Don’t Be Mislead. These Dandelions Are Brutes

An observant reader pointed something out to me this week:

Based on my book’s cover–which sports the not-so-masculine fuzzy tuft of a dandelion–a reader might assume my book is chick lit.

(Gag)

BUT…

The reader noted, something challenged his first impression:
MOST OF THE ENDORSERS INSIDE THE FRONT FLAP ARE…MEN.

So what’s the deal? He asked. Spill it, which bathroom should this book be being taken into when someone needs to kill some time on the pot?

Does it belong behind the door with the little stick man or the little stick woman?

I LOVE that my book inspires such classy questions.

The answer is pretty mind boggling too.
Get ready for this now…

Picking Dandelions–despite the leaning toward feminine title–is for….both.

Your mind just blew, didn’t it?
Its okay. Take a deep breath.
I’ll give you a second to put your worldview back together.

Its true though.

The book is for anyone who thinks faith should involve change; who grasps that it’d be logical and smart (and even manly) to weed out the dysfunctional stuff of life to make more room for God’s goodness.

Besides, come on now, which one of you brawny men didn’t grow up plucking an occasional dandelion?

So why, you might wonder, did you paste a dandelion on the cover?
I asked that too.
The answer I was given? Most readers–some say as high as 72%–are women. (Read a couple articles about this at NPR and the Observer)
So we market to women.
And if the book has male appeal, it gets passed across the gender line.
From wives to husbands.
Brother to sister.
Female friend to male friend.

And the men find, lo and behold, that the book is not a handbook of makeup tips; nor do any long haired, muscular Romance novel figures appear in its pages. 

There is no Team Jake or Team Edward equivalent.

There is just Team Dandelion.

And the reader finds this dandelion, by the end, is no pansy. Its no wuss of a weed.

Its name, in fact, comes from the phrase Dent de Lion, the book points out, due to its leaves being sharp and jagged like a lion’s teeth…and due to the dandelion’s muscle power in cutting down the flowers around it.

The dandelion, as it turns out, is a brute force.

Its not, be warned, a weed for the weak.

Learn from the dandelion or the dandelion eats you for lunch.

:)

(DISCLAIMER: If you’re the tough type who is ready to engage change in your life, but you still can’t hack the flower-bound cover, feel free to contact me and I would be happy to send you some camouflage so no one thinks lesser of your muscle-bound toughness while you flip through the “dandelion book”.)

***

You can leave a comment for Sarah about this blog post or any other post by clicking on the brown comment box under the title.