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Wednesday 7 May 2008

Do teens really prefer their books without eyeballs?

Over at the blog of Justine Larbalastier (Magic or Madness), the cover of her much awaited new YA book How to Ditch Your Fairy has just been posted.


It kind of reminds me of the cover of Screwed, the new book by Joanna Kenrick, who I met when I spoke to the Scattered Authors Society:

In fact it reminded me of an army of YA novels (interestingly, they all seem to target a girl readership):


Justine's fans knowledgeably discussed this 'eyeless' phenomenon in YA books:
Elodie: What is with that “girl with the eyes cut off” thing being so popular on covers?

Karen: I’ve been told the reason for truncating the face on book covers is that if the eyes are shown, the story seems to be about that person on the cover, whereas if they’re not shown, the reader can more easily imagine herself in that person’s position. It sounds silly, but I think there’s probably some truth to it.

Gabrielle: Om em gee, you caught Maureen’s eye-missing curse! I do love it though, especially how she flicks the fairy. Totally suits the title. Now I wanna read!

Faith: Oh no ...Your publisher got bit by the eyeless girl bug. WHY? I’m still psyched about the book… but WHY, COVER ARTIST? WHY? THE EYELESS GIRL TREND MUST STOP! *breathes* ...
Here is Justine's reply:

As for the eyeless thing. As some of you know I’m not a fan . . . In comment no. 10 above Karen explains that one of the main reasons for the eyeless covers is that “if the eyes are shown, the story seems to be about that person on the cover, whereas if they’re not shown, the reader can more easily imagine herself in that person’s position.”

Also these covers sell. The identification thing may be why. Gazillions of teenage girls have responded positively to them over and over again. Indeed, Maureen and Diana’s books sell very nicely, thank you very much.

Ultimately, the cover is about selling the book. Hence the lack of eyes.

I think looking at these books each on their own, they are very attractive covers. But together on a shelf, they kinda look the same to me.

These are all cool writers I enjoy reading. Maybe they deserve more stand-out covers, huh, publishers?

Meanwhile, over at the Booksquare blog, there is teeth gnashing over romance book covers. Hmm. Covers seem to be topic of the week.

2 comments:

  1. Whoa, you are so right about that eyeless thing. But I can totally see why they do it, since it makes the cover person more generic. Not like one of those covers for a classic book that gets made into a film, and they start reprinting it with the film star on the cover; so forever more I'm cursed with imagining that character as Reese Witherspoon or Toby Stephens or whoever it is. (Not that I don't like film versions, just that I'd rather imagine my own when I'm reading!)

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  2. yup, sarah, you're right.

    i guess it was a fresh idea a few years ago but now there are too many books on the YA shelves with headless, eyeless covers. Publishers need a new Big Idea i guess.

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