Bitten by Books
I’m coming a bit late to this particular topic-it raged around the blogosphere about a year ago, when Justine Larbalestier’s LIAR, a book about a young black female lead, was set to be published with a young white female on its cover. You can go read all about that http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/07/23/aint-that-a-shame/ over here if you like, but I’m going to talk a bit about my own experience with the same scenario here today.
My Negotiator Trilogy is about Margrit Knight, a New York City lawyer who falls in love with Alban Korund, a four hundred year old gargoyle. She’s also a black woman.
Now, I am none of those things: not black, not from NYC, not a lawyer, not in love with a 400 year old anything, much less gargoyle. Margrit is black not because I thought “Oh hey, I should create a character of color,” but because as a character she leapt fully-formed into my head one morning as a black woman lawyer who ran through Central Park at night as a way of releasing herself from the strictures of her daily life.
This created more controversy than I expected. My publisher was concerned about me writing a black character. I said, “Look, Margrit is Halle Berry colored. She’s from a wealthy family, she grew up in a
wealthy neighborhood, went to private schools-there are people who would call her an Oreo. I’m not trying to write somebody from the ‘hood, which I will grant you I would probably do badly without a
whole lot of research.” (But then, I couldn’t write a white girl from the ‘hood well without a whole lot of research, either, so.)
The bit they focused on was “a Halle Berry type”, and when I turned the manuscript in with Margrit still defining herself as a black woman, they said, “I thought we agreed she would have one white parent.”
I said, “Um, no, and even if she did, Margrit self-identifies as black. She can’t pass, nor would she want or try to.” As far as I can tell, one white parent meant a white woman writer couldn’t “get it wrong” in terms of authenticity. Presumably this is the same logic behind it being okay for me to have written Joanne Walker, who is a half Irish, half Cherokee shaman, two-thirds of which is as far outside my purview as Margrit’s heritage and job are.
When it became clear I wasn’t going to budge on Margrit’s parents both being black-and come on, we’re talking about America here: a huge percentage of black Americans have white blood, and it’s hardly a stretch for two people who self-identify as black to have a daughter who’s Halle-Berry-colored-when I wasn’t going to budge, they said to me, “Maybe you could write a “Dear Reader” letter that says one of the themes of these books is racism.”
I said, “…don’t you think the readers are going to figure that out for themselves?” Nevermind Margrit’s ethnic heritage: this is a series which is nicknamed “The Old Races”. It is literally about racism, not ethnicities or cultures, because there are gargoyles, dragons, djinn, vampires and selkie in it. Margrit doesn’t have to be black for one of the themes to be racism, for pity’s sake.
I didn’t write that “Dear Reader” letter, either, and I knew perfectly well I was facing an uphill battle on the topic of cover art. I let the art department know Margrit was black. I referred to Halle Berry, to Kerry Washington, and I sat back and held my breath.
Here are the covers for the Negotiator Trilogy:
Don’t get me wrong. I love my covers. I really do. They’re sexy and alluring and sell books. But when I got the first one, my reaction was: Well, she isn’t blonde. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a win.
Was that callow of me? Almost certainly. Did I cringe when a reviewer referred to the first direct mention of Margrit’s ethnicity as “a bombshell”? Like you wouldn’t believe. Did I think it was a fight I could win?
Not even for a moment.
So tell me, readers: would a black protagonist on the cover of an urban fantasy novel stop you from buying the book? Would you think about it much? Would a black heroine seem any more or less relatable
than the hot-bodied babes featured on most UF covers? Share your thoughts on the whole topic here. I’d like to hear what you have to say.
I’ll also be giving away 3 complete sets of the Negotiator Trilogy to random commenters; I’ll draw names from a hat on October 18th, a week after this blog is posted. Open to readers worldwide. And in the meantime, if you want to follow
me elsewhere, these are the places you can find me at on the web:
Newsletter : http://groups.google.com/group/cemurphy-announcements
Blog : http://mizkit.com/ or http://mizkit.livejournal.com/
Website : http://cemurphy.net
Twitter : http://twitter.com/ce_murphy
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/pages/CE-Murphy/46086704983
Books in the Negotiator Trilogy in the order they should be read:
Heart of Stone
House of Cards
Hands of Flame
It wouldn’t bother me a bit the race of the main character and a black protagonist on the cover would not keep me from buying it if I thought the story was interesting to me. It would probably strike me odd if there was a black protagonist and then a white person on the cover. I would hope we would be past that by now.
Agreed. If I thought the story was interesting I’d buy it. I’m terrible for judging a book by its cover. I didn’t read Eragon until someone bought it for me (and I read it so that when they asked I’d have an honest answer for them that didn’t make me feel bad). I didn’t read the Twilight Series until someone got me the first books. Unfortunately I didn’t get past the third book because that’s when it lost its appeal.
The title catches me first and next is either a toss up between the synopsis and the cover. Sometimes I go cover first, but if it’s a lame cover I just read the panels.
Do you think any of these books will get turned into movies? They’d all be worth watching.
Don’t enter me in the contest, please. I own all three (devoured all three) and am the reviewer for the series on the site. I kind of don’t qualify, LOL.
Regarding the actual subject matter — I, too, was shocked when I found out Margrit was black. Not because I was amazed that there was a black protagonist, but because the woman on the cover looked tan at the most. Her ethnicity didn’t change the reading experience at all. Yes, I’m white, so I automatically have a skewed view of any hero/heroine who isn’t white, but that didn’t play into Margrit as a character. Then again, I’m not a vampire, so I have a skewed view of any hero/heroine who is a vampire. : )
Margrit was three-dimensional, easy to like, and true to herself. That’s all that matters. There has only been one novel I’ve read with a black heroine that made me cringe. Not because it was written by a little old white lady, which it was, but because every five seconds the heroine commented on being a young black woman. It didn’t ring true to me.
Does that make sense at all? It’s been a long day! lol
Hey, kids, this is a seriously amazing series. The books kept getting better and better as the series progressed. Even if you don’t win, you need to check out this series!!
It wouldn’t stop me from buying a book if the character on the cover was black. In fact I’d hope that publisher would represent a character correctly on the cover no matter what race.
I care about story, not about race. If a story looks awesome I’m going to try it. If the characters are written in an interesting and authentic manner, I’m going to keep reading. I’m obviously not interested in reading books where every character is exactly like me if I’m drawn to stories with vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, etc.
FINALLY! This has been bugging me for years. Seriously, years so I’m going to try to get everything out and still make sense. (I know, fat chance!)
Okay so I’ll answer the question and then rant. Would it bother me to see a balck heroine on the cover? Heck no! And it certainly wouldn’t stop me from buying a book. As for relatability regardless of race it’s the characters’ journey that we as readers relate to, or at least I do. Even if race does become a factor there is always something that can be applied to someone’s own life from the character. Frankly I can’t imagine that every reader out ther is a 5’10″, built, blonde or brunette bombshell. No offense if anybody does manage to see over the height of 5’3″. I’m just sayin’. There is always something to relate to a person with regardless of what they look like.
As for your experience with covers, this only reinforces,(in my opintion) that publishers seem to think they have discovered the mold as to what makes a good cover and refuse to break from it. I mean it is absolutely absurd to think that race can break their “cover mold”. Off the top of my head I can only think of four paranormal authors that have any person of color on their covers. And as many books as I’ve read I feel like I should be able to think of more.
I think that part of the issue stems from the fact that some people still how pre-conceived notions that a person is going or should act a certain way because of their race. Sometimes a person is a person. I’m not saying that there aren’t going to be differences.Of course there are going to be different experiences because of race. But race does not define who somebody is going to be. The character is who the character is.
I myself am actually a mix of a couple of races , but am considered black because for the most part it’s how I look. It bugs me sometimes that in the media and that includes books that someone who is a different race, can’t just be a regular person. Sometimes a person doesn’t have to talk a certain way, or live in a certain neighborhood. They just are who they are. Sure there are going to be different experiences , different backgrounds But for the most part a person is a person, just like a character is a character. And if that’s is who the character is (race and all) and how a character acts , then that’s all there is too it.
I could care less if an author and a character an author are different races. I mean as long as there nothing ridiculously outrageous, have at it!
Well I could keep going, but I think I should probably stop now! Hope it all makes sense. Thanks for the chance to rant!
The extent of the cover: hey look its that book, I have been looking for gathered into a pile and hauled to the front for check out, pay leave store get home stick a hide a cover over cover read book look at cover, stick on book shelf.
Hmm. I got a few things out of this post, which might turn into my own mini-rant, so be warned.
I feel like a publisher that is concerned about a black main character is basically saying that black people don’t want to be able to self-identify with the books that they see on the shelf (and I don’t just mean in the African-American section that the bookstore has “created”.) I’m black, but I’d like to see characters of all races on the covers of the books that I read. I read books for entertainment, sure. But, I also read them to learn, even if it is fiction.
