Thoughts about book covers in lesbian/FF fiction
So I’ve been seeing posts complaining about or commenting on the images used for FF book covers, especially lesbian romance. I have a lot of thoughts about this topic and the conversation surrounding it, but I wanna brief you guys first in case anyone hasn’t seen the posts I have.
What are people upset about?
Some people are upset that there’s a trend with these covers showing two women holding hands, resting beside each other, or in other ways being affectionate but not as intimately as we commonly see on straight romance or gay romance covers. Many people make the argument that we shouldn’t be afraid to show two women being intimate or romantically affectionate, and that there should be more covers with two women kissing instead of just holding hands. Some authors have been accused of being afraid to show two women kissing on their books.
What are my your thoughts on this a queer woman?
While I understand the desire that people have to be able to look at a book and immediately identify it as FF fiction, I have to wonder why so many people see two women holding hands as not enough. In gay romance there are many book covers where two men are holding hands or hugging, and people seem to have no issue identifying these as gay romance. Why? I think it’s because men are less encouraged to be affectionate to other men. Sometimes they’re even openly mocked for it, or worse. Women don’t really face this issue. Lots of young women are affectionate with their female friends and don’t face that kind of issue. While holding hands is not strictly platonic, it’s also not strictly romantic (or sexual). Nor should it be. But it is a form of intimacy that often occurs in relationships, and I don’t really think it’s fair to deny that. Especially in YA romance where it’s often following the protagonist’s first real relationship, holding hands can be a very big deal. Queer women shouldn’t be denied these images just because straight women also do it in a platonic way.
What are my thoughts on this as an author of FF romance?
I get the feeling that a lot of people who complain about this don’t understand how difficult it actually can be to create a cover for these books. I’m self published, as are many FF authors, because it allows me to avoid the gatekeeping and squeamish nature of the traditional publishing industry. There are smaller publishing houses that specialize in LGBT+ or FF fiction, and most non-self published authors who write this stuff are working with one of them. So I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone who has to make their own covers.
Have you guys ever tried to find stock photos of two women kissing (for commercial use, with a standard license, and a signed model release)? It’s not always easy. The options when I look for “lesbians kissing”, “women kissing”, and “lesbian couple” are usually a) male-gazey pics of two women in lingerie mugging at the camera, b) two women sitting in public somewhere while not touching each other (and they could easily be mistaken as friends or sisters), c) young women in hipster clothing posing next to each other with skateboards (WHY is this so common???), or d) two women holding hands or hugging, if you’re lucky they might be kissing on the cheek or resting in bed.
And did I mention that 99% of the time they’re white, out of the age range of your characters, or both?
There aren’t a ton of options. A lot of times it’s the same models over and over, which isn’t exactly ideal when each book has unique and diverse characters. At the moment I’m writing about a Japanese-American woman and a Black woman falling in love in 1965. No matter what combination of search terms I used on dozens of stock photo sites, it was slim pickings if I could find a photo at all.
Want to help eliminate this? If you, or anyone you know, does photography as a hobby then consider selling your pictures on stock photo sites and getting your models to sign a release form.
And I just want to add that my books all clearly say on them: A Lesbian Romance by [My Pen Name]. That way it’s clear to readers if the picture isn’t clear enough.
For people publishing traditionally there are even more challenges. They don’t usually have that much say in their cover art and it’s up to the design team to decide what they want to do. This isn’t the fault of the author and they don’t deserve hate for it.
To wrap this up, I do understand why people are upset about it. But I think there’s so much more to it than just the idea that authors are scared to show two women kissing or being intimate. And it’s not really fair to accuse people of that, especially when they’re already creating LGBT+ media.
