Hi ya'll. I'm doing revisions at the moment, so this is gonna be a short post. I hope.
To set the stage for this topic, before the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference (which was held last weekend), RWNZ asked the pubbed authors to send in jpegs of their covers. And as we were all being seated prior to the start of the awards dinner, we noticed each place setting at the table had a rather unique placemat: a laminated RWNZ member's book cover. Pretty cool, huh?
And after the dinner & festivities (visit my website for some fabulous photos!) a group of us diehards invited ourselves back to one of the hotel rooms -- apologies for gate-crashing your room, Joanne! -- where we had a great time drooling over some of the more steamy covers.
We were lucky enough to have a couple of multi-pubbed authors in our group: namely Natalie Anderson, who writes for Harlequin Mills & Boon Sexy Sensation, and Nalini Singh, who's very well known for her Berkley Sensation Psy/Changeling paranormal series. So as you can imagine, we had plenty of covers to drool over, and Nat even had an Italian one....ultra-delicious!
Nat made a comment about how sometimes her story's heroine doesn't much resemble the one portrayed on the cover. And, inevitably -- as it usually does whenever a gaggle of female romance writers get together -- our discussion turned toward the male of the species.
Specifically, cover models.
Even more specifically, the hair color of the male cover models.
Nalini reckons that these days you'll practically never see a blond hero on the cover of a romance novel. Today's readers like 'em tall, dark & handsome -- even if the hero is depicted as being blond, or brown-haired, or whatever, in the actual story. Dark-haired hero. Period.
Nat agreed. And these ladies are multi-pubbed and very successful and they know what they're talking about when it comes to marketing.
Even so, I was flabbergasted. "You've gotta be kidding me!"
"Nope!" came the chorus.
Marketing know what sells, and blond guys evidently don't sell as well. So even if you're a NYT best-selling author and you've written a hero with white-blond hair, he's not gonna be blond on your cover. He'll likely be in shadow, or highlighted with a background color so you can't actually tell what color hair he has.
I was still dubious. So dubious, in fact, that when I got home, I relayed this to my husband, and we went through a stack of my books, looking for an alternate hero -- a blond hero. Even a hero with light brown hair or a red-head would do.
I did find one hero who didn't have dark hair. Ironically, he's on the cover of one of Nat's books: Bedded By Arrangement.Now this is a Harlequin Sexy Sensation Australian edition, and Jake is most definitely sandy-haired. And just quietly (sorry all you marketing gurus) I think he's pretty darned haaaaawt!
BTW, I had to scan the cover from my own copy of the book because I couldn't for the life of me find this edition anywhere on the internet.
Even more ironically, the Mills & Boon Modern Extra (UK) edition of Bedded By Arrangement that I did manage to find (see below) depicts a dark-haired Jake.
They've changed him -- wahhhh!And I gotta say, that even if did buy this edition to read again, I'd still imagine Jake as blond-ish, as per the cover of the first version I read.
I just had another look through my bookcases and found another blond hero on the cover of an Australian Harlequin Mills & Boon Super Romance: Mr. Irresistible, by Karina Bliss.
So could Australian publishers be more daring about this whole dark-haired hero thing than US or UK publishers? Or are they catering to their primarily Australian and New Zealand readers, who really don't mind either way, provided the hero on their cover is just plain handsome as sin?
Who knows. (I personally think that Australian publishers might just be pretty damned daring, because I found a hero with a completely shaven head on the cover of another Sexy Sensation: The Perfect Girlfriend by Colleen Collins.)
So here are my questions:
- Do you have a preference for dark-haired heroes on the cover of romance books?
- Would you ever not buy a book that had a blond (or otherwise) hero on the cover?
- Can you find a reasonably recently published US published romance on your bookshelf that depicts a blond hero (or at least, a hero who doesn't have dark hair) on the cover?
- Had you even noticed that dark-haired heros seem to have become a trend?
;-)
Maree
17 comments:
Even though I prefer blondes( I married one) all the covers I have seen for a while are very dark haired heroes or they don't have a head at all.
To be quite honest, I hadn't noticed this trend, but now that you've mentioned it, I'm going to have to go back and look at my "keeper" bookcase...
Though most of my own heroes tend to be of the TD&H variety, I have recently written in a few blonds as well...
Thanks for the insight, though. I'll have to take a peek and see what/who's on my shelves at home. LOL
Honey, trust me. I'm not looking at their hair. :) No preference as long as the other...er...equipment...is...uh...aesthetically pleasing. Yeah, that's it. :)
I've never really thought about it, but now that you've brought it up my heroes have dark hair. I don't believe I've ever written a blond hero. What an eye-opener. Guess I like 'em tall, dark and handsome. LOL
Great post.