Or is it that there is a concern that non-people of color won’t buy books with people of color on them? If that is true, I gotta say, I think that publishers are greatly underestimating their readership. All of the readers and bloggers that I know read books for their stories, not whether the character on the color has mocha skin or milky skin.
And then, is the statement that black people don’t read or buy fantasy books? I mean, a publisher is ultimately concerned with selling and sales numbers, so if a black character on the cover might be seen as a hindrance, what would bring this concern up?
In the end, I could care less whether the skin color of the author matches the skin color of the main character in the book that they write. Yes, I would hope that writers would want to share their individual cultures in the books that they write. But, as an aspiring author and writer myself, I know that what goes down on the paper isn’t always the choice of the writer. They write what comes to them, and that is the beauty of books. And research.
Thanks C.E. for such a thought-provoking post. I think as long as people are talking about issues like this, publishers will have to keep re-evaluating their old-school practices.
If the story is good and the character is “real” - authentic and engaging - I’ll read it. It must be a story I want to read, though, regardless of the character’s skin color or race (human or not). As an author, I know covers are important for grabbing browsers’ attention. And yes, they can be so pretty to look at. But they can really influence a reader’s perception of the characters. And, therefore, if there is a white or “tan” model on the cover, it would be a surprise to find out the main character’s not white. I’d be thinking, “Huh, that must be a different character on the front. I wonder who she is.” Never to find out, of course, since it *is* supposed to be her.
As a reader, I like to be able to form my own images of the characters. When I’ve seen a movie or TV show before reading the book, I place the actor in my mind, taking away my ability to imagine my own. And what’s “handsome” or “plain” to me could be the opposite of what the casting director thought. So the author’s desired effect may have been lost on me, because I have a picture of someone else’s vision. Same goes with models on book covers. If the model matches the author’s vision, then it works. But if not, the image in my head becomes convoluted. Is it a deal breaker in reading the book? Probably not. But it can be a distraction, such as in your and LIAR’s cases.
Thanks for airing your views & asking for input - enjoyed reading the responses so far. Covers that don’t fit the characters have always bugged me - be it wrong color hair, eyes or skin, wrong build, wrong clothes, wrong whatever. A person of color on the cover doesn’t stop me from buying a book. If it’s an author I love or a story that sounds interesting, you bet I’ll be reading it. Publishers need to move it into the 21 century! Readers aren’t relating so much to how a character looks but how that person thinks, feels, interacts, reacts. Sure, race may enter into the underlying causes for those things but it all comes down to being human (or possibly unhuman in some cases). I’m reading to be entertained, for an escape, to get another view on something, to keep up with a favorite series or author. The race of the characters is immaterial to me.
I would still buy the books if the cover depicted black characters. In fact I have.(I’m white) I bought the 1st 4 or 5 of L A Banks books because they looked interesting. I could never get into them , altho I really tried (too much of a religious feel and I couldn’t place myself in the characters world view)But the fact remains that the cover and subject matter (very UF with vampires) attracted me enough to buy multiple books.
It has always bothered me to read a book and find the characters described to be completely unlike those depicted on the cover. Like they don’t care enough to read the book’s character descriptions. I never realized it was on purpose to have what they think is more salable regardless of content.
I’m very white (pale) and a black protagonist on an urban fantasy cover would not bother me in the least - I would probably pick it up just because it is different. I don’t typically look at a book cover and see a person of a different ethnic group/race and think I won’t read it - that just doesn’t come into play.
I read a book last year that involved a black girl that was very much from the hood and found it to be a fascinating book. My friends are of all colors so why can’t my book characters be. I feel your pain and wish you better luck in the future and now you have me intrigued by your books which have escaped my notice until now and I’m off to see about getting the first one.
Great post - very enlightening and thoughtful.
The ethnicity or color of skin on the cover of a book would intrigue me, not stop me from flipping through to check on the action. I tend to keep an open mind about most things, however if a mugging or stolen property happens in my town, I worry about how many house away and the reasons behind the crime.
United States
It would make no difference to me at all. I really don’t care about the covers anyway. I was in college when I met my first black person. I’m from the Bible Belt and it is a farming community so the same familes have been on there farms for years and then the next generation takes over. To this day I just live 30 miles from where I grew up. I now have alot of black friends but none live in my town or the surrounding towns. Life changes but not very fast here. Lisa D. USA
I don’t pay much attention to cover art because I know how little say authors can have in what actually goes on the cover. If the back blurb and the first chapter look interesting, then that’s more than enough for me. In general, though, I’d prefer to have cover art that reflects what a heroine actually looks like although it seems that authors like you and Larbalestier (and probably others I’m not aware of) have had problems with that.
I do look at the covers, but it doesn’t make me buy a book or put it down. I pick it up after reading a review that intrigues me. Now if I cold-pick the copy from the shelf, the cover can be a player. I look at the author and I read the back of the book for the premise. If it punches all the right buttons, I buy it or add it to the Wanton Wantin’ Book List to get later.
I received the first Negotiator book from LibraryThing and loved it. I was a little startled as I started to read the book and realized Margrit was a woman of color and didn’t exactly match the cover art, but that’s happened before in other ways with books I’ve read. Margrit’s character grabbed me pretty much immediately with her running pattern and way she handled herself.
It might. It *really* depends on the rest of the cover.
Let’s be quite careful here: a black protagonist isn’t going to stop me buying a book, not even one on the cover. The cover, as a whole, is the first hurdle a book must clear for me to pick it up. The covers shown above probably don’t clear my personal first hurdle, and that has nothing to do with the color of the character in the art, but the overall “feel” of the cover. When my hand touches the book on the shelf, the cover has won, and is now irrelevant. The blurbs are next at bat, the cover is safe at first, and out of the picture. Picture, ha ha.
So, where are we? Oh yes, “overall feel” and certainly the color of the people, if any, on the cover are a part of that feel. There’s a bunch of ways you can do a cover that includes a person of color that would put me off, and a bunch of ways that would not.
If you managed to get a vibe of ‘HOLY HELL, THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT POC!’ in to the cover, I’d probably not even see it. That might be an excellent vibe for other markets, though, I dunno. I think it is fair to say this: If the person of color on the cover strikes me as An Important Marketing Statement, I’m probably going to skip the the book. Otherwise, any apparent ethnicity would, I like to think, be irrelevant.
Honest truth, a black (or First Nation, Asian, Middle Eastern, or any other non-Caucasian race) protagonist on the cover of an urban fantasy novel wouldn’t deter me one wit from purchasing it. The cover is what generally grabs me-and a non-white protagonist would definitely get my attention!-but it’s the quality of the blurb on the back that gets me to buy it.
Stupid publishers.
Honestly, I had a bigger problem with her being a lawyer (as a law student, I tend to cringe at the stereotypes), when I picked up the book from the library (and yes, enter me in the contest-I love the trilogy but I couldn’t justify the purchase when I’d read them already!). I loved the way that her race was there as a fully formed part of her but wasn’t a central feature of the book nor used as a cheap plot point. As a young white female, I’m not in a position to give you critique on how “authentic” your portrayal of her race was, but it didn’t jar me, and given how well you pulled off her profession, I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.
As far as the cover art goes, I like that she doesn’t appear as a pure Caucasian bombshell to me, though honestly she seems more Latina.
I will admit, though it’s probably not P.C. to do so, that I hesitated when I first picked up a L. A. Banks book, though it was urban fantasy, not because of the race but because of the culture-I don’t know a lot about inner city culture (as you said, black _or_ white) and the drug culture and colloquialisms were off-putting at first, because I lacked experience. I feel the same way when I try to watch anime or read manga (or even urban fantasy with a shopaholic rich white protagonist, like Mark Henry’s series), because I’m missing a lot of the context to really understand the story. That said, I really enjoyed the Vampire Huntress series and enjoyed the learning experience involved.
Very well-written response! I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s definitely more of a cultural thing than a race thing.
It definitely wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. I lived 6 months in W. Africa, where everywhere I went, children followed me shouting, “Bruni (meaning ‘white man’)!”
I was rather pleased when I read the Negotiator Trilogy and realized Margrit was black, because I couldn’t recall many stories that deviate much from the thought that the hero must be white. Actually, when I first realized she was black, I was surprised and checked the cover, because the Margrit in my mind was pretty close to the person on the cover, not the one described in the pages. My first thought, “How dumb! They screwed the cover up!”
I think the authors should have a lot more say in the covers of their books.
Well, I do maintain that authors are good at /writing/ books, not necessarily packaging them, so it’s not *strictly* a good idea to let them have a lot of say in cover art. But sometimes, yeah, we wish we could have a bit more sway…
I have bought books with robots on the cover, Trolls, elves and dragons. Buying a book with a black woman on the cover wouldn’t bother me.
