starlight asked Kristen Ashley:

HI KIT!!!!! The question I wanted to ask you is how come you never use people in your book covers (except the Dream Man Series)? Not that I'm complaining because that is actually why I bought most your books in paperback (absolutely love the burg's Covers (a lot!!) ) . The fact that they don't have people in front of them is something that preserves the view of the character in my mind ( I hope I'm making sense.. lol)

Kristen Ashley I've been a reader of romance novels since I was very young. But, as I hope you've noticed, I have a vivid imagination. :-) And my PERSONAL experience is that I wasn't a big fan of having people on the book covers because they often took over what my thoughts of what the hero or heroine would look like. And sometimes, that wasn't a good thing. Sometimes, it even made me shy away from a book that I might have later gone back to and found I loved.

So when I started publishing, I made the decision that I didn't want folks on my book covers. I did it for that reason (and for another one, which I'll get into below). I wanted my readers to be able to make up their heroes and heroines all for themselves. I didn't want them to have preconceived notions. It was important to me that they made my couples personal to them, all theirs, and if, perchance, they wanted to put themselves in the place of the heroine, they could do so.

But also, this with putting heroines on the covers, it's crucial to me that I don't do anything to perpetrate any dangerous or damaging ideas of what a woman thinks beautiful, desirable women should look like. Many of my heroines have curvy bodies, are rather tall, or very petite, or have no ass. And all this is beautiful. I didn't want some impossible image of some impossible, flawless beauty on my covers. I wanted my readers to experience my women, see that their "flaws" and "imperfections," both inside and out, were nothing of the sort. They're all part of who the heroine is (who we all are) and there's beauty in them. Beauty a badass, good-looking hero not only does not miss, but adores.

It was my publisher's reissue of the Dream Man series (and the latter books in Chaos) that put folks on the covers. I understand this. I know not everyone is like me and they like to have a visual of who they're getting inside. And they did a pretty good job (though, to be honest, none of those covers looks like my idea of the heroes, but they aren't hard to look at!).

So that's why I don't do it. I want to do what I can to help your imagination soar high -- to give you what YOU want -- and allow you to personalize my books that way.

Hope that makes sense!

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