I'm a member of a closed group for writers on Facebook. A few days ago, another member boasted that - after no sales on Amazon - he changed the title, author's name, and cover image of his e-book and it started selling.
I've just posted the following comment (I can't separate paragraphs in Facebook comments):
"So, you feel that it's perfectly alright to use a "sexy" image of a headless woman (like a piece of meat) to sell your book. +++ 380 members of Russia's parliament feel that it's perfectly alright for men to beat their wives. They've just decriminalised wife-beating (the vote was 380-3!!!) +++ Thousands of Spanish men feel that it's perfectly alright to kill women with whom they have personal problems. (There's a Spanish saying: "I killed her because she was mine.") So far this year (as of 20th Feb.), 11 of them have carried through. +++ Donald Trump feels that it's perfectly alright - FOR HIM - to make a grab at any woman's genitals. *** Just 4 points on the nasty, sleazy spectrum of misogyny. At least now I'll know to avoid any books by Scott Butcher / Tabitha Scott. But don't worry! You'll get the readers that you deserve."
What do the rest of you think? Is everything permissible to get people to buy your book?
To show a woman in lingerie without showing her head is to turn her into an object: a piece of meat as Jimmy says.
Objectifying People of Colour or - for example - Jews would not be tolerated by a writers' group... or society in general.
However (inside information here), in Jimmy's FB writers' group, members were falling all over themselves to congratulate Butcher for his "clever" marketing tactics.
Women were the very first group to suffer from discrimination. Long after all other forms of discrimination have been banned, we will be the last.
Mr. Butcher (apposite name!) alias Tabitha went on to flaunt the cover that "I've already designed for book 2 in the series!" ( this was after I'd posted 2 earlier, milder criticisms of his "new, improved" cover.
Book 2 will have TWO "sexy" headless women.
I was about to make a joke about volume 15... But, really, this is not a joking matter.
Perhaps I should clarify: the woman wasn't headless because it was a murder mystery. It was the IMAGE that had been cropped.
It reminded me of "Readers' Wives", that excellent poem by John Cooper Clarke:
"All the required apparatus
Too bad they couldn't fit her head in"