Photo courtesy of James Barr on Unsplash
If you have ever been on BookTok or walked into a Barnes & Noble, you may have noticed that romance books have skyrocketed in popularity. That’s a great thing because some of these popular authors publish independently, so their books do not get the same marketing as traditionally published books.
One of the first things you notice when choosing what to read next is the cover. I know you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, but it’s inevitable. Discreet covers on romance novels have become the go-to, because some readers do not want people to know what they are reading. That’s understandable, but other readers would love to show that they are obviously reading a romance novel with a hot couple in it.
The biggest issue with discreet covers is that they can be misleading. A novice romance reader may not know they are picking up a book that has some smut. A romance cover that features a hot man, woman or couple on it is a subtle warning there may be more steamy scenes in the book.
In the world of publishing, some independent romance authors are getting picked up by traditional publishing companies; one such writer is Sierra Simone, author of the “Priest” series. That series is being picked up by Bloom Books, which is an imprint of Sourcebooks, after Simone had discreet covers commissioned from Emily Wittig in April 2022.
“Now, the downside to this is that Bloom can only keep one set of paperback covers, which will be the floral covers, mostly for bookstore reasons,” wrote Simone in an Instagram post from August 2022 about the publishing change to Bloom Books. Out of the few indie authors being traditionally published, she has been one of the only ones to give a clear reasoning for the permanent cover change.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure there is a matching Sad Hottie cover for the last two Priest books, so that the series will match in the end,” Simone said to fans of the original book covers. It’s understandable that it may be a bit jarring to have a priest romance with a shirtless man on the cover, but if you are going into this book thinking it would not be steamy, you would be gravely mistaken.
Romance readers should be given a choice of the cover they would like – the hot man cover or the discreet cover. It’s amazing that some of the cover designers are getting their work out there, but sometimes you just want to read a book that has an attractive man on the cover. Completely getting rid of the choice of covers is a step in the wrong direction. It’s like we’re telling romance readers that they should be ashamed for enjoying the genre. We have progressed so far as a society, that this borders on the line of censorship. What’s next? Censoring the content within these books, too?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with reading romance! If society is trying to tell us there is something wrong with having an attractive man or woman on the cover, then they do not have to read those books. That’s the great thing about reading: there are so many different books out there to choose from.
