Book Cover Controversy
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6672790.html
For people interested in this sort of thing, there is a controversy brewing over a book cover. In short, the protagonist is depicted on the cover as a stunningly beautiful, long-haired Caucasian/visibly white female. In the book, she describes herself in a different way. The author is upset, many bloggers are crying foul, and the publishing house defends itself by focusing on the fact that the book -- titled LIAR -- is about an unreliable narrator, who could have lied about her race in addition to all the other things she lied about. The author says, nope, she didn't lie about that.
So, my thoughts this early Friday morning are:
1. What's with unreliable narrators anyway? As a reader, they frustrate me. I mean, I can't trust half of the people I work with, at least when I read I'd like to be able to trust a fictional character to be telling me the truth.
2. Great press! I likely wouldn't have heard of this book otherwise, so this author is getting her name bandied about, she is portrayed in a very positive light, and her book is getting loads of free publicity.
3. The "silver lining" as identified by the publisher is that conversations about race and publishing will be generated, and that's a good thing. What I'd like to see is their data -- I'm sure some number cruncher somewhere has the cold, hard, facts about what types of covers sell more books . . . and beautiful, long-haired, visibly white females likely sell more books (and magazines, and car calendars, and alcohol, etc.)
It's nearly the end of summer. Where has the time gone?
For people interested in this sort of thing, there is a controversy brewing over a book cover. In short, the protagonist is depicted on the cover as a stunningly beautiful, long-haired Caucasian/visibly white female. In the book, she describes herself in a different way. The author is upset, many bloggers are crying foul, and the publishing house defends itself by focusing on the fact that the book -- titled LIAR -- is about an unreliable narrator, who could have lied about her race in addition to all the other things she lied about. The author says, nope, she didn't lie about that.
So, my thoughts this early Friday morning are:
1. What's with unreliable narrators anyway? As a reader, they frustrate me. I mean, I can't trust half of the people I work with, at least when I read I'd like to be able to trust a fictional character to be telling me the truth.
2. Great press! I likely wouldn't have heard of this book otherwise, so this author is getting her name bandied about, she is portrayed in a very positive light, and her book is getting loads of free publicity.
3. The "silver lining" as identified by the publisher is that conversations about race and publishing will be generated, and that's a good thing. What I'd like to see is their data -- I'm sure some number cruncher somewhere has the cold, hard, facts about what types of covers sell more books . . . and beautiful, long-haired, visibly white females likely sell more books (and magazines, and car calendars, and alcohol, etc.)
It's nearly the end of summer. Where has the time gone?
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