Judging Books by Their Covers
Cartoon covers, discreet covers, special editions, fan art, and more
Hi friends!
It’s been a minute since we talked about BookTok aesthetics, so today, we’re doing a state of the union on the state of the romance novel cover. It has been the era of the cartoon cover, an era that isn’t ending any time soon, but we’re starting to see experimentation with different aesthetics in more painterly and more graphic styles. And alongside all of this emphasis on cover aesthetic is the rise of fan art, a powerful force in romance and romantasy publishing. Authors are commissioning artists to craft character sketches that can make a book before it is even released.
Indie authors, in addition to being incredible storytellers, are incredibly savvy marketers with the opportunity to A/B test things like titles, covers, and taglines via ads and alternative sales channels. They also have the ability to release the same book with multiple covers for different audiences. And their efforts in this space are teaching us more about reader and collector behavior and driving change in traditional publishing with the trends they are setting.
And all of this is complicated by the issue of AI - are authors leaning more toward explicitly human created styles in order to emphasize their support for artists?
With readers having ever more specific taste and with the ever increasing number of book boxes and special edition publishers, there’s now a choice where there wasn’t before - which edition with which cover are you going to buy? Or is it a matter of collecting them all? Let’s dive in.
Cartoon Covers
Cartoon covers have become the standard in the romance industry, partially driven by attitudes like the one above. Many readers have decided that covers with real people on them are “cringe” (the highest of sins) so cartoon covers have filled the gap between the elaborate painted clinch covers of the ‘80s and ‘90s and the more realistic, photographic covers of the early 2000s. Yanna (one of BookTok’s so-called big 3, the most popular and controversial creators on the platform) explains below:
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Yanna calls out Elle Kennedy’s earlier covers as poor, and I think we can use the transformation here to illustrate the change in cover aesthetic over the past 10 years quite nicely. When The Deal was released in 2015, it had these covers:
These covers were changed to cartoon covers:
Thanks to the incredible staying power of the Off Campus series and their continue popularity on BookTok, there is also a special edition available:
(note the sprayed edges and foiling, of course)
And now, with an Off Campus TV series in production, there are likely to be film tie-in editions as well - but will they mark a return to real people on the cover? Stay tuned. I think this case study provides a good sense of where mainstream romance publishing is at in 2025 from a cover perspective - multiple options, cartoon covers, and ideally no real people’s faces.
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Illustrated/Painterly Covers
So, when practically every romance that is released looks the same, how do you stand out? Enter @whiskeygingergoods, indie romance cover artist du jour. Her painterly, 1950s American traditional style throwback covers are everywhere, and they are convincing people to buy books:
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I’m fairly certain this series has since been picked up for traditional publication but the Publisher’s Marketplace announcement hasn’t come out yet, so stay tuned.
Look at this beautiful cowboy romance! There is a real hunger for creative new voices in this space.
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Carley Fortune’s covers take a different approach, painterly but focused on the iconic summery settings of her novels.
And Hannah Grace’s cartoon covers often cause controversy because some are worried they lean YA in a way that encourages younger readers to pick up books that might not be intended for them. Here’s a TikToker redesigning the cover of her latest release, Wildfire, in a more painterly style that she feels indicates a more adult subject matter than a cartoon:
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Discreet Covers
Both of the above options still telegraph the fact that the book inside is a romance. Despite the fact that we are living in a world where people are less afraid to proclaim their love of the genre, there are always readers who want a so-called “discreet cover.”
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Discreet covers are nothing new - Fifty Shades of Gray was in many ways the original discreet cover. But now, many indie authors are producing both a romance-leaning cover and a discreet cover and leaving it up to their readers to choose.
See: the cover for Priest by Sierra Simone:
The discreet cover for Priest by Sierra Simone:
A new player in the discreet cover space is 831 Stories, whose romance novellas have brightly colored geometric covers that you might have seen at your local indie bookstore:
But while their books are discreet, their merch is not - 831 sells hats and shirts that allow readers to proclaim their love for particular romance tropes:
Fan Art
But having a beautiful and appealing cover is not enough. Character art and illustrations have become an essential part of a book’s marketing plan, with authors commissioning multiple pieces for social media posts, as pre-order incentives, and more. See Ali Hazelwood’s exquisite, NSFW piece for all pre-orders of Problematic Summer Romance:
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In addition to creating more work for artists (amazing), in some ways this feels like a means of pushing back against the AI-generated character art that has become so popular in fandoms like ACOTAR.
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Did you even write a romantasy novel if you didn’t commission art of your characters?
Special Editions and Collecting
Still not satisfied with the cover options and pre-order incentives available to you? Why not try a special edition? No longer limited to just romantasy, book boxes are creating hardcovers for romance with illustrated endpapers, sprayed edges, and more:
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But sprayed edges (spredges, if you will) are still king. I’m obsessed with the BookTok creators who display their books edges out:
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We’ve previously discussed the fact that the books that are doing well on TikTok shop usually aren’t the same books that are doing well on organic BookTok - they tend to be how to guides about herbal remedies or building small barns, deep backlist titles that teach people how to do things. But could exclusive TikTok special editions for popular novels change that?
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If you have a choice, which type of cover are you choosing? I’m still a fan of the old school painted clinch cover of historical romances from the ‘80s and ‘90s. I’m always a sucker for pre-order incentives that include a custom dust jacket in this style.
More soon! xoxo
When I covered my first indie series in 2020 I commissioned illustrated covers from an artist thinking it would be a fad and I’d be recovering them with photo covers within 2 years. I was wrong. They sell better than my photo covers and I’m in the process of recovering an entire series to new illustrated designs. It’s stressful to sink so much money into these covers but it’s really fun working with artists and designers on what is essentially original art. Personally, I hope the man chest makes a comeback someday, but who knows when that will be?
I'm old school. Most illustrated romance covers put me off because they feel too childish 😭 Not that it matters, because most of my new books are either special editions or proofs anyway, haha. But I'm considering going for an illustrated look for some of my own titles. Queer romance (at least indie queer romance) seems to be lagging behind the trend, so I haven't been too serious about it yet.