Yes, this is another blog about the phenomenon that is Susan Boyle.

Yes, I may somehow tie it into book covers.

Yes, I think Simon Cowell’s shirts are too tight, but lets stay on topic.

This whole Susan Boyle thing—the dowdy forty-something with the voice of an angel—is such a surprise to me. Not that she can sing. I don’t get why people are so surprised she can sing.

Sure, the lady isn’t going to win a Pamela Anderson look-alike-contest anytime soon (and if that is a real event, save us all). But so what? Does that diminish her gift?

I watched with a mixture of sorrow and triumph (if you’ve been living under a rock this week, here’s the link. Also, I hope it was a cozy rock.). Sorrow not for Susan, but sorrow for the stupid snap judgments I make, we all make, that lead a person to believe they’re limited because their packaging isn’t right. That such dreams die before they can begin.

Yet, today I went to my local Supercuts (you already know this will not end well). As I was signing in, I took a quick inventory of the stylists. One woman had feathered bangs and stonewashed jeans. The other one was young and cute with good style. I went with her.

Why? Because she looked better. Her appearance made me believe that she was more capable. I did not consider that her youth might mean she’d only graduated hair school LAST WEEK. That straight lines are something you master many months into the job, leaving me with a nice little point in my shoulder-length hair. When she completed her—for lack of a better word—style, stonewash lady had to come over and fix it. And I STILL have to go back in tomorrow and point out my point.

Scissor skills, talent, ability, passion, intelligence… these things are not correlated to appearance. Right?  A line from the Broadway musical Wicked sums it up best…

“It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed, so it’s very shrewd to beeeeee very, very popular like me!”

This all said, you must understand what a nightmare book covers can be for authors. Between those pages you’ll find our secrets, desires, and ponderings. Yet we often have little or no control over the design. Our look. That is someone else’s job, and we must say our writerly prayers they do it well.  There is no talent show for us to call out our words, to expose the lyrical prose and snappy dialogue hidden behind the cover. Sure, reviews and awards and buzz all help, but for that browser, we are our covers. If we pass that test, we become our jacket flap. Then the first page. We’re only a few notes in, but that is our audition. Buyer buys or buyer moves on.

So I tried something new today. After seeing the error of my ways at the beauty salon (again, I use that term loosely), I visited the bookstore and bought a book with a cover I didn’t like. Once more, I read the first five pages of each book I picked up, hoping to give each author a fair shot. It took awhile, but oh, what a fun experiment for me–the girl who likes the pretty books.  I ended up with a YA literary novel with a yawn-inducing cover and already love this book (not going to tell you which one! Yawn-inducing ain’t much of a compliment). Perspective broadened.

So thank you, Susan Boyle. I hope they don’t do anything to your eyebrows when they makeover the contestants. We need a lot more of your beauty in this world and looks like I need a lot more books by this new-to-me author on my shelf.