I am a very eclectic reader (as you can see by my Shelfari account). If the concept interests me in the slightest, I’ll give the book a try. Right now, I’m reading You Make Me Wanna. As a Black woman, I like reading stories about other Black women when they aren’t street lit and the bonus is they are lesbian characters who are not stereotypes. It’s a cute story and I’m enjoying it.
So, I’m sitting and reading and two women are having this wordless conversation with their eyes, gesturing between each other and myself, and the cover of my book. Bear in mind, what I have is a library copy with this huge interloan sticker on the front so most of the cover image is obscured. You can still get the gist apparently.
Nobody batted an eye when I was pouring through those bodice ripper romance romance novels, or the giant epic fantasy series, or the gay pirate books (no provocative cover there) but all of a sudden a picture of a woman feeding another woman a strawberry is a big fat fucking deal.
So, when you see someone reading, do you judge them by what is on the cover?
The title is always of more interest to me than anything else on the cover could be. I generally assume the art dept. did the graphics and that the author had little if any say.
Writer’s can choose bad titles and publishers can change them, but I’m more comfortable thinking that the person who wrote the book put some thought into how the choice of title would influence the potential reader to want to open the book.
Some of my judgments are probably unsound in that regard, I must admit.
Gideon
I was referring more to how the reader is judged by the book they are reading. But it does make me double think about what I put on my covers and the titles I choose for my stories. I have been WAY off on my initial thoughts based on titles and covers; even the blurb on the back of the book! You just never know till you really read it sometimes.
I’m afraid I do. Of course I am always pleased to see anyone reading any book in public. It’s a rare sight for me where I live. (I’m sort of rural – not much in the way of coffee shops and parks around here.)
Usually I assume I would get along with someone that I see reading a genre I enjoy. So I make good assumptions.
I would notice and and shy away from anyone reading anything very right-wing. That would be bad, I suppose.
I do the same thing when it comes to very right-wing books. I know it’s not the correct way to think and I reason my way out of it since I don’t like being judged by what I read. :/