This Just In: Men and Women Are Different!
One of the writing groups I follow on Facebook linked a post by Maureen Johnson on Huffington Post titled “The Gender Coverup”. Maureen took the stance, and eloquently, I might add, that publishers package books by women as “girly” and therefore view them of less quality in a literary sense. The conversation sparked a Twitter-fest about redesigning covers of current books with a “gender flip”. A follow up article with a slide show of some of the images can be found here.
There are a lot of issues to discuss from this, but I’m going to try to focus on one for today: the idea of gender bias or profiling on book covers.
First of all, I wanted to say that I thought many of the newly created covers in the coverflip slideshow were very well done. Many of them, however, for the books that I’ve read at least, did a poor job of portraying the actual story. Let’s look at Game of Thrones as an example.
The real cover for Game of Thrones on the left, and the gender flipped one on the right.
While clever and nicely executed, I don’t think anyone who’s read Game of Thrones would think the second cover does an adequate job of characterizing the story inside. I know if I had purchased a copy with the gender flipped cover, I would have felt badly hoodwinked after reading it, regardless of the gender of the author.
So, to me, the question is: does the cover fit the story? If it doesn’t, then maybe there is some truth to the gender profiling notion.
Here’s a random sampling of some books I’ve read over the years by female authors. All excellent books by the way, GoodReads links at the end of the post. Click on the image to see it bigger.
This is hardly a scientific sample and it’s heavily skewed toward fantasy. However, looking at these as objectively as I can, I don’t see gender bias or profiling. I see covers that reasonably represent the mood and contents of the books.
One could argue that, being of the male persuasion, my buying habits tend toward covers that are gender neutral or have a male slant. I’m willing to concede that point. I certainly don’t gravitate to books with women in large, flowing dresses or guys flexing their abs on the cover. By and large, however, I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that books with covers like that have strong romantic components. I’m generally not interested in reading romance as a personal preference.
As such, only one of these covers is classified as YA (Young Adult), The Hunger Games. Maureen and I both write YA books, and I can see more in that genre where a “girly” aspect to the covers is in evidence. But, let’s think for a moment who the large majority of those books are written for and marketed to: girls. The vast majority of YA readers are girls/young women. Of course publishers are going to create a cover designed to cater to the largest demographic. It only makes sense.
Big publishers are not the only ones following the money. Have a look at self published YA novels. The trend continues. Lots of pretty girls, elegant dresses, and hot guys. If there is any misogyny going on, it’s being perpetuated by the female authors themselves.
While I agree with many of Maureen’s points, especially the need for modernization and gender equality in our educational system, I don’t see a conspiracy by the publishing world to treat women authors’ work as second class or “trashy”. I know from experience that it’s difficult to find readers when your book doesn’t fit neatly into a specific category, as many of Maureen’s don’t. But we can’t blame our covers, or even society, for that. The simple fact is, men and women are different and are drawn to different images and stories. No one is the same and it’s our differences that make the world such an interesting place!
GoodReads links:
Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Elizabeth Haydon, Rhapsody: Child of Blood
Barbara Hambly, The Time of the Dark
Three Years Old and Learning to Talk
My first book, A Measure of Disorder, was published three years ago today.
It’s been a struggle at times, through the newborn stage — oh, and don’t get me started about the terrible twos! But, I think at three, the book is really hitting its stride, with over 20,000 downloads in the past year! Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Ratings are well over four stars across all platforms. Yet, as a proud, but nervous, parent, I worried. Three years and not a peep — don’t others start talking before now? Turns out it was just a late bloomer.
A Measure of Disorder will be available in audio format very soon!
The amazing and talented Christy Lynn is performing the narration and production is over half finished. I’m blown away and so excited by what I’ve heard so far! I can’t wait to share it with you. I’ll have some exciting things coming up in the next month or so in conjunction with this, so stay tuned!
Come celebrate A Measure of Disorder’s third birthday! Have some cake and share with a friend. The book is available for free in all ebook formats, links below. If you’ve read the book, please drop by one of the sites and leave a quick review. It really helps push the visibility and will allow me to do even more fun, promotional things in the months to come.
Most importantly, an enormous THANK YOU goes out to everyone who has joined me on this journey. Whether you’ve been around from the beginning, or you’re just learning about my work for the first time, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. None of this would have been possible without the tremendous support I’ve received along the way.
