I am completely outraged by this cover. Not because everyone else is, but just because I am seriously struggling to wrap my head around the fact that Bloomsbury even pulled this stunt to begin with!
If you haven't heard yet via the Blogosphere basically Magic Under Glass is a story based around a girl of colour. Bloomsbury in all their infinite wisdom published the cover with a white girl on it. This has really got me spewing because:
One - we're living in the 21st Century for Christ sake, who the hell do Bloomsbury think they are?
Two - this poor author is going to get slammed and boycotted because of Bloomsbury, it isnt her fault yet its going to be her name that gets dragged through the mud.
Three - the sheer inaccuracy of the cover is just wrong.
Four - the fact that Bloomsbury obviously thought that they would get more sales with a white girl than a black one which is absolutely disgusting.
I live in a country so diverse that I've grown up not even seeing colour, every one is just a person so this is something that is very hard for me to understand. Bloomsbury, I lost a lot of respect for you today. If I ever get published, I don't care if you're my last option, I am not going to go near you. One of my stories has a red head in it...you going to make the cover blonde for more sales? Assholes.
Anyway, that is my two cents on this particular subject.
5 comments:
Oh, I've never seen it this way. Actually, I've never payed too much attention on the covers (except when they're really really beautiful). I know tons of books of which cover doesn't have any connections with the story itself :D Sometimes I think publishers don't even read a story before they release it :)) Anyway, I hope people don't hate this book because of this cover issue. I heard it's a good one, poor writer...
Yeah its really sad.
Thanks for posting about this. I don't want to hurt the author, especially since she wrote about a poc and I've heard good things about this book. I'm not encouraging people to boycott the author or Magic Under Glass, that's a personal decision. As a poc, I can't support it, but I will get it form the library which will still help at least.
I'll be linking to this and I'm so glad that even if Bloomsbury is your last option, you won't sign with them. I hope that not only does the publishing industry stop whitewashing covers and publish more books about poc, but that it also allows author to have a say in their covers. All this controversay could be avoided.
Yeah, it could...
I think it's awful. Sure, there are plenty of books out there with covers that inaccurately reflect what's between the pages, but the problem with this is that, like you did in your post, people are going to assume that it was a racist move on Bloomsbury's part, because why on earth else would they replace a person of colour with a white person? There must be plenty of non-white models out there who would have been lovely (and accurate) on the front of this novel.
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