50 Shades Of Blond for Anne of Green Gables?
Anne of Green Gables is the book for me. I love Anne with an E; her red pigtails getting pulled by future husband Gilbert, her tart tongue and propensity to talk herself into and out of trouble. She is the heroine of my childhood and untouchable.
So, when Today's Parent blogged on a new smutty book cover for my favourite heroine, I was dismayed. How could they turn Anne from a carrot-top into a strawberry blond? Why would they?
To sell more copies of course.
It turns out that this particular Anne of Green Gables collection is self-published on Amazon through their CreateSpace self-publishing program. So it's not going to be in a bookstore near you anytime soon. (Unless the amount of publicity drives it there.)
Anne of Green Gables isn't exactly a Young Adult novel, so the marketer was wrong to position it that way. But they weren't wrong to position a YA adult book with a come-hither look on the cover.
Have you checked out the YA books at your local bookstore? They are full of trampy, sexy dark imagery. I don't know if that is what teens are looking for, but it is definitely what they are used to.
But it begs the question: should marketers be doing anything they can to sell books? Does the end justify the means? Or should they leave the classics undisturbed?
I know one thing: Anne Shirley would have been dismayed.
Want more chaos? Last year, I wrote about the most common things parents say to their kids.
Image credit: Amazon.com
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