All those shirtless men with freaky six-packs...

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brswain

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I know it's been three days, but I just now saw this, and I want to say--

I feel this way too, sometimes. I think part of the reason authors do it is because they think it will attract followers. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but sometimes it's like "am I supposed to find this attractive?" Guess some people's tastes are just different.

It's a result/reaction thing I suspect. Post some manly chest, and you get some "woots" and "wows". Post a sweet, romantic picture...

<crickets>

Racier gets rewarded with a reaction, is my guess.
 

morngnstar

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Here's my opinion, as a male reader and writer of romance, which is so irrelevant I waited to put it on the third page. Morally, I have no objection. Personally, of course, it's more embarrassing to take a book with such a cover to the checkout counter or read it in public. But I feel the same way about the classic bodice-ripper covers as well. I prefer covers with a couple on them, and really that makes sense, right? It's romance; it's supposed to be about two people. I can remember some really sexy covers that use negative space: the shape outlined between two bodies and/or faces.

And in regard to no faces, I can see how that could be interpreted as more objectifying, but it kind of makes sense; I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's just done because people are very particular about faces: the face that would turn one person on would turn the other nine out of ten off. So it's impossible to put a face on a cover that will please everyone.
 

ElaineA

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And in regard to no faces, I can see how that could be interpreted as more objectifying, but it kind of makes sense; I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's just done because people are very particular about faces: the face that would turn one person on would turn the other nine out of ten off. So it's impossible to put a face on a cover that will please everyone.

I think this is the root reason for hiding faces. Letting the reader imagine what the protagonists look like is far preferable to me than imposing my (or worse, the publishers) idea of what they should look like on the reader before they've even opened the book. One of the things I loved best about Outlander was being able to completely imagine for myself what Jamie and Claire looked like. Of course, it's all ruined now with the TV show.
 

brswain

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Here's my opinion, as a male reader and writer of romance, which is so irrelevant I waited to put it on the third page. Morally, I have no objection. Personally, of course, it's more embarrassing to take a book with such a cover to the checkout counter or read it in public. But I feel the same way about the classic bodice-ripper covers as well. I prefer covers with a couple on them, and really that makes sense, right? It's romance; it's supposed to be about two people. I can remember some really sexy covers that use negative space: the shape outlined between two bodies and/or faces.

And in regard to no faces, I can see how that could be interpreted as more objectifying, but it kind of makes sense; I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's just done because people are very particular about faces: the face that would turn one person on would turn the other nine out of ten off. So it's impossible to put a face on a cover that will please everyone.

I find that used to be a problem with a number of books - I recall some of the covers from Brian Lumley's Necroscope series put me off from carrying them on the subway. All those tongues and fangs and skulls and creepy eyes didn't really match the grey suit and power tie look.

Thank goodness for e-readers.
 

Roxxsmom

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I think this is the root reason for hiding faces. Letting the reader imagine what the protagonists look like is far preferable to me than imposing my (or worse, the publishers) idea of what they should look like on the reader before they've even opened the book. One of the things I loved best about Outlander was being able to completely imagine for myself what Jamie and Claire looked like. Of course, it's all ruined now with the TV show.

There is some truth to this. God, there's nothing like a bad face on a protag to kill the mood. Even in a book that's not a romance, like some of the 80s era fantasy, blergh. The characters were often pictured as nothing like they were described, and even if the basic hair and eye (and skin) color were right, they often looked like goofballs.

But a strategy that's being done more now in that genre is to show the whole body but have the character's face turned away or partially hidden by a cloak (the old "dude with a cloak" cover). It's a bit less disturbing than the disembodied meat locker shots.

I think, though, that part of their popularity initially was that they were essentially stock footage that could be mixed and matched inexpensively on different covers, where the heroes might have different hair color or wear different kinds of outfits. A naked torso could be dropped into almost any setting, after all, with a bit of manipulation of the background.

Then they became emblematic of a given subgenre of romance, and it took off from there.
 

gingerwoman

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*licks six-pack covers* Well, to each her own, I say.
Oh yeah. I do like them personally, well SOME of them, most I won't really notice, then a certain one will be like....yum...But I feel it might sometimes be a bit hurtful to our middle aged lovers and husbands. That's more the issue I have with it, though not in a big way. Men WILL act like it glances off them, and they could care less. But is that really what's in their hearts?
 

morngnstar

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Oh yeah. I do like them personally, well SOME of them, most I won't really notice, then a certain one will be like....yum...But I feel it might sometimes be a bit hurtful to our middle aged lovers and husbands. That's more the issue I have with it, though not in a big way. Men WILL act like it glances off them, and they could care less. But is that really what's in their hearts?

