Chick lit book covers are putting men off, says author

PINK, glittery book covers are putting readers off works by female authors and should be made more gender-neutral, a bestselling novelist has said.

Jojo Moyes, who wrote Me Before You and its sequels, said the public did not want to read novels that were marketed to women with clichéd cover designs.

Ms Moyes said she had been “lucky to get a wider audience”, thanks to covers that appealed to male as well as female readers.

“So many women who write about quite difficult issues are lumped under the ‘chick lit’ umbrella,” she told the BBC. “It’s so reductive and disappointing – it puts off readers who might otherwise enjoy them.

“If it was up to me, we would all discover things in a huge massive jumble.

“The boundaries are being blurred, with women writing domestic noir and thrillers. Supermarkets wanted things that are easily categorised, but people don’t want to read something pink and glittery.”

Several female authors have insisted their books are marketed differently. In 2014, Jodi Picoult argued that many books considered as great works of art by men would be put within “pink fluffy” covers if they had been written by a woman.

In 2015, Joanne Harris highlighted a “growing gender division” in fiction, which saw a “sea of pastel-pink in the romance section (as if men were neither interested in romance, nor expected to participate in romantic relationships)”.