IF - it were clearly the book I was looking for - UF, Fantasy, paranormal romance or thriller.
There is a subset of African American Romance that has a specific style of cover and if the cover looked like those, I wouldn’t buy it. I’ve read a couple of those and they’re not my thing, just like generic Romance isn’t my thing (but they are different).
Cover styles are a little like tropes and where in the bookstore they’re shelved, in that they create an expectation in the reader. I love how Joanne Walker has straight black hair and wears jeans and workboots - it’s honesty in advertising. Keeping the Heart of Stone cover with the only change making her “blacker” would be fine and, in my opinion, more honest.
And I haven’t read the Negotiator trilogy yet, but was going to ask for them for Christmas this year. I wouldn’t mind if Christmas came early.
Yes, but would you be buying romances with those covers if the protagonists were white? I suspect the key there is the genre, rather than the cover.
Yeah, i don’t buy many straight Romances any more. Stephanie Laurens and Jayne Anne Krentz, I’ll buy. Even Nora Roberts - well, it depends. You’re probably right that it’s genre.
Cover art matching the content of the book would be nice (along with visual descriptions of characters earlier rather than later), but for the most part, I never see it on my ebooks and the hardcovers end up missing their dust jacket before I’ve finished the first read through. In both cases, they are usually purchased without having consciously observed the cover art (and for authors I’ve taken a liking to, often pre ordered before cover art is available).
To come at it from the other side, having done art for lo, these many moons…I think a lot of cover artists get scared shitless the first time (and maybe the tenth or twentieth time, too) they get told to paint a minority.
I know I did.
I had a gig to do illustration for a sourcebook on the Yakuza. Everybody in it was Asian. I was young, I really DID need the money, and that commission had me chugging Maalox like it was going out of style. I probably burned the cost of at least two quarter-page illos just on antacids.
I felt like I was on a tightrope between drawing a bunch of white people in kimonos and doing something that looked like the old WWII caricatures with the buck teeth and the squint. When you’re taught as a good liberal kid from 80′s suburbia to ignore race, goddamnit, we’re all equals, we all sang along and cried at “We Are The World,” having to sit and pore over the exact details that make up the visual representation of a race makes you feel a little weird in the first place. And then there’s the gnawing insecurity that you’re not all that great an artist, and the fear you’re gonna paint something that looks absolutely horrifyingly racist and not notice it-I mean, god, I painted so many rocks that I didn’t notice were phallic until it was pointed out to me that I eventually turned it into a schtick, and that was ROCKS-until you send it to the art director and they’ll slap it on the cover because art directors care about deadlines above all else, and it will go out like that and the entire world will look at the cover you have produced and shake their heads and go “And in THIS day and age, too! Aren’t we past all that?”
And someone will be hurt. And it will be because you are a Bad Artist and clearly a Bad Person as well.
And then you start to wonder if even having this conversation with yourself in your head means that you’re a racist jerk.
I don’t know about your cover artists. They may be absolutely zen and professional and never suffer these pangs. But if it was me, I confess, I might have gone “Halle Berry!” and breathed a shameful sigh of relief because-sigh-Halle Berry doesn’t have terribly ethnic features, and I don’t have to tear my stomach lining to shreds going “Do I give her big lips? But if I make them too big it’ll look like a horrible caricature!” or worrying about what texture to give her hair and whether I was making some horribly wrong statement with that, because I KNOW black hair has scads of political and cultural significance but I’m only tangentially aware of what it is and I’m terrified I’ll do it wrong and some black reader somewhere is going to be hurt by it or think I’m a budding member of the KKK.
And this all comes about, I have no doubt, because our dialog about race is absolutely and utterly broken. And we undoubtedly end up hurting far more people by wimping out and making everybody white-featured with a variety of skin tones…but it’s not easy to take the broad view when you’re one person sitting there with the pencil being told that you have to pay attention to race, when you have been trained to be desperately uncomfortable doing so.
P.S. Did the Yakuza illos. Tried my best. Publisher was happy. Still not as bad as gig with the art director and the god! damned! six! legged! jackals! but that’s another story…
First of all, Six-Legged Jackals? Wow, frankly I don’t even know what to say to that. LOL and I’m guessing you didn’t know either!
I won’t rattle on forever because I’ve already don’t that. Although that typically doesn’t stop me.
I don’t know exactly how it works, but when in doubt, ASK. Ask the author how they pictured the person in their mind if at all possible. If necessary ask somebody else, an aquantance or a friend of a friend. I know this can be a sensitive issue for a lot of people. But I can guarantee that more often that not people will be more than happy to explain things about their race or culture no matter what it may be.
I’ve had people ask me things before about my race and life and I’m not offeded in the least. Most would end up saying I want to ask you something and I don’t want you to be offended, terrified that I’d I don’t know storm off or yell or something. But by the end they were glad that they asked.
There are other ways you can do this so you don’t spend all you hard-earned money on Maaloxx. Just look at the character as a regular person. Just like a white protagnist can have red, blonde or black hair. They can be short or tall. If neccesary look at pop-culture or the media. There are different kinds of people within one race. And if that’s what the character looks like, then that’s who they are.
Looks like I rattled on anyway. Oh well.
// Just look at the character as a regular person. Just like a white protagnist can have red, blonde or black hair. They can be short or tall. //
On the other hand, truth is stranger than fiction and things that happen in real life or occur in real life may still cause pitfalls. Plenty of true things aren’t PC and an artist can get into trouble for just as easily as being too stereotypical. It’s a double-edged sword.
This is so true:
>>And this all comes about, I have no doubt, because our dialog about race is absolutely and utterly broken.<<
I think you’ve summed it up, right there. I wish we knew how to fix it.
It doesn’t bother me what race the main character is about, I look for the actual qualities in the character when determining whether or not I like/relate to them. As far as the covers go, I prefer for the main character to appear as close as described in the actual book but I will still buy it if it is not exactly the same. It does bother me when the character is supposed to be of one race in the book but the cover has something completly different. I wish that authors had more input on their covers, especially as they are the only ones that know that the character actualy should look like.
No it doesn’t bother me in the least what color the character on the cover is I look at the cover Yeah but it doesn’t decide if I but the book or not . I would like the cover art to be true to the character in the story though . I’m looking for a good story to read and I enjoyed Margrit’s story very much!!
Buy the book not but the book lol
I’d rather the cover was accurate. If the blurb sounds good, I’d pick up the book regardless of the race of the characters.
I don’t care what color the protagonist is. I want him/her to be interesting enough to follow around for a while. Anything else is flotsam. When covers attract my attention - it is usually the acoutrements that are the draw; the setting of the scene; any animals or weapons or creatures depicted. I can’t ever recall seeing a book with a person on the cover that detracted - except when they are drawn/painted poorly. For instance, if I didn’t know and love Robert Jordan already and I was browsing the shelves and saw those oddly proportioned people on the Darryl Sweet covers, it might have made me hesitate. But I probably would have read the blurb out of curiosity and got it anyway. Things that detract me are: poorly set scenes or bad art or just odd images. For example, Sandra McDonald’s The Outback Stars is an excellent book and I refused to read it for nearly a year because the cover was so outlandish and odd and unappealing. I’m glad I overcame that but those are the things that push me away - not race or color or body image.
In the 58 years I’ve been reading the cover art has born a reasonable relationship to the story about 20-25% of the time.
Aside from a raised eyebrow when the discrepancy comes to my attention I could care less about the race of the character on the cover.
I mean seriously, I read books with purple aliens or green fairies in them.
I was rather intrigued by your statement: “but because as a character she leapt fully-formed into my head one morning as a black woman lawyer”
Is that the way it normally works for you when you need a character?
Absolutely never. Margrit’s the only character who’s ever done that.
I don’t care if the heroine is black, white, mixed, hispanic, or whatever,
as long as the story is good. There can be all types of heroines out there. It’s just like the heroine doesn’t have to be the model thin type. If the story works around an overweight heroine then that is fine with me.
Honestly? It would not bother me in the least. Perhaps it all stems from my love of fantasy (like DnD) with their lead characters being drow, sylvan, dwarven etc that helps in this.
The color of a character’s skin makes no difference, it’s the personality, her behavior, the way she deals in a situation and that which defines the character for me, that makes me like her so much and continue with the stories.
Ha, as a chubby white girl I rarely find myself relating appearance-wise to the typical “hot-bodied babes” represented on most book covers. If relating physically to the representation of the protagonist on the cover of a book was a selling point for me I wouldn’t have a lot to read, let me tell you. Despite the fact that for the majority of my adult life I’ve had way too many curves to think I’d look good in tight leather or midriff baring clothing, I never felt like this should stop me from loving the characters both with regards to how I could relate to them as well as how I couldn’t! So in all honesty the ethnicity of the protagonist of a book (whether it’s accurately represented on the cover or not) isn’t something I’d use as a deciding factor in reading a book or even put much thought into. For me, the quality of the story speaks for itself, no matter what race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation a protagonist identifies as. That being said, if you’re going to portray a character on the cover, every effort should be made to do it accurately.