Husband: You know, it kind of bothers me that you fantasize about all those ripped guys.

Wife: Well, you could sign up for a gym membership.

Husband: Or, you could sign up for one of those clubs where they send you one of these books every month.
 

Deb Kinnard

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I was told by my cover artist that the headless photos are cheaper to acquire. That pretty much killed discussion for me, since what pub isn't going to take the less expensive version?

On record, my cover for WHEN THE ROSES BLOOMED would be brilliant if the woman's head were included. It makes me sorta hate on the cover.
 

morngnstar

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I was told by my cover artist that the headless photos are cheaper to acquire.

That makes sense, I guess. Maybe the guys are looking for other modeling or acting jobs, and don't want to be known as that romance cover guy. Also, it occurs to me that it's probably the same guy on a lot of the covers, which would be weird if he's supposed to represent different characters. It worked for Fabio, but I think that's become a cheesy cliche now.
 

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Thank goodness for e-readers.

Yeah. I love reading books on my e-readers.

Wife: Well, you could sign up for a gym membership.

My husband goes to the gym 4-5 times a week and is in excellent shape. He has muscles, but he doesn't look like those guys on the covers. He cares about fitness, not maximum chiseled-ness. I actually asked him why he doesn't have a 6-pack, and he said he has too much body fat...and it's not like he has all that much body fat.

Anyway, maybe because I'm a newlywed, I consider my husband the peak of physical attractiveness, and freaky sculpted torsos just differ too much from how he looks for me. And after my husband told me about the article he read on underwear models and their extreme diets, I cannot see a super-ripped guy without thinking about how it would be no fun to date that kind of man. We wouldn't be able to eat and drink at the places I like :)

Just a comment on un-friending because of inappropriate images in the feed:

NO NEED! You can hide a person's updates without unfriending them!

The problem is that I often do want to follow these people and see what they post...just not certain things they post. I don't want to hide all their updates. Though in a few cases, I might start doing that. (They are usually authors at the publishers I write for.)




Anyway, I'm glad this isn't just me :)
 

Ravioli

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The problem is that I often do want to follow these people and see what they post...just not certain things they post. I don't want to hide all their updates. Though in a few cases, I might start doing that. (They are usually authors at the publishers I write for.)
For that, you just visit their profiles :) That way, you can mentally prepare to see whatever you didn't wanna see. No more naked men in your feed, but all their posts on their timeline. Of course, what you don't see is their interaction outside of their own timeline.
 

StoryofWoe

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And after my husband told me about the article he read on underwear models and their extreme diets, I cannot see a super-ripped guy without thinking about how it would be no fun to date that kind of man. We wouldn't be able to eat and drink at the places I like :)
Yep. This right here. I love me some eye candy, but me and my developing case of writer-ass just wouldn't mesh well with someone whose entire life revolved around fitness.

As for covers, I prefer the ones without people on them. Think FSoG, Sylvia Day's Crossfire Series, Mira Books' covers for Megan Hart and Tiffany Reisz, etc. Though I have no doubt that the ones with hawt people sell better. I belong to a small, private erotica and erotic romance group on Facebook, and every now and then I'll see a naked dude's chest shot or something similar. The images themselves don't bother me much, but they might if my FB feed started looking like my Twitter feed. There'd be no escaping the ab-porn. Since I don't have an author page/account yet, I do find myself unfollowing friends from that group just in case they post something that I might accidentally "like" or comment on outside of the private arena. My old high school acquaintances don't need to know what I find titillating. :tongue
 

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I think that when critics deride the romance genre, they're thinking of those man-ab covers and the florid typefaces, not what's inside the book. That style of cover isn't doing the genre any favors, well, besides selling. But they're been identified with a certain kind of book for so long readers may expect them now, even if they don't like them, or are embarrassed by them. And because the major publishers use that style of cover, so do the self-publishers, and the cycle just goes on and on. If this was my genre, I'd be pissed that my books were getting such a cookie-cutter treatment with the same shirtless guy in infinite variations. It's like publishers are assuming female readers are too stupid to actually read the blurbs of the books they'd be buying, or can't pick up on the nuances of a more sophisticated visual representation. It reminds me of how, in the 1950s, when boxed cake mixes were marketed. The manufacturers then required the users to use one or two fresh eggs, even though eggs could be dehydrated and powdered as part of the mix, because women would feel more like they were really "baking."

Diane Gabaldon's books have mainstream acceptance with just small Celtic symbols on their covers against a field of neutral color, and they sell. There's a trend in YA romances, too, of having just text and some small illos, like John Green's books.

(As an artist, what chaps me to is that all of these guys look like they were painted by the same artist, or that artist's protege! There is no attempt even at an individual style for the mancake.)
 

