[Need to catch up with this blog post series? Read The Dark Side of Romance Covers, Part I; The Dark Side of Romance Covers, Part II; The Dark Side of Romance Covers, Part III]

Illustrated romance book cover art to the rescue

In The Dark Side of Romance Covers, Part III, I discussed the problem of limited stock images that can be used to create romance book cover art that features BIPOC, disabled, queer, and other marginalized characters. One extremely clever solution to the problem is illustrated romance book covers. In Illustrated Romance Novel Covers: Are they good or bad? the article author observes that:

As Kwana Jackson explained in the Tweet above, illustrated covers give all authors the opportunity to get high-quality, exclusive covers that really match their book. This is a very big deal! The stock photo market doesn’t work well for diverse Romance, and photoshop can only get you so far. Exclusive photos require a hefty budget for models and a professional photoshoot. This is out of reach for most books. Illustrated covers can help make Romance more diverse!

Indeed, like the adorable cover for Mimi Grace’s Along for the Ride:

Disabled characters on romance covers exist, but you have to search for them. You also have to want to find them because ableism in the publishing industry certainly makes it challenging.

The first wheelchair user heroine in an SFR cover that I’d ever seen was Misa Buckley’s Tin Cat (2013). Flash Forward to 2019, when Alyssa Cole’s contemporary romance Can’t Escape Love was released:                    

Considering the heroine of Cole’s book is also a Black woman, that’s progress. More progress will be made as authors and readers continue to advocate for covers featuring disabled characters. This is another character type that would benefit from illustrated covers, as opposed to relying on practically non-existent stock images. Another example to follow is Xan West’s Nine of Swords, Reversed:

These days, romance covers with queer characters are commonplace (see: the whole m/m genre) There are also more f/f covers, such as Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Blacker Than Blue, Olivia Waite’s Hellion’s Waltz, and Cathy Pegau’s Deep Deception.

And…drum roll…May Peterson’s The Calyx Charm features a trans model on the cover! I wonder, is this the first known trans model for a romance cover? Fingers crossed we’re treated to more like it soon.

Where’s the body diversity in romance novel cover art?

No one has to do any research to learn that historically, romance covers have been a relentless parade of thin, conventionally attractive, able-bodied, cis white female heroines. Ugh, so boring. And considering it’s not even close to a reflection of our world’s diversity, so very insidious.

The problem isn’t that romance covers feature white heroines of a certain body type; it’s that such covers dominate the genre; they keep appearing from mainstream publishers, and they exist in the absence of a galaxy of diverse covers. Actual studies have shown that the publishing industry is majority white, cis, straight, and non-disabled. Fix the representation problems on covers and then maybe we can talk about how there aren’t all kinds of biases in the publishing industry.

Fortunately, the general push for more body diversity on romance covers has resulted in beauties like these from books by Adriana Herrera, Olivia Dade, and Sarah MacLean:

A call to action: Make romance book cover art more inclusive

Everyone loves a stunning romance cover, but what is its true worth when marginalized characters don’t get the same amount of visual representation as cis, white, non-disabled straight characters? What does it matter if one romance cover has Netflix-level prestige attached to it when many marginalized authors can barely scrape together the funds to pay cover designers for their self-published romances?

Here’s the deal: romance covers can be art as well as effective marketing tools without also being tools of oppression.

The racism, classism, and bigotry in publishing have regularly infiltrated romance covers, which means romance publishers have been in the business of marketing racism, classism, and bigotry to romance readers. That needs to change. The publishing romance industry, authors, and readers need to collectively set a new course for inclusivity in romance books and their covers. I’m not saying anything new, but it bears repeating.

The online discussions about romance book cover art and design can be fraught with danger for marginalized readers and authors, so I’d like to take this moment to recognize the people who have been publicly examining the problems associated with romance covers at the risk of their careers and personal safety. Thank you for your wisdom and may your intensive emotional labor yield more fruit.