Cover design is a marketing tool to position a book for reader attention, store placement, and genre identification. Like many genre covers, romance covers must balance blending in with popular titles while standing out enough for visibility. This is one reason why design trends are so widespread. There are few opportunities to reject a trend and create a different cover because it may stand out too much to a reader and be seen as too different from what they are used to, and store accounts may reject it for similar reasons. However, a trend may not be the best fit for your book and may have unintended consequences.
The rise of book-related social media platforms like BookTok and Bookstagram has shifted audience considerations in the marketing strategy for developing and designing romance covers in recent years. Rachel Ake Keuch, a senior designer at Random House, stated that the current book cover trend is highly influenced by what publishers and sales teams think is “Instagram-friendly.” In other words, finding a cover that looks good on social media has become essential for marketing. One of the leading book-related social media platforms is BookTok: the TikTok subculture dedicated to reading and discussing books, sharing information, and building community. It has accounted for much of modern romance sales, and on there, illustrated covers are very popular. They seem universally appealing, non-threatening, and also have the potential to aid in increasing diversity among titles.
For many readers new to romance, an illustrated couple is also far less intimidating than a shirtless hunk in a clinch pose. However, this trend toward illustrated covers on BookTok does not signify a lack of desire for sexual content in the romance plot (which I will from here on out refer to as “spice” in alignment with reader community language) and has instead mainstreamed the category. There’s a whole section of “SpicyTok” for those looking for a sexy read, with erotic romances presented in a fresh, contemporary, and modern way.
Publishers marketing these kinds of romance books should be aware and intentional with their intended audience, especially as the demographic of the app trends lower in age. Over 60 percent of TikTok users belong to Gen Z, with the platform often acting as a digital book club for teens, by teens. In the ’80s, buyers of romance fiction were most likely to be female, married, and between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four. However, recent data shows that BookTok has expanded the romance audience demographic. Females between thirteen and thirty-four were the biggest book buyers in 2022, accounting for eighty-three million sales, illustrating that the audience age range for romance has significantly changed and expanded, especially since the popularity garnered through the advent of social media.
Due to the illustrated, cartoon-like cover trend that social media has driven, there is a disconnect between books promoted by BookTok and their intended audience. The demographic of BookTok runs lower, and though there are spaces for adult content creators and adult audiences, most users are young adults. Several BookTok recommendation lists do not feature a clear YA collection.
The Goodreads list on best BookTok recommended romance novels features only one YA title, Better Than the Movies. I could not identify a YA title on the Barnes & Noble Romance BookTok list, though several titles resembled YA covers and could easily be mistaken for YA romance. One example is Icebreaker, which has a cover indistinguishable from YA covers and features ambiguous character ages, but it is notorious for its spice level, demonstrating that in blending with this trend, the cover fails to market the book to the right audience. The Kobo e-reader BookTok romance list illustrates the same issue. With recommendations of primarily adult titles with various spice ratings, the covers do not indicate audience as they represent the illustration trend common in the YA genre.
While the illustrated cover trend has had positive impacts—such as the increased potential for diversity—the trend creates a disconnect in the function and purpose of the cover as a marketing tool to the audience. The continued shift toward illustrated covers appeals to a younger audience, emulating the popularity of the same trend in YA, causing confusion and misinterpretation of the intended audience for these books. This is a concerning failure to match content with audiences as social media such as BookTok picks up adult romance books, including those with high levels of spice content, and promotes them to the primarily YA audience.
~Araliya Dooldeniya
* The image for this post contains four adult romances and four young adult romances from the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards. Can you spot the difference?
Back Matter
Source: https://www.pastemagazine.com/books/fiction/cartoon-romance-covers-booktok-publishing-trend#:~:text=If%20something%20looks%20good%2C%20it,%2Dthreatening%2C%20and%20unabashedly%20feminine.
Fact: Rachel Ake Keuch’s quote on Instagram-friendly shift in design concerns.
Source: https://www.pastemagazine.com/books/fiction/cartoon-romance-covers-booktok-publishing-trend#:~:text=If%20something%20looks%20good%2C%20it,%2Dthreatening%2C%20and%20unabashedly%20feminine.
Fact: That an illustrated couple is less intimidating than a shirtless hunk in a clinch pose to readers new to romance.
Source: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/adult-announcements/article/93647-how-tiktok-has-transformed-romance-publishing.html
Fact: SpicyTok presents erotic romances in a fresh, contemporary, and modern way.
Source: https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.1199
Fact: BookTok is a digital bookclub for teens, by teens.
Source: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41811094
Fact: Romance buyer demographics in the 80s and comparatively in 2022.
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/186119.Booktok_Romance_
Fact: Goodreads BookTok Romance recommended list.
Source: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/booktok/romance/_/N-2vdnZ17y3?Nrpp=20&page=4.
Fact: Barnes & Noble BookTok Romance recommended list.
Source: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/list/booktok-romance-books/NzRRMR1IdMsQOgjbFOxeXw?srsltid=AfmBOoqWf_wi1hoaTXcWDrN5cLlzT7_iznsn7-gUWLUFLS-Jm_MKCcmJ&pageNumber=3
Fact: Kobo BookTok Romance recommended list.