Roxxsmom

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I think that when critics deride the romance genre, they're thinking of those man-ab covers and the florid typefaces, not what's inside the book. That style of cover isn't doing the genre any favors, well, besides selling. But they're been identified with a certain kind of book for so long readers may expect them now, even if they don't like them, or are embarrassed by them.

I'm old enough that I remember when romance covers tended to have a woman with long, flowing hair in period dress swooning in the arms of a broad-shouldered man. The tops of her breasts would be showing above her bodice, and the dude's shirt would usually be open, revealing his chest.

I think they still have covers like that for a certain style of romance (historical ones with a lot of heat), but even in the days of my misspent youth, there were different types and heat levels of fantasy. Regency romances (which my mom loved for a while), for instance, had covers that looked like they'd be more at home on a book by Jane Austin.

Covers in general were florid back in the 80s, though. Fantasy novels, even ones where everyone was actually properly clad, often had shirtless barbarians and/or women in iron bikinis on their covers, and they were usually very "busy," as if the cover artist had been told to put every character, magical creature, and plot element in one scene.

But they told the reader what to expect too (the book has elves, or dragons, or glowy magic, or battles, or castles), even if the covers were a bit embarrassing when one was reading on public transit. Norms do shift over time, though. At some point, fantasy got more mainstream, and covers got a lot more subdued. So it's not impossible that something similar could happen with romance.

Of course, e-readers mean that one can read a book in public without the cover being on display.
 

Cobalt Jade

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Oh yes, I remember those 1980s fantasy PB covers. (Especially on the Dragonlance books.) In the 1960s and 70s, they were a lot more abstract. Now, they're more moody and artistic. The Game of Throne series is presented in a very minimalist way, even though they're chock full of juicy sex stuff. They seem to say this is a book for adults, by an adult.

As for the e-books, I can see the reasoning. But also, the e-books are not lined up side by side on a store's shelf competing with each other. Authors have more leeway in creating their own designs and language of symbolism. Also, they can have actual quotes from the books right in the reader's face, so readers can see if the writing style and characters are for them.
 

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I'm old enough that I remember when romance covers tended to have a woman with long, flowing hair in period dress swooning in the arms of a broad-shouldered man. The tops of her breasts would be showing above her bodice, and the dude's shirt would usually be open, revealing his chest.
Fabio. Until he ate a bird.
 
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Once!

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There's an echo of this on Youtube. If you find yourself in the collection of "funny fails" or "newsreader goofs", the thumbnails nearly always have a picture of a woman having a wardrobe malfunction of some sort. And yet when you look at the videos (purely for research purposes, you understand), that particular image isn't even in the video. And some of these videos have been viewed tens of millions of times, purely on the basis of a misleading cover shot. I was looking at one the other day (more research) with 75 million views.
 

Cobalt Jade

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I hate to admit I've been suckered that way :-(

What really annoyed me was the pic one video had for "funny pets". It showed a baby appearing to chase a kitten. Said kitten and baby were never in the video.
 

WriterWho

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I'm on Twitter and Facebook, and a lot of the people I friend/follow are fellow romance authors. And my feed contains a large amount of naked man chest...and a lot of it's not just book covers and promo, though there's a good amount of that too.

Little secret...not so secret...it's all a marketing tactic.
Authors review what receives the most hits (likes, comments, retweets) and go from there.
It's as simple as that.
It doesn't matter if it's their book cover or a simple 'Sweet Dreams' post. If it has a bare chested man on there, it usually means that's what that author's fans prefer and the author is making the majority of his/her active fans happy. Hope that makes sense. :)
 

Cobalt Jade

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Playboy magazine recently made the bold move of dropping the female nudes that have been a feature of the magazine from day one. It can be done.
 

veinglory

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I'm not sure I see the comparison the same way. Playboy is going for near nudes (no genitals shown but still gals in very little clothing) to get more favorable shelving and distribution but still sell to people who like to look at boobs. Romance covers also use near nudes for the same reason. The only difference is where they started and gender, not where they ended up.
 

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I think this is the root reason for hiding faces. Letting the reader imagine what the protagonists look like is far preferable to me than imposing my (or worse, the publishers) idea of what they should look like on the reader before they've even opened the book. One of the things I loved best about Outlander was being able to completely imagine for myself what Jamie and Claire looked like. Of course, it's all ruined now with the TV show.

Even from an author's viewpoint - how many authors would look at a cover with full face and go, "But that's not what Hunk McHandsome looks like! That's someone else entirely!"

Torsos are impersonal, and therefore one can project the character onto them. The wrong face on the cover may turn off a reader who would have liked the character (or disappoint one who closes the book thinking "But he looked so nice!")
 
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