I have read the negotiator trilogy (LOVED IT!! Please do enter me in the comp, i borrowed from the library)I originally picked these books based on the author after having read some of the Walker series. To be honest, i had forgotten that Margrit was black until reading this article. When it comes to picking new books, i do look at covers and for this type of cover (urban fantasy) skin colour is not an issue. i cant put into words what appeals to me when looking at covers but the overall style is what gets me to pick it up to read the blurb. i dont really focus on the individual character details - it just has to pike my interest so i read the back and maybe the 1st chapter.
I read mostly paranormal romance, UF, and horror. I have seen so many covers, that it doesn’t really come to mind a specific, a good cover will make me pick the book up, but if I don’t like the back, then back on the shelf it goes, regardless of covers. (I have put back on the shelf some books with awesome covers, but if it doesn’t prick my interest…) When I am done with the book, I will check out the cover again, and really look to see if I see a scene from the book, and most times I am like, where did that cover come from?! So, to answer the question, book covers make me pick the book up, but the story itself has to grab me or I don’t read it. If the “character” on the cover was whatever color or creature doesn’t matter to me, but the cover DOES have to have that “something” that makes me interested.
Initially, my thought was no, but in thinking about it more is kinda leaning more towards it depends. If it’s an author that I know nothing about and the blurb on the back of the book isn’t pulling me in, if I see a black character on the cover, I might not pick it up because I would guess that the target audience is probably black people. Does that make sense? However, if it is an author I know particularly ones that have always written about white characters in the past, not they have a black character on their cover, I’m definitely going to pick that up.
All that up there applies to things like fantasy and romance genres. In literature, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. When it comes to that I go strictly on the story, the cover doesn’t sway me one bit.
I might not pick it up because I would guess that the target audience is probably black people.
This is precisely the fear publishers have. They are concerned that white people won’t pick up books with a brown protagonist on the cover, and evidently there is some sort of belief within the publishing industry that people who are not white don’t read, or something.
To be honest, I didn’t even see the cover before I bought the Negotiator’s books. I got them in audio and already was in love with your style from the walker papers (which i also started with it on audio).
I will admit (and it makes me feel like a bad person for thinking it) that if I saw a black woman on the cover and nothing paranormal like, I’d think the book was shelved in the wrong section… and that it should be over in African Studies because there aren’t many covers that feature African Americans that aren’t in that section. However, If i saw a black woman laid out between the wings of a white pegasus (or gargoyle) stretching for something or wielding a sword, I’d pick it up immediately and flip the book over to read the back.
I
if it’s a book i’ve been looking forward to reading, i could care less what’s on the cover - it’s what’s behind the cover that counts! besides, i’ve bought books with zombies, aliens, werewolves, demons, and all manners of creatures on the cover….believe me, at this point, color is irrelevant!
the only thing that makes me do a double take is when the character is described completely different than what’s on the cover. kinda frustrating, but i’ve seen what authors are going through with this, and i know it’s not their fault….
k_sunshine1977 at yahoo dot com
I’m black and I buy all kinds of books with characters of different races.
I just wish that the cover model matched the description of the character in the book. That’s all I want. This happened a couple of months ago. I bought the PR and didn’t know the lead female was black until I started to read the book. I was really excited to find that out but really disappointed when I realized the cover model did not match the female heroine. So disappointed! And the thing is you can hardly even see her face, and I know they did that on purpose. Because the first book of the series with a white heroine you can clearly see her face, front and center. I was thinking of writing the publisher not the author because I know it’s the publishers fault not the author. I would actually like to thank the author for writing an PR with a black heroine.
Having a black model on the cover in a paranormal romance/urban fantasy would make me buy it more, if I liked the plot, because there’s still not that many black female protagonists in the pr/uf genre.
I think it is absolutely worth the time to contact the publisher and say “I’m disappointed the cover didn’t accurately represent the character”, because I can’t think of any other way, beyond feedback of that nature, that the situation might change.
I think I will go ahead and do that. Thank you so much. And I already have your series The Walker Papers on my wishlist. Now I’m going to add The Negotiator Trilogy.
My 2 cents on this is the same as everyone else,
NO the front cover art picturing a black women or male, would NOT stop me from buying it. I like to buy my books based on the Authors and the reviews. The STORY line is important not what the character looks like.
If the story is good and the characters well written then its all good, no matter if there Black, White, Yellow Human or not.
Cheers
Paula
I am rather partial to blue or green protagonists……. only thing that would bug me about cover art would be if it did not match the character as written.
Thanks! Mary M.
Oddly, I haven’t written any blue or green protagonists yet, but I’ll keep it in mind.
Would a black protagonist stop me from buying a book? No, so long as it was an accurate representation of the character.
Would you think about it much? Only insofar as it was in combination with other factors going into the purchase: blurb, author (maybe), first couple pages and/or last chapter.
Would a black heroine seem any more or less relatable than the hot-bodied babes featured on most UF covers? Not to me. Having read (and continuing to do so) quite a bit of fantasy along with other genres (and sub-genres), a black heroine is no more or less relatable to me than any other character so long as she is three-dimensional, comes across as “real” within the context of the story, and her being a person of color “fits” her character and background.
I think it all depends on how accurate a representation the cover is of the book’s contents. If the book calls for a black hero, then i don’t want to see any white washing of the model.
The picture of a black character on the cover wouldn’t make any kind of difference to me in purchasing the book. I don’t understand why her ethnicity posed such a problem with the publishers, it sounds absolutely ridiculous. How many American authors write books about London or vice-versa, and any other number of authors that write characters vastly more culturally different from themselves than yourself and an upper middle class black woman. Personally, I would find the “upper middle class” issue a lot harder to relate to than any issue of skin color since I’m a paycheck to paycheck kinda girl.
I’m also glad that you didn’t write the “Dear reader” warning label. I’ve read plenty of fantasy that deals with racism in one way or another that didn’t come with a warning. People see, hear, and deal with the issues of racism every day without warning. Although it would be kind of nice to see a large billboard sign that says something to the effect of “Ignorant fools ahead” along the road from time to time.
Anyway, please do enter me in your contest, I would love to have these books!
Well, let me start by saying…I am Halle Berry colored with two black parents. I love to read UF. I would love to see black or multi-racial characters. I read a lot. I have noticed over the years that there just aren’t a lot of UF books out there with black lead characters. I never would have guessed your books were about a black woman. I probally would have picked it up if I did. No offense intended. I’ve got a lot of books on the TBR pile. Knowing your books featured a black lead would have pushed me right down the purchase aisle.
After that whole discussion with my publisher I started thinking about it and realized that, not out of any sort of conscious or deliberate thought, of the four series I had written/published at the time, only one-the one set in an alternate Elizabethan England-actually had an all-white protagonist. Joanne Walker from the Walker Papers is Cherokee and Irish, Margrit’s black, and the lead from my Cate Dermody novels is Hispanic. Certainly no offense taken-it’s not like you can tell from the covers that Margrit’s not white. *wry look*
It wouldn’t stop me from reading the book, I’d be more annoyed if the heroine on the cover wouldn’t match the one in the text. As I’m white, I usually find it easier to relate myself with white characters, but only for the first few chapters, until I get drawn into the story and action, so it doesn’t really matter to me. And besides there’s a lot of different-colored readers, so I don’t think it’s fair to them always have to read about white characters. And if the publisher is so against having a black heroine on the book, then why not have a more unusual cover without a heroine at all, instead of confusing their readers and having a white one.
I think seeing a black woman on the cover would catch my eye, and make me *more* likely to pick it up and read the back cover blurb. Whether I bought it would still depend entirely on whether the story sounded interesting based on the blurb, and whether the first couple of pages were readable and not cringe-inducing, but it would catch my eye precisely *because* non-white cover-characters are so rare…
It saddens me that it’s rare, but I think publishers could really capitalize on that fact by showing non-white characters on the cover more often. And why on earth do they think that someone reading *fantasy* (or science fiction, for that matter) would be turned off by the idea of a non-stereotypical protagonist?
Honestly I wouldn
A black heroine is shocking? Is this an American thing? *puzzled*
I don’t know if it’s just because as a Canadian I am more accepting of race diversity, but I think I’d only be shocked if the main character had three legs, or two heads.
As long as the artwork is gorgeous, I don’t care about the skin color. *heeee!* Honestly, I think that seeing something “different” on the cover would make me more inclined to pick it up. [And I am "glaringly white".]
