What if literary fiction books had sexy covers?

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Dame Margarate Drabble, the respected British author -- she’s written 17 novels, seven works of nonfiction earned a CBE in the process -- spoke recently at Cambridge about her sometimes uncomfortable place in publishing. Clarifying her remarks, she told the Independent, ‘I write literary novels but I can sense my publishers have difficulty in selling me as a genre ... whether in literary fiction, or women’s fiction or shopping fiction. They don’t quite know whether I’m highbrow or literary.’

Earlier this year, Sue Hepworth’s novel ‘Zuzu’s Petals’ was caught in much the dilemma; the book is a work of literary fiction with female characters. The publisher’s initial cover design -- a pastoral with white flowers -- received lukewarm reception; an updated version with girly illustrations that look like a slightly quirky Saks ad did much better (Galleycat has a side-by-side comparison). The second cover didn’t really reflect characters in the book, who are older and don’t spend a lot of time strutting with stylish purses, but at least it captured readers’ attention.

Inspired by the idea that writers of literary fiction could use a genre boost, Canadian literary site Bookninja has launched a silly contest. George, one of the site’s proprietors, writes:

That’s his handiwork above, at right, compared with a genuine 2004 edition of Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved.’ He’s taken extreme artistic liberties (there’s no atomic explosion over an urban area in my edition of the book), but I guess that’s the point. Break out the Photoshop. Maybe a nuclear submarine for the cover of ‘Ulysses’? Or some rumpled satin sheets?

-- Carolyn Kellogg