BookMachine | Imaginative Space: The role of the faceless model on fiction book covers

Another fortnight, another BookMachine column! This time, it’s all about the faceless model on bookcovers and how marketing with imaginative space separates Publishing from other industries. Read the full article over on the BookMachine blog – but here’s a taster to get you started:

There is a growing tradition in book publishing to use faceless models on book covers. Tried and tested, models whose faces are hidden are good at selling books. But what’s the psychological process behind this trend? What are the consequences of this marketing method for the reader and should we be keeping an eye on them?

Faceless models in advertising

Advertising is a 100 million dollar a year industry. On average, we are exposed to 2000 adverts a day. The use of faceless models in advertising is on the increase, however it can often objectify the body, in particular the female body.

The trend to use only parts of a models’ body, such as their legs or backs, and excluding their face or head, has become known as the ‘dismemberment of women in the media’. Images like these turn models into canvases for a product, and by excluding their heads or faces serve to dehumanize them. A famous example was the Lynx advert featuring a women’s torso in a bikini covered in dirt, with ‘wash me’ written across her stomach to equate her to a car. [READ MORE]