Black vs. White Covers

Author Justine Balestier writes about the ARC* cover of her book, 'Liar', misrepresenting her protagonist. Justine's main character is black, but the US cover showed a white girl**.

This post is about a lot of things: how much say authors get regarding the covers of their books (not much), how common a problem 'white-washing' book covers is, how unwelcoming it is for young black readers to walk into a YA section and only find white faces on covers.



* ARC stands for 'Advance Reader Copy'.
** There is a new cover now.