A Measure of Disorder is available for FREE at:
Amazon (Kindle) | Barnes & Noble (Nook) | Apple (iTunes) | Kobo | Smashwords (any format)
And, you can find the rest of my books on the website: AlanTucker.net
Life Has No “Undo”
Computers are wonderful inventions — when they are working right at least! And one of the most wonderful things computers have given us is the “Undo” button. I use it all the time when I’m working in art programs like Photoshop or Illustrator. It’s so easy to mess up a brush stroke, or delete something I didn’t mean to, but the Undo command comes to my rescue every time. If I made these mistakes on paper, they would not be as easy to correct, if I could do it at all!
Image from: FreeImagesLive
As the virtual reality of computers has become a larger and larger portion of our lives, I believe we have started to take for granted the Undo function of that virtual universe and forget that life has no “Undo” feature.
Our actions in the real world cannot be undone. Words can never be unsaid. We can apologize or regret; the result, however, is not an erasure, but a bandage. The original action or speech never goes away.
I consider this concept every time I hear about events like last week’s horrific bombings in Boston, or the tragedy in Newtown, CT. The lives lost can never be recovered like a mistaken deletion. Wounds cannot be erased with a keystroke. Families will not be healed by copy and paste. How could anyone perpetrate such acts if they had these ideas in mind?
I wonder if young Mr. Tsarnaev wished for an Undo key as he lay bleeding in that boat before his arrest. I doubt we’ll ever know.
Perhaps this is why I write fantasy stories about people with magical powers, and science fiction stories of time travel. Deep inside, I long for the ability to Undo. Until we can bend the universe to our will, the best we can do is think before we act or speak. Consider the consequences of our words and actions before we unleash them. If we can achieve a higher level of self control, I believe the world would be a better place. There have been plenty of things I wish I could Undo, but I am doing my best every day to minimize them!
What do you think? Is there anything you wish you could Undo? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Change the World, One Piece of Candy at a Time (YVM30)
Kristopher Bronner spoke at this year’s TEDxTeen about changing the world … with candy.
Comparison of UNREAL Candy with its common counterpart, as well as an example of “nature’s candy” — Taken from UNREAL’s web site.
Candy? Yep. This young man and his younger brother have set out to change the world by creating great tasting candy that isn’t chocked full of preservatives, artificial ingredients, or corn syrup! UNREAL Candy is real, and it’s being distributed in over 25,000 stores.
This revolutionary company was started because two young boys asked a simple question: Why does candy have to be bad for you?
Every change starts with someone who asked Why.
Here’s Kristopher to explain more about UNREAL Candy and how you too can change the world.
Art Can Also Entertain, RIP Roger Ebert
A truly remarkable person is one even their critics have trouble finding fault with.
Anyone with the word “critic” in the title of their occupation begins on a bad foot with most people. We tend to think of critics as stodgy — people who have their nose so far in the air they’ve lost sight of their feet. The word itself has negative connotations. If we are critical of something, we understand something is wrong we wish were fixed. “Love” is not a word we generally associate with critics.
This is how I best remember Roger Ebert, with his good friend and adversary, Gene Siskel.
Roger Ebert loved movies. I remember watching Roger and his critical foil, Gene Siskel, point their thumbs up or down at a handful of movies each week when I was in high school. However, my full appreciation of Mr. Ebert didn’t come until after I’d seen a silly, yet touching movie called Valley Girl. Many critics panned it and several of my friends thought it was terrible — they couldn’t get past all the valley-speak, which was all the rage at the time — but the story struck a chord in young me. Several months later, I happened to see Ebert’s review of the film.
Disgruntled and weary after slogging through the last dozen Sex-Mad Teenager Movies, I came upon “Valley Girl” with low expectations. What can you expect from a genre inspired by “Porky’s”? But this movie is a little treasure, a funny, sexy, appealing story of a Valley Girl’s heartbreaking decision: Should she stick with her boring jock boyfriend, or take a chance on a punk from Hollywood?
Here was someone willing to look past a rough exterior and view something purely for what it was: entertainment. “His approach to film was populist —and he said he reviewed a film for what he felt would be its prospective audience,” a eulogy on MSN Canada stated today. Roger Ebert understood why most people see movies: they want an escape for a couple of hours. And if a film delivered on that unspoken promise, more often than not, it received a “thumbs up”.
Even through his courageous battles with cancer, Roger’s love of movies never waned. He continued to write reviews even after he lost the ability to speak in 2007.
As a writer, my first and most important goal is to entertain. I have no pretensions that I am creating great works of art, or penning influential literature. My only hope is that if my books were movies, they would be ones that Mr. Ebert would have found fun. R.I.P. Roger Ebert.
______________________
Modern English with “I Melt With You” — one of my all-time favorites and featured during the credits of Valley Girl