M
honestly I could care less what the race,colour or creed the cover person is, it’s the blurb on the back or author’s name that will sell me most books. I have tripped over covers that have no relationship to what’s inside the covers more than once, the 80′s Marion Zimmer Bradley UK covers by Peter Andrew Jones are seriously at odds with the stories!
No, having the main character’s look depicted faithfully would not stop me from buying a book. It would let me know that the art department actually had some idea about the character (believe I have plenty of books where, after reading I look back at the cover and wonder what the hell the artist was thinking). An interesting scene, title, and blurb are what draw me. And really, considering most books are shelved spine out, the title is what first grabs me. If I pick it up I look at the back first to see the description of the story. There is some wonderful cover art out there. The Wind-Up Girl depicts a tropical market scene which, combined with the title made me really curious as to its contents.
I read the titles of books and then the back to decide if I might like it or not. The cover art does help me decide. Not because of the person’s or creature’s color, but how they’re placed or what they may be doing. Sometimes, I don’t end up reading the book I picked up until long after I looked at it. Cover art, whether its in black in white, full techno-color, or just pale outlines, helps sells the book. For me, it doesn’t need to be a white female or even a black sidhe, like in the Merry Gentry series where there were colors galore, but the cover art does need to be eye catching.
I actually find it insulting when the cover art does not match the book. I feel that the artist couldn’t bother to take the time to *read* what the scene in the cover art depicted. I would actually be more likely to buy a book if it had a black person on the cover because it shows that the artist cared enough to get it right.
And no, I am not black, I am as white bread as they come. But I care more about what is on the inside of the skin rather than the color of it. I love your characters because they are so *alive* they leap off the page. My favorite is Joanne, but I am a bit Irish so I might be a tiny bit biased… That’s also the first series of yours that I read.
I wrote a little about this in March:
http://frykitty.com/2010/03/11/romance-for-white-people/
No mincing of words: it makes me really, really angry when a cover is whitewashed. It blows my mind that this is considered an acceptable practice in 2010, and I’m surprised publishers get away with it. I’m glad Larbalestier was able to get a cover change. I won’t boycott because that punishes the author, but believe me, the first thing I think when I discover the publisher has bleached a character is that I don’t want anything to do with that publisher.
Whether or not I decide to buy a book and read it has nothing to do with skin color or race. It’s strictly on if the story is interesting to me or not. I find all of this unbelievable. Seriously.
The nice thing about written fiction - as opposed to film, theatre, painting, and graphic novels - is that it’s possible to have a character front and centre, playing a full and vital role - and hide as much information as required. A writer can conceal anything or everything about a protagonist. He can be any race. He can be a she, even, and we can hide that throughout, or reveal it any time we want. We can have a character be in a wheelchair, or blind - or we can just leave it open to the reader to fill in. In fact, writers nearly always leave a huge amount out. There might be authors who describe what shoes their characters wear, but they are in the minority.
So perhaps /any/ cover art depicting characters takes away from the image constructed by the reader and author. It makes explicit something that might have otherwise sat in the background.
The issue of race is an interesting one here. I notice that very few people said that they wouldn’t buy a book because there was a black character on the cover. It is possible, as someone said, that they might have misidentified the book - assuming that the specificity of the black character was an assertion that being black was what the book was about - that instead of being a story dealing with a lot of different issues, it was about black people being black, and dealing with what it was like to be black in the modern world, plus vampires.
It’s difficult to see how easily this can be changed. It’s a matter of prejudice, true - but it’s not something that’s confined to racists. Show a cover featuring a brutal white criminal, and you get the feeling that it’s about a criminal. Show a brutal black criminal, and the impression is that the author and publisher are telling us that black people are criminals. Show a black criminal menacing a white woman? Almost unthinkable. Show a scene in a hospital where a concerned medical team are clustered around a patient? The story is about a hospital. If everyone in the team is black, we assume that the story will be about black people, maybe with some hospital scenes added in.
This is so universal that it’s difficult to see how it could be changed. But it will be, eventually. Hogarth had black people in his pictures almost routinely. They weren’t presented as exemplars of anything - they were people, who happened to be black. In the meantime, the problem is that if publishers think that putting a black person on the cover will misidentify their book, and lose sales - they’ll put a white, or possibly white character up there, and leave changing society to somebody else. But change it gradually will. Look at a book with Maya Angelou on the cover, and you expect it to be about the experience of growing up black, and Malcolm X and MLK, and Africa, and segregation - and you’d be right. But pick up a book by Lewis Hamilton, and you’d expect it to be about cars, and that would be right as well.
You said what I was trying to, but a lot more thoughtfully. I too agree that it’s something that should and will change- but it starts with covers like the ones above, not being whitewashed.
Heinlein deliberately concealed the racial features of the protagonist of his I WILL FEAR NO EVIL (he wrote it with a picture of a white woman and a black woman side by side on his desk) — a fact I didn’t realize until I read the comment in one of his biographies/memoirs, because the redheaded woman on the cover became my mental image of her.
I’ve never understood the practice of altering the cover of a book “to appeal to a particular demographic.” I’m pretty egalitarian when it comes to reading. It’s the story and the strength of the characters that count. I do need to feel a connection with a character, whether it’s a great protaganist or a really well-written “bad guy.”
I work at a library, and as I am an incessant and omnivorous reader, I do a lot of reader reference for people who are looking for fiction. I get quite a few requests from young African- Americans for referrals to books written by or about people of color, and they are very put off when a book’s cover doesn’t reflect its characters truthfully.
Let’s face it, someone who’s browsing for a good read is drawn in by a great cover, seduced by the book’s description on the back, and encouraged to dive in by the reviews it receives. Starting out on a false note throws the whole process off.
I do remember this issue coming up. Specifically because right around the time the first mentioned controversial cover art was making the rounds my artist neighbor offered to make me a book cover when my first manuscript was published. I explained that would be great and I would appreciate it, but ultimately it was up to the publisher.
Consider the news and the social landscape. Bullying due to sexual orientation, issues of racism and racial profiling. How much is instance like this one with cover art based on wanting to make sales contributing to this situation. Maybe not directly, but there is that whole Butterfly Effect. Every small push leads to the avalanche.
For my part I saw the person on your covers as Italian, possibly Greek or Latina. Mostly because I am Italian and have several grandchildern who are Hispanic. Personally I would not have pegged that character on the cover as having come from two Black parents.
Getting to the issue of if I would purchase a book with a Black protagonist on the cover, the quick answer is yes. I could get really involved in the support of it, but it boils down to perceptions and the publisher breaking the mold and taking a chance. How will we ever change the perceptions of people if we are afraid to put People of Color on the covers of books? How will the tearing down of gay teens self-esteem to the point of suicide ever stop if we continue to ban books that depict gay teens positively? Just as I was fine with a protagonist that was an addict in Stacia Kane’s Downside Series, I am ready for a protagonist that is Asian, Black, Latina or Native American.
I’ll jump down from my soapbox now.
Yeah, I think she pretty much looks Hispanic. So, y’know: ethnic. Just the wrong ethnic.
I never even look at covers. I buy books based on the author. Honestly, she doesn’t feel black, she doesn’t feel white either. I will have to read the books again. Honestly, though I like this series a lot, I feel it isn’t the author’s strongest work.
I would be furious if the cover of a book I’d been reading was whitewashed. And if the Margrit on the cover of those books was Halle Berry, I’m not sure I’d even notice.
However, full disclosure: there are some cover art styles, including the current Very Popular Style of a woman’s sleek body with maybe only a few accoutrements of the novel plot in the background, where I would shy away from a PoC cover. Well, and if I encountered it outside of its shelving ghetto.
This isn’t because I couldn’t identify with the person on the cover, but because historically books that I’ve encountered that make a character’s non-whiteness dominate the cover tend to be about Race, and often also angst and trauma and badness and overcoming adversity by enduring atrocities or maybe committing suicide or something.
In other words, book covers that make a big deal about a non-white race tend to not be very much FUN. They tend toward ‘literary’ and that’s usually not what I’m looking for.
So… I’m sure that publishing’s fears are based in potential reality, at least for me. But it’s a potential reality that comes from their own marketing history, because they seem to think the white demographic is only going to be interested in white guilt. The idea that fictional black people might have fantastic adventures we could enjoy too is, apparently, letting us off the hook and giving us more credit than we’ve earned.
Thank you very much for refusing to write a Dear Reader letter.
No. I can say that if the covers showed a woman who had pink stripes and green poka-dots, I might think twice, but seeing a heroine of African descent means no more than it would if that same woman had descents from Europe, Asia, America or the moon for that matter.
Sure, we all look at the covers, it is what attracts us in the first place. But I am sure most of the readers read the back blurb second. That is where most of the readers are hooked. Give me a taste of the premise, and idea of the character and good writing and my image of the MC rarely fits what I see on the front of the book.
