Hi Kate

Agreed it would have been better to get the whole jacket in, but it was quite a tricky one to fit into the space constraints. The full jacket can be seen here... http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Authors/8482/polly-courtney

Thanks, Katie

I bet Polly saw a proof of the jacket so she should not complain now. In any case we all need to bury the 'PC brigade' - such comments like these are unbecoming of mature adults. Sure the publishers like the publicity but in truth it is all pretty pathetic.

Well, I'm a woman and I don't understand what the fuss is about. I would say the jacket entirely reflects the subject of the book and is not at all exploitative. In fact, I think it's pretty tame given the subject. Are we really so uptight that we can get all wound up over a pair of shins?

Wow, well spotted! Can legs infringe on copyright? All the same, if I see one of my female colleagues sat like that (i.e. most of every day), should I tell her she's betraying the sisterhood? Should I tell her that flashing...gulp...a knee will set feminism back 20 years?

Polly published her first two novels through Matador, "Golden Handcuffs" and "Poles Apart", and a third title with us, "Defying Gravity", outside her contract with HC. We hope that she will return to self-publish with us again...

I love it - looks great and what a way to sell a book! Sexy cover and the author gets ticked off and starts a scandal.. although she now appears spoiled. It will be intriguing to see if the book becomes popular or not.

This jacket is clearly misleading readers, which means that ultimately it will result in lower sales, so it's not good for the publisher or the author. Here's one online review:

"It’s A Man’s World wasn’t the book I was expecting. Reading the synopsis, I expected a male vs female battle-of-the-sexes type novel where Alexa had to strive to make her mark in the male-dominated environment of Banter, a lads mag. And whilst Alexa does strive to make her mark, it was nowhere near how I expected it to be. Instead, It’s A Man’s World is one long, epic tale of how, frankly, lads mags are ruining the world. So where I was expecting a relatively lightish read, instead I get something more hard-hitting and something infinitely harder to take than I’d have liked."

The book's intended readers aren't going to pick it up with this jacket, and the people picking it up (expecting chick lit) aren't going to like it. The jacket is not just sexist, it's also bad marketing.

Perhaps the author wanted her cake and to eat it, and has finally realised that the large, mainstream publishers are in the business of making money, and that a book is a piece of merchandise to be packaged in a way that generates sales. If she wants to deliver a piece of literary art with a 'message' then she will have to try a suitable indie or take her chances with self-publishing and accept that her books will have a smaller market. You can't have it all ways.