Like this image I made of covers with girls in dress? Please pin it!
I was just browsing through the bestsellers in teen/fantasy on Kindle and noticed a trend in book cover design: girls in fancy dress. This is nothing new, but other people have talked about cliches in YA fiction book cover design, the implication being that cliches are bad somehow.
But look, these aren’t just decent YA fantasy covers, these are some of the bestselling books in the whole genre. It should tell you something that about 50% of books in the genre have very similar covers:
- A woman in a dress, usually from the back (or side, sometimes forward)
- Often an ocean, lake or forest in the background
YA is a popular genre, and there are probably about a million other books that aren’t bestsellers. Good book design does whatever is most attractive to readers; YA fantasy books use covers like this because it’s an easy win.
Why the girl-in-a-dress cover works
They’re beautiful. The nature can symbolize fear, being overwhelmed or lost, and freedom. The ocean is a psychological representation of sex and sexuality (though most people don’t know it: if you think of a body of water, then write down 3 adjectives about it, those are usually your feelings towards sex).
The pretty dresses are because most girls want to feel beautiful and enjoy dressing up (but also being wild and free and taking that nice dress and running through the mud with it).
Those are some of the same feelings that YA fantasy addresses.
If you are designing a cover yourself, my post on DIY book cover templates is the place to start. And if watery covers are your thing, there is a whole post on YA mermaid romance books.
What the dress and the water are telling the reader
In my view, a girl in a dress on a fantasy cover says three things before the reader opens the book. She is the main character. She is in a world with rules and beauty and probably danger. And she is about to run, fight or fall in love, often all three. The dress does the work of making her relatable and the landscape does the work of making the story epic.
That is why the trend survives. It is not laziness, it is a shortcut that readers have learned to read.
When the trend stops working
The look only fails when it is the whole idea. A girl in a dress against a forest tells the reader nothing new if every other cover on the shelf says the same. The covers that stand out keep one signal and change the rest: a different pose, a bolder color, a detail that hints at the plot. If you are making your own, pick the one signal you want and make it yours.
FAQ About Girl-in-a-Dress Covers
Q: Why do so many YA fantasy covers have a girl in a dress?
A: In my view, because it works. The dress signals a female lead and a world of beauty and danger, and the landscape signals scale and emotion. Readers have learned to read it in a second.
Q: Is the girl-in-a-dress cover a cliche?
A: It is a convention, and conventions sell. The covers that get remembered use the convention and then break one part of it.
Where to go next
If you want more examples of the authors behind these covers, see my list of best YA fantasy authors. And if you are writing your own fantasy novel, the writing and publishing advice for fiction authors hub collects the posts on craft, covers and publishing.
What do you think? Sick of these kinds of covers, or do you ooh and awe whenever the latest, most beautiful one is revealed?
WORK IN PROGRESS...