Linda
I'm with Liane. So long as he's hot, I don't mind :)
I guess dark-haired heroes might be a bit of a trend in some category romance lines, with so many Greek billionaires and so forth.
From a design point of view, I'm guessing it might be harder to make blond hair 'pop' on a cover. Unless the cover background is really dark.
Such burning questions... I've written two dark-haired heroes in a row, so now for book #3 he's blond. Just because he can be :)
Maree (Hi! Waving furiously from across the water)
This drives me mental. I'm sure the marketers know what they're doing, but I must be naturally contrary because the whole tall dark and handsome makes me want to write short and blonde. And curly. I admit to still wanting the handsome. I just don't think they have to be tall and dark to be handsome. You can put this on record, that if I ever become successful in this biz, I am so going to write a ginger hero. Long live the Weasley boys!! Cheers, Imelda
I think the last book I finished is the ONLY one I've ever done where the hero is blond...and even then he would've been dark if he hadn't been already brought on-stage as blond in a previous book where he was a secondary character. Blond men simply don't do it for me.
This is absolutely fascinating, Maree! I have to wonder, am I bucking the trend? Or maybe my book's going to sink without a trace. (Oh lord, I hope not!)
You see, the hero of Thief of Light - 3rd Nov from Berkley Sensation - is blond and blue-eyed. AND, he's on the cover!
Go see - http://www.deniserossetti.com/thief.html There's an excerpt so you can read the description. You can also click the image to see a larger version.
The artist did a fabulous job, based on my first three chapters. This is exactly how I imagined Erik. He has Viking ancestors, way, way back in the family tree.
I admit there's a slight Fabio element, but I still think he's gorgeous and that he works as a cover. BTW, the artist told me the model is real. *sigh*
Denise
Yep, this is an interesting one. Me, I'm with Liane & Erica. I don't mind what color their hair is, so long as everything else is damn fine! (Tho I do personally tend to prefer dark-haired men ;-))
I was talking to Nalini about asking for a blond hero on a (hopefully) future cover and she said, "Don't do it! Blond men on covers don't sell as well."
Basically, her advice is to of course write whatever hero you like, but keep him in shadow on your cover if he happens to be blond.
Interesting, huh?
It might be evolution: caucasians' hair darkens with age, so maybe we're hard-wired to interpret darker hair as maturity (rather than boyish).
This is a fascinating question. I've never really thought about this before because so many heroes have dark hair that the covers more or less match the hero. Personally, I love a blond hero. I shall have one in the fifth book of my series--a beautiful immortal fairy with long blond hair. I hope I get a blond on the cover otherwise I'll be dissapointed.
I've just thought...what about Fabio? He has long blond hair. He appeared on loads of covers a few years ago.
So, I checked my recent acquisitions and ... none on the cover. BUT ... Celeste Bradley (Duke Most Wanted) and Eloisa James (An Affair Before Christmas) show a fair-haired hero on the inner cover. They buried our blonde blokes! Sob...
I suppose that means that my fair-haired hero will never see a cover. Poor boy.
I don't know Maree- I've always liked my men tall, dark and handsome. But I can say that there is a doctor I work with who's tall, cute and blonde and he's dying to be a character in one of my medicals because he needs to be brought down a notch or two but in my book, he will end up dark:-)). So it must be a preference thing and the dream of the tall dark stranger, sweeping you off your feet (sigh)
I don't mind the color of their hair as long as it matches the hero and/or the heroine in the book. I hate it when the heroine is a redhead and the model on the ocver is a blond.
Personally, I don't mind a blond hero, but I've heard the dark haired ones are more popular. In fact, I had a blond hero in one of my books and my editor suggested I change it. Can't find any books on my shelf with a blondie! I'm with Rosemary, though. Make the cover match the character.
I love dark haired heroes. On the cover, in between the pages, in between my sheets... ;) Even though I love em tall, dark, and handsome, I seriously wouldn't care if a hero was blond on the cover.
OMG, Denise, he's gooooorgeous! Long blond hair and face and abs to die for *fans herself wildly*
Dare we hope from this that US publishers are prepared to be a little more er... daring??? I hope so!
And the comments so far appear to prove that the biggest no-no (are you listening marketing gurus?) is to portray a cover hero who doesn't match the description of the hero on the written page.
Other than that, we're easy to please, really: we just want a totally hot hero to sigh over.
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