Those that set aside books that feature people of other ethnics are missing out on some wonderful writing.
Thanks
Shadow
So tell me, readers: would a black protagonist on the cover of an urban fantasy novel stop you from buying the book? Would you think about it much? Would a black heroine seem any more or less relatable
than the hot-bodied babes featured on most UF covers? Share your thoughts on the whole topic here. I
I’m an Indian-American woman, and honestly, seeing a black woman on the cover of an urban fantasy book would make me MORE likely to pick it up, not less. When I’m just meandering through a bookstore, looking at books about which I know nothing, seeing any person of color on the cover of a book would catch my eye, and would at least bring up the possibility that the book might be representative of my own experiences. (Well, as far as that goes, since I don’t live in a fantasy universe, but you know what I mean.) I’m not black, but as a member of a minority group, there are some common experiences and reading a story where I can identify with the protagonist in that sense is fairly rare.
I get mildly annoyed when the cover art doesn’t represent the character in the book, generally. If it misses the mark on race, though, I don’t just feel mildly annoyed-I feel sad and frustrated. I don’t want to take it out on the author, since I appreciate that they wrote a book with a POC protagonist, but that sort of whitewashing on the part of the publisher is infuriating. (The term “whitewashing” was used a lot in the discussion of the casting of the movie version of Avatar: The Last Airbender-the story is set in Asia, but all of the main characters were played by white actors, except one villain [who wasn't even of the race that was cast]. My use isn’t a direct analogue, but it’s appropriate, I think.)
To me, it’s unnecessarily deceptive and it’s off-putting, and I’m glad that you protested their interference. Thank you for that.
Sidenote: Rereading that Justine Larbalestier post, I see that she uses the term whitewashing as well; I realized I don’t know where it originated, so please ignore that parenthetical.
I want a great story. I’ve read L.A. Banks’ Minion and Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty and the Midnight Hour with equal delight, and I’ve shared both books with fellow UF readers regardless of the writer’s, the reader’s, or the character’s color.
Guess what? The character’s ethnicity, color, or WTF-ever doesn’t matter to me. I want a great story!
I DON’T want to be patronized by the publishers. Do these idiots think I’m too stupid to read the words inside the covers they deliberately created to mislead me? Don’t f*** with me. Just make a beautiful cover that matches the beautiful words.
It definitely wouldn’t stop me from buying the book, in fact it’s so out of the norm (unfortunately) that I would probably pick it up just for that reason.
And I know it’s probably easy for me to say as a white girl who grew up in the suburbs, but I don’t see why any author can’t write any other race so long as they aren’t horribly bigoted in their approach to it (and even then, to each his/her own, though I doubt I’d read it).
I must read these books! I love the urban shaman books, and didn’t know about these. I am a middle aged, educated, white woman. Grew up in an all white town. The race of a character is unimportant as long as it is written in a believable manner. I love urban fantasy because it crosses genres as well as stereotypes.Bring on characters of all races and species, whatever. I’m up for it!
I would buy the book if the person on the cover were white, pink, black, brown, green, or blue. If they’re not ‘normal-colored’ - that is, green or blue or plaid or whatever - I’ll assume I’m reading science fiction. Otherwise, there are plenty of book covers with misleading images and I just ignore them. I’m looking for good stories, and I don’t care what race or ethnicity the characters are.
I should rephrase that. I do care, because it usually provides interesting conflicts. I don’t care in a negative way.
Having said all that, I do think it’s a disturbing trend that the publishers decide on cover art based on what they think the readers will buy. And, more to the point, who they the reading audience is. Maybe they have access to studies about how many white, black, asian, or hispanic people purchase books of which genres, but I bet they don’t…
And, everyone should read the Old Races - I mean Negotiator - books. And Ms. Murphy should write more of them.
I’m mixed (one parent white, one black and a whole spectrum of nationalities in between) and I self-identify as Irish, which I guess makes me ‘white’ (?). I would probably identify with Margrite and I did buy the book and am a little shocked that she’s not white (haven’t read it yet) due to the cover art. However at the same time, I read the Dhulyn and Parnos books and the covers are extremely messed up (they depict Dhulyn as something closer to African American with something like a cafe au lait skin tone when in the book, she is pale as bone).
I tend to buy books based on the plot of the book, any romance and whether or not I can relate to a character. I personally know what kind of stories and characters I can relate to. I care more about the relate-ability of the story and character than the race. If I’m focusing on the race of your character rather than the story (unless the story specifically calls for it) than storytelling, you’re doing it wrong.
As for the Walker Papers, I love love love that series and I’m also part Irish and Cherokee but I don’t relate to Joanne because of that, I relate to her because she’s down to earth, makes mistakes and drives an awesome car!
As for covers, it’s a marketing ploy and normally I don’t have too much of a problem with it but I do think it’s tantamount to straight up lying by blatantly depicting something on the cover that has absolutely no basis in the book (i.e a pale woman being depicted as Spanish or a black kid being depicted as white). There’s a little bit of deception that goes into marketing but when it crosses that line it becomes a little frustrating and starts the path into disgust.
Having a black woman on the cover would only be a problem for me if I read the book and discovered the main character wasn’t black. I admit I always find it annoying when the cover doesn’t match the character description(s) but I didn’t realize how much of a struggle it can be for the author to get the publisher to do it right! Every author I read always has wonderful descriptions of their characters’ physical appearances, so really, the cover could not have people on it at all and I could visualize just fine.
I’m sure somebody already came up with the answer to this particular problem: don’t portray the heroine/hero on the cover
No, seriously - don’t. It puts all kinds of wrong pictures in your head. We readers DO have imagination, you know.
And the only thing that stops me from buying a book is a cover with a naked male chest (cheeeeezy). Which probably makes me miss all kinds of good books.
And I loved The Negotiator and The Walker Papers, now I’m looking forward to reading Truthseeker. BTW - the cover shows a rather voluptious heroine and on the first or second page it says that she’s flatchested…
Thanks for bringing up an interesting subject.
/Carola
But she is blonde!
I confess, I had no idea Halle Berry was black until she won the Oscar and people were all on about it. I never gave it much thought-she was golden-tan, and to my eyes could be just about anything. I figured she wasn’t 100% Anglo, but I didn’t know if she was part Native American or part Chinese or Latina or Black.
That said, the woman on the cover of your books reads “white” to me, maybe Latina at a stretch. There’s no way I can interpret her even as Halle Berry-flavor black. I suspect it’s the hair, more than the skin color.
I certainly would not object to a black character on a book cover, and it wouldn’t stop me from buying the book! If it’s an exciting-looking cover and the plot summary on the back sounds interesting, that’s all I care about.
I will admit, though, that even if the author reminds me often that the character is brown-skinned, I am likely to envision him/her through a mind’s eye mistrained by our inherently racist culture to default to white. (Which might also explain why I didn’t realize Halle Berry was black. Hmmm. Much self-examination to do today.)
Friend of mine was befuddled that people referred to the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston movie “The Bodyguard” as an interracial romance film, because she didn’t realize they were, respectively, white and black. To her mind, they were both Famous, which *by far* trumped skin tones.
I checked out the books knowing full well that the protagonist was African American, so the revelation of Margrit’s ethnicity wasn’t a surprise and I largely ignored the cover art’s depiction (although the racism of having a white-seeming cover chick did irk me.) I also have no problem mentally envisioning Margrit (or other characters of color) as their self-identified ethnicity, so the cover art didn’t influence my mental picture of Margrit. I didn’t picture Margrit as a Halle Barry lookalike, I pictured someone that looked a little more like Cam from the TV series “Bones.” I had a harder time not imagining Alban is a flesh-and-blood version of Goliath from Disney’s “Gargoyle’s,” truth be told.
Actually, having a person of color on the book cover would make me MORE likely to pick it up off the shelf and flip through it, just because “Hey, something actually different!” Although I really try to focus on the character instead of ethnicity when reading a story, it also lets me know that maybe this character is going to have a different viewpoint than *I* would if placed in that same situation. I don’t want to read characters just like me, I want to read characters that are different than me. I’ve been a fan of fantasy and science fiction who’s main characters are non-white or come from cultures that are non-European ever since I read “Gimmile’s Song” by Charles R. Saunders in Sword and Sorceress when I was thirteen. I admit, this may be a highly unusual reading preference for a white chick from the Midwest, but I do wish that the publishing industry in general would publish more stories about non-white characters. And have the cover art *accurately* depict the character.
I don’t actually think Margrit looks anything like Halle Berry, no, except in skin tones.
AND OF COURSE ALBAN IS NOT A FLESH AND BLOOD GOLIATH I NEVER HEARD OF “GARGOYLES” WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT !!!! O.O
Haha. Alban’s “voice” even sounded like it should be narrated by Keith David, but with a light English accent.
