Are you still judging a book by its cover?

What do you think? A little too provocative maybe? A bit too much…tongue? I’m not sure. Probably. Definitely.

Book covers. There’s an assumption that the better the cover, the better the book. Since a writer wrote the book, and a designer came up with the cover, I’m baffled at this logic. I’ve had a review downgraded because of the cover. And yet, it wasn’t my choice at all. I pushed like mad for the standard man/woman romance cover. Nope. Not happening. I went with the limited choice the publisher offered. To me, it screamed cookery book. I even said so. In an email. All in black-and-white about how the cover was not right. Ah, the irony, when a year later, the same publisher told me that the cover wasn’t working…


This book has had three covers so far. And a few more before that first one. The original was of a pseudo-Barbie, her eyes popping out of her head as she rested a chocolate bar on her lips. The next was bright blue. I liked that one. The publisher said no (even though her designer had offered it up). The next one I can’t remember, and by then, I realised any semblance of a romance novel cover would NOT be happening. As I held up copies of that novel with its gummy-toothed, lecherous smile at a cupcake (a cupcake for chrissake), I wanted to cry. Where was my hunky hero? Nowhere. He’d been replaced by a baked good. 

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The second I got my rights back, I yanked that cover, plonking a stop gap in its place. A pink one. A way too pink one. But it didn’t look like a recipe book. Or a tampon ad (another story from a fellow writer). ​

Maybe this one is destined to have a new cover every year? Dusting off each jacket with each new Spring?