Comments on: Butt Covers

by: All The Tattoos At The Bookshop — max gladstone, novelist

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:30:58 +0000

[…] She mentions briefly the proliferation of covers in “urban fantasy” that feature the female main character, butt-to-camera, generally wearing some sort of midriff-bearing shirt to show off the tattoo just above their belt line. I’ve noticed this myself; Juno Books has a good description of the design here. […]

by: Covers and Nuance | GENREALITY

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:11:07 +0000

[…] On my own blog last week, I asked my readers to tell me how they feel about urban fantasy covers. You know, those now-ubiquitous covers of sexy women in sexy clothing, usually with a big ol’ tattoo and a big weapon of some kind? The proliferation of these covers is also discussed here, and in a nifty video primer by SciFiGuy. My conclusion? Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these covers definitely identify a certain kind of book, and readers ping to that. […]

by: Robert

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:39:34 +0000

Success brings imitation. The reason those books have similar covers is because some brilliant publisher looked at his numbers and said “butt” books are selling well.

Publishers are buying more butt art and artists like being paid.

What makes me sad is seeing all of the low quality semi-porn muddy the waters of a great genre.

by: Carrie’s Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part II: When Things Go Wrong « Filling the Well

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:34:46 +0000

[...] 1. The label urban fantasy. 15 years ago, urban fantasy was what we called stuff like Charles DeLint and the Borderlands series and all those rock ‘n’ roll elf stories. There was a whole other group of just plain vampire novels. Stuff like Tanya Huff’s “Blood” series, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and P.N. Elrod. About 3-4 years ago, the label started getting used by marketing folks for “books with a kick ass heroine, vampires and/or werewolves in something resembling the real world, usually with lots of hot sex, and a cover showing the backside of a leather-clad woman with a tramp stamp.” Count the tramp stamps. On the other hand, I don’t know what to call this stuff. Bit lit (you know, like chick lit but with vampires? Harhar.) was proposed and thankfully seems to have died. Paranormal fiction. Paranormal romance. Supernatural fiction. Supernatural is actually the one I’ve been leaning toward, since romance writers use paranormal to describe anything that’s science fiction or fantasy. [...]

by: The Fairy Monopoly « Madgirl.org

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:22:51 +0000

[…] And as for the book cover issue… well, that’s just silly. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there’s been a big trend in urban fantasy covers featuring women with their backs turned. And just in case you’re not convinced, here’s some more. […]

by: February’s Hot Topic: Cover Trends « Urban Fantasy Land

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:52:05 +0000

[…] (Behind the cut due to many thumbnail images) Juno Books took a look at butt covers recently, and Vampire Wire proposed that butt covers are the new legs and shoes. (Good call, Vamp!) […]

by: Juno Editor/Paula Guran

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:52:46 +0000

Faceless heroines supposedly appeal to the reader. She is able to “see herself” instead. I don’r buy that really. *I* think it is simple — it is hard to match a description with art. For instance I love CLORKWORK HEART’s art — but the hair is totally wrong and I can’t do anything about it in this case. As a reader, I may be upset that the cover shows long brown hair and the character has short red hair.

Further — series books get more difficult to keep consistent with one “face.”

Practical reasons.

by: Kristen

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:27:31 +0000

I guess what disturbs me most about butt covers is the facelessness of the characters. They’re supposed to be these uberpowerful women who kick ass, right? But they can’t even look at the reader.

Now I’ll be the first to say that it doesn’t matter too much what you describe your characters as, the reader will make their own image of them anyway, but this facelessness on covers seems to strip these women of their strength and just turn them into a single body part.

Why don’t the covers show some more serious, ass kicking arms or something? You don’t really kill things with your butt, it’s the arm that wields the sword or whatnot…

by: SaraC

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:37:45 +0000

I just finished reading Patricia Brigg’s Iron Kissed, which is the first in the series to make the transition over to a butt cover.
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Kissed-Mercy-Thompson-Book/dp/0441015662/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200373575&sr=8-1

by: ZaZa

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:41:37 +0000

I like these covers. I’ve liked them without giving it much thought. Partly, I’m sure, it’s that they aren’t the cliched clinch cover, although, now that you mention it, they are becoming a cliche of their own.

That said, I still like them (wish my butt looked that good from behind) because that back-to-the-reader pose says to me that this woman is not waiting for anyone else to save the day, she’s right at the vanguard, ready to kick ass. When the monsters are attacking, do you really care what your savior’s face looks like? /;+) And there are a lot of frontal, headless body covers on more mainstream books, which is more disconcerting, IMO.

Still a lot of butt cheek there, but all good, if you see what I mean. Look at a selection of clinch or man-titty covers, and you’re going to see a lot of major ugly, or ridiculous, or overblown. These covers, in contrast, are across the board attractive by anyone’s standards, I’d think.

by: Gregory Bernard Banks

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:58:32 +0000

What bothers me most is the uniformity. The cover for Minion by L.A. Banks is the only one reflecting a somewhat unique twist on the theme. All the other covers you could pretty much switch with one another and no one would really notice.

by: WriteBlack » Blog Archive » Butt, why is it a trend?

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 23:19:46 +0000

[…] You may already have noticed the trend of ass-tastic covers on paranormal/fantasy books. I don’t know which body-part cliche is most annoying, though. […]

by: nbm

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:44:49 +0000

Isn’t DEVIL WITHIN giving a rather mixed message, with the shapely rear accentuated by not one but two phallic additions (the torch raised at a rather ecstatic angle and the skyline tower right between her straddled legs)?

by: Shara Saunsaucie

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:49:37 +0000

You know, I just remembered that Carrie Vaughn’s coming fourth book is NOT a butt cover! It’s frontal!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446618756/ref=s9_flash_asin_image_10/002-9256272-5725658?ie=UTF8&coliid=IV64L835522&colid=YI4QDGUG0T3S&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=12YZTKFQHHAEDQXF09R0&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=279438701&pf_rd_i=507846

Her third book wasn’t a butt cover either.

by: Gwencafe

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:30:45 +0000

———————quote———————-
Marie Brennan wrote: Oh, look, another urban fantasy with a tough but conflicted heroine who will no doubt have her choice of hot supernatural guys and probably fall into bed with some or all of them at some point.
———————quote———————-

Boy did I laugh when I read this! I also started thinking that maybe this pithy summary of the genre captures urban fantasy’s broad appeal (as opposed to regular SciFi and Fantasy). The “kickassitude” women get to, um, experiment but not be seen as–well, we are talking about butts here–slutty. And if you say otherwise, well, they’ll kick your a**.