I pictured Margrit as looking a little more like Tamara Tyler (Cam from the TV series “Bones”) or a younger version of Gloria Hendry. I often don’t even pay attention to cover art beyond something to snark over, unless it is REALLY eyecatching. I sort of gave up on the cover art really accurately depicting a character when I started comparing all the different cover art on the MythAdventure novels by Asprin and found out that none of the characters are depicted as described (particularly Chumley and Aahz). Or even depicted the same way twice. When you start really white-washing characters in the cover art though, that is indeed a VERY problematic thing.
Quite frankly, if Ms. Murphy rewrote the phonebook, I’d read it. Having said that, I’m usually irked when the character depicted on the cover doesn’t match the one in the book, but I buy books based on the blurb on the back of the book (or inside cover) and a quick read of the first 2-3 pages while in the store rather than the artwork on the cover. I have picked up a few books based on the cover art, but have never purchased one because of it.
*laughs* Thank you. Now I’m trying to imagine how one would write a phone book interestingly…
No it would not bother me if the cover had a black woman on the cover as long as it accurately portrays the character. I hate it when they put a long haired blond on the cover when the character has short black hair.
Would it bother me if a book featured a black woman on the cover? Only if the main character was specifically described in the book as being a different ethnicity. Basically it would piss me off just as much as it does when minority characters are whitewashed.
Though I had the same thought as you when I saw the covers…”at least she isn’t blonde.”
I hatehatehatehatehate it when covers specifically counter the book. It’s one thing if the cover is generic or boring (like all those Twilight-esque covers…minimalist black with a red ribbon/white candle/gray smoke….or romance novels consisting entirely of abs). That’s clearly a branding thing the publisher is using to try to market the book to a specific audience. But if the publisher is going to the trouble to hire an artist to do a specific representation of the book on the cover, how hard is it to get the big details right? Ethnicity, hair color, visible tattoo/scar? If they think a black woman on the cover would turn readers off, why put a person on the cover at all? A gargoyle cityscape would have been cool - and representative.
I’m also a bit horrified that they felt you would need to include a “dear reader” letter to warn us about a racism theme….
One of the things I love about SF/fantasy is its ability to tackle contentious sociopolitical issues without turning into a Message Book. I wonder if the publisher of the Sookie Stackhouse books suggested Charlaine Harris include a letter warning us that “these books deal heavily with homophobia and racism”?
I do not even think about the skin color of a person on a book when it comes to buying or not buying the book. I expect books characters to be more of a real reflection of life and a black heroine can be more relatable than some of the unrealistic heroines that I have seen on the cover.
I feel it is more important to show a true reflection of the real character and not a idealistic picture to sell the book.
Shows how much attention I was paying - I didn’t even noticed the cover pictures… if I had, I would have been pissed at the artist for not drawing the character right. It really bothers me to read the first chapter or so of the book (which usually describes the characters), and then a casual glance shows the character on the front having NOTHING to do with the description I`ve read. I feel that it`s sloppy and lazy.
I read this series because I had already zipped through all that was available of your other series, and wanted more. While the ethnic make up of a character can have an impact on how the character behaves in specific situations, I care more about the person the character is as a whole.
I understand that publishers do what they do to sell your book, to turn a profit for you (but mostly them). But there are times when they should trust the author and go with what they suggest.
In short - I remember the story I`ve read, and I remember the picture on the cover IF the story I`ve read had an impact on me. When choosing a book to read, I pick by 1) previous experience with the author`s work; 2) the blurb on the back; 3) the genre of the book. I do NOT pick a book for the picture on the front.
Should you have fought harder… you didn`t change your character. I think you fought the fight where it counted. Was I blindsided… No, because I read the book, instead of looking at pictures.
You can`t judge a book by it`s cover…
I have to agree with draconismoi. I get extremely irritated when the cover art does not reflect the description of the character. Quite frankly, as a black woman, I’ve been looking for fantasy novels with black female protagonists. I don’t read much fiction, but I’ve started to dabble a little, and I occasionally would like to read something containing a character who at least remotely reflects me. I don’t really care who writes it. This is fiction afterall. There really doesn’t seem to be much out there. In my search, I’ve been looking at cover art in addition to general googling. I’ve actually run across this series on Amazon. At least, I recall seeing the cover of these books. It never occurred to me that the protagonist of this series might be black, and it wouldn’t have occurred to me if I had not run across your article here. That definitely gets my attention, but I’m having a really hard time getting passed the cover art. Ultimately, what I want is a good story with engaging characters, regardless of race. However, I won’t lie cover art gets my attention first. I just finished reading the Mercy series by Patricia Briggs which I started reading largely based on the fact that I had been looking for something featuring werewolves, and I thought that the cover art of the woman with tattoos looked cool. Conversely, the cover art for your books is having the exact opposite effect. It’s not that I won’t read anything featuring cover art with a white woman. If that were the case, then I’d never get to read much of anything. However, now that I know that the protagonist is black, it’s really ticking me off the the publisher did not see fit to have that reflected on the cover.
As some others have stated, I do place the blame with the publisher. I will probably pick up your book anyway. At the very least, I’ll give the first book a try at the library. However, I’ll do so despite my issues with the cover art. I think that it’s good that you’re being so forthright about this issue, which is the primary reason that I’m willing to overlook the inaccuracy of the cover in this instance.
Well, I hope you enjoy them if you pick them up!
I must admit I was so into the story that I didn’t compare the cover to the character and I do love the atmosphere these covers evoke (good gargoyles). I buy your books because I love the way you write! But, Wow I’m annoyed and saddened by the publisher marketing dept’s cavalier decisions regarding the heroine on the cover. I realize it’s all about sales but really? Really publisher? Don’t you think the readers have a brain? I would not be bothered one bit by a woman of color, be it black, red, yellow, green or purple, on the cover of any book. So long as the figure on the cover actually matches what the character in the book is like! That is my big bugaboo - when the cover (or the blurb) is so far removed from the story inside the book that even I (not always the most observant) think - did I get a wierd mismatched print run of this book? Sometimes even landscape covers don’t match up with the story setting. That is just poor planning by the publisher. This is a diverse world. Get into the 21st century publishers!
BTW - I love Margrit & Alban’s story! And I have very much enjoy Joanne Walker series also. Can’t wait for more! Thanks for all the hours of reading pleasure Cate!
Reading all these comments about whether the cover artist has read the book is making me curious about whether he was /told/ the main character is a black woman. I’m sure he hasn’t read the books (cover artists are usually given some scenes and some pertinent information about the characters, rather than the whole book, and then are asked to evoke the right feeling, a feeling which is usually specified by the art department/marketing team), but I haven’t got a clue if he was actually told she was black. His version of the HOUSE OF CARDS cover is here:
http://www.christianmcgrath.com/MainPages/houseofcards.html
I still think she looks pretty Latina. What do you think?
No, a black protagonist on the cover of an urban fantasy novel wouldn’t stop me from buying the book. I pay more attention to what is going on in the book than the cover anyway. As long as the book has a great story line and great characters, I’ll enjoy it. A black heroine fighting supernatural beings would be relatable as much as a white heroine doing the same thing. I mean, that’s about as far outside my world as you can get, so does it matter what color she is?
To begin with I’ve always pretty much thought of myself as “cover blind”. Though I might pick up a book with a “pretty” cover, it would in no way influence whether I actually bought it or not. Neither would the color, size, or shape of the cover model influence me. After reading a book I might glance at the cover to see if it represents the story, but though I may go on and on about the storyline, I probably could not tell you what the cover looked like a week after I read it. I buy 95% of my books online and unless the cover has been really overexposed on the blogs, I generally have no idea what’s on the cover till I have it in my hands. I buy based on the authors name and whether they have provided me a good story in the past and new authors books based on bloggers reviews.
I don’t really care what color the person is.I focus on the actual person. Plus, I love that the cover has a black person on it, and doesn’t try to cover it up.
Honestly, I usually buy my book on my kindle. I read the blurbs and go from there. If it sounds like a good read, then I get it. Now, with that being said, I am disappointed when the cover doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the book. If I am walking through a brick and mortar store looking at books, the cover it what draws me in. It isn’t the character on the cover really, but more the feel of the cover. All of your covers grab your attention. I have to say that I haven’t read any of your books before, but looking at the covers I would never have guessed that the main character was black. When publishers do things like that, I always fee like they either think that the audience is too stupid to notice it or they just don’t really care about the book that much. I makes my hesitate the next time I seen a book from the publisher. I wonder if the cover is going to be more false advertising.
Same as most everyone here: no, having a person of color depicted on the cover of a book would not stop me from buying it. The blurb, the author, and how much money I have at the moment are the determining factors there.
