can be fun and insightful, but it also means we need to take the results with a big grain of salt. Unless we can ensure we have a representative sample—which, in this case, we really can’t—then we can’t use the poll results to point to larger trends. Instead, we can combine this with other evidence, such as sales data.
That doesn’t mean a poll isn’t fun or useful. It just means we need to be aware and make smart decisions when we interpret the results—especially if we’re trying to figure out what our readers want to see in their books.