I have been irritated for as long as I’ve been reading by covers that obviously don’t match the character. When I was younger I assumed it was that the cover artist didn’t care or hadn’t bothered to read the book. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized it could be a deliberate marketing tactic by the publisher. Sad.
Considering all the various beings and creatures found in paranormal, urban fantasy, and sci-fi, you would think the race of a human character would not be such a big deal. It is a bit ridiculous that they don’t worry about putting a vampire, werewolf, witch, demon on the cover, but a black woman scares them off? Give me a break. I can see where it might be an issue for some in romance or chic lit, but different races and cultures are represented just about everywhere you look any more.
The cover needs to reflect the atmosphere of the book as well as where it takes place, who is involved, what happens. Not necessarily all of it, but hints. Above all, it needs to be accurate.
Thanks for bringing an important topic up for discussion.
I’m certainly glad you stuck to your guns with Margrit. Her ethnicity is essentially tied to how she reacts and relates to others in the Negotiator series. When I first read her ethnicity, it was a surprise because of the cover art. But it didn’t bother me. Characters are who and what they are for a reason. Margrit would not have been as driven as she was to seek equality for “all” if she had been someone else.
Seeing a black woman on the cover wouldn’t have deterred me, but then I bought the book based on the back cover, not the front. I wanted to read the story. Granted, some people only look at the front when grabbing a book. Unfortunately, the kind of person who can’t be bothered with reading the blurb on the back, is also more likely to choose a “comfortably provocative” cover to buy. I can see why marketing does what it does, but I don’t like it. I want the covers of the books I buy to let me know what I’m getting, and I want my own books accurately represented. Fortunately, no matter what marketing decides, as authors we get to write the stories people read, and in the end, that’s what people buy, love and recommend to others.
I think the publisher’s concern, and it should be yours too…is if you had a black heroine on the cover, your books would then be as marginalized as a black author’s books.
Your book might be marketed by demographics to other blacks only, in addition to being segregated from the other books of the same type by authors who aren’t black with your books thrown on different shelves with all sorts of books by black authors.
Publishing reserves this treatment only for authors who are black! As a white women, they’d prefer to whitewash your cover than to have your grouped with the other blacks.
I have no problems with an authors writing characters of diverse races and think it’s very doable. I will definitely read your books.
But, since the bulk of black authors are segregated by race by the publishing industry, an author who chooses to write a black protagonist, runs the risk being treated as a black author would and giving up their racial privilege. If you had a black woman on the cover, your book’s potential and sales might be crippled because of publishing racial segregation moreso than the question of whether whites would buy the book or not.
The real deal is if you had a black heroine on the cover, your book might not be available for whites to buy, depending on their demographics or if they peruse the black section of the bookstore. You book would be in different section of the publishing catalog and ordered accordingly. It wouldn’t be marketed the same as books are by nonblack authors in the genre.
The truth? I know more than a few black authors who might be tickled to get a whitewashed cover on the promise of increased distribution and sales alone-but we aren’t given that option.
A book with a black character would grab my attention faster. I’m a black woman and there are virtually no representations of me in any media. Not on television. Not in the movies. Not on the cover of books. Just look around.
I bought Urban Shaman because the lead character wasn’t the stereotypical UF bombshell marysue. I loved the book. I loved that the character wasn’t the same wan character in some of the more popular books out there. I’ve read every book in the series and loved them all. Publishers do their readers a huge disservice by not matching the character to the cover. One would think that the cover artists don’t actually read the books of the covers they design….
I could care less about cover art. Very rarely does the cover art actually seem to have anything to do with the book. That said, if the protagonist is black, the character depicted on the cover should be black.
I am legally blind and do not personally get to appreciate cover art nearly as much as I would like to. As a matter of fact, audio books are the only books I read these days, not being able to afford any of the magnificent new gadgets available for the visually disabled. I personally pictured the main character in the Negotiator series as the lovely actress that was on the TV series “Poltergeist: The Legacy”. Her character was strong and proud and black. In my mind, she was the most easily cast in my own “movie” as I listened.
And to think that the powers that be in any business are so afraid that their customers are too stupid or still trapped in the early part of last century to get it — is rather insulting! I suspect that the most ludicrous part of it all is that they think that we do not KNOW that the only color they see is green. The only reason they do not wish to offend is that they do not want to lose a sale. I am feeling a flashback to the time I went to a Star Trek convention where one of the Next Gen stars boundced onto stage in my home state of Tennessee and started talking. It was not everything she said as some of it was quite witty, but when she said, “Blahblahblah William Shakespeare….he wrote plays…” that I loudly responded “No *bleep* B*tch! Lookee here! Shoes!” indicating that I indeed did not leave home barefoot. I left before the drooling fanboys converged. But the same feeling of insulted intelligence still applies.
And now, rant over, thank you so much Ms. Murphy for your delightful books!
Peace and roses,
Yotewah, Coyote’s Green Eyed Daughter
A friend linked me to this article, which I found VERY interesting since I thoroughly enjoyed the Negotiator books - except those bloody covers, which drove me to distraction. I assumed this had just been a case of no communication between the cover artist and writer (which happens a lot in larger publishing firms).
Wish it had been that simple.
Also, I feel it would be good for the publishers to keep their audience in mind here. People who read fantasy are generally not afraid of different things, and they most certainly are not afraid of cover art. After the tenth time you purchase a tatty paperback plastered with technicolor dragons, barbarians on steroids, and some woman in a metal bikini riding a robotic polar bear (probably shooting the dragon with laser beams from it’s eyes), you stop seeing much besides the blurb on the back.
I personally feel that if the character is a black female, there should be a black female on the cover. I like to look at cover art, don’t get me wrong, but I tend to read the back cover of the book and decide if the premise is something I like before buying it, not if the cover art is catchy. I also read romance novels and it annoys to no end when I see the typical long blonde-haired woman on the front, then read that the main character is a short-haired brunette.
I would not have a problem reading a book that featured a black woman on the cover. In fact, because it not usually done, I would actually find that intriguing and would be more likely to pick the book up to check the back to see if it was something I would read.
Also, I would think that having a black woman on the cover would be considered as expanding the potential reader base. Black men and woman read too… and you might just capture a few of them with covers that appeal to them even if the genre is not something they would normally read.
I know I’m coming to this post late (certainly too late for the contest) butg I had to comment after reading this.
I am always bothered when the cover doesn’t match the charactger description. It pisses me off that the publishers don’t give us book buyers the credit to buy books with Other Than White Cover Models. Hell, I would love to see covers with all kinds of skin colors - the only thing that stops me from reading a book is bad writing. I’m tired of all our reading being whitewashed, and the silly lame excuses for not using people of color on the covers of books. It’s 2010 for god’s sake - most of us are evolving, most of us have quite a mix in us anyway - let the covers reflect this!
All of my purchaes are e-books. Can’t really see the cover properly in those thumbnails so the cover art is a non issue. As most stated the cover art should make the books’ character appropriately. I like books with strong female characters - regardless of race, height etc. I like the Urban Shaman books - she has friends who help her but she does not need to rescued like a damsel in distress. I haven’t read the Negotiator Series yet but I will.
I did have a problem with Margit being black.
My problem is that I saw the covers, thought she was white, was imagining she was white, and then when it said she was black on the page (many pages in, as I recall), I was highly confused.
And I never could adjust my mental movie of the book, the film that unwinds in my head as I read, to accept that she was black because my image of her had already been formed by the cover as a white woman.
I’m fine with having a black lead. I don’t know if you’re familiar with LA Banks’s Vampire Huntress Legend series, which has a black heroine among a mostly black cast of characters. But I always knew she was black, it didn’t feel like a bait and switch that threw me off balance.
Let me preface with the following with a note that, having corresponded shared a short correspondence with the author in the days before Urban Shaman was released, I never believed any of this was about what Catie wanted.
I’m even later to the party. Only because yesterday, I started reading Heart of Stone for the 8th time. It’s not a satisfactory way to get my fix. If Luna ever came out with a new edition, with a new cover for the second book, I’d be a much happier camper.
The cover of House of Cards actually stopped me buying it.
I already knew Margrit was Black and, although I had a few issues with the depiction of her self-identification (that’s a whole different story), I had been (rabidly) looking forward to reading the second installment.
But after it was published, every time I reached for House of Cards I remembered the book-cover-white-washing discussions (which predate Larbalestier’s Liar by quite a bit) and how I promised myself not to support any publishers who engage in the practice. So, I forced myself not to buy. Even when I walked into a bookstore with the specific intention of buying only an Old Races book.
Even telling myself that the woman on the cover might be someone other than Margrit didn’t ease my ire.
I considered just skipping to Hands of Flame because the woman on that cover is at least racially ambiguous, figuring that I could fill in the blanks somehow. But I didn’t.
The only books I’ve purchased from any of Harlequin’s
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