Ditch sexist pink book covers as they are putting boys off 'gritty' books, says leading authors By Emily Davies British writer Jacqueline Wilson is among those calling for an end to sexist books covers Female authors have called for an end to sexist book covers which promote their novels as 'girly' in order to boost sales regardless of the plot. British children's author Dame Jacqueline Wilson said publishers were 'pigeonholing' girls by using pink covers and deterring boys from reading them. Dame Wilson said books with gritty themes - such as hers whose plots feature children in care, divorce, death and families faced with eviction - are made to seem 'sugary' with pink covers. She echoed the frustration of American writer Maureen Johnson, who said books written by women were marketed differently to those written by men. Johnson expressed dissatisfaction with the cover of her book This is the Key to the Golden Firebird which deals with themes of family grief. Its front cover has a hot pink background, a heart and an attractive teenage model with the title printed in a swirling font. Johnson sparked a Twitter experiment where fans took books written by men and created mock covers that might have been used had the stories been written by women. The examples include a smiling blonde in a pastel green dress for Carrie by Stephen King, a close-up image of an attractive woman wearing lipstick for Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and a sunny image of a palm tree on a baby blue background for Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane. Jack Kerouac's black cover for On the Road was transformed to show a carefree young woman poking her head out of a vintage car. American author Maureen Johnson created mock covers to highlight the sexism seen in covers of books written by women. Here we can see how Jack Kerouac's classic beat novel, One The Road (left) would look if it was written by a woman (right) Stephen King's classic horror story Carrie (left) is reimagined by Maureen Johnson (right) as a female novel Johnson lamented on the social networking site: 'I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says: "Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it - signed, A Guy."' Author Amanda Hocking agreed with the sentiments of Johnson and Wilson. On her blog she wrote that she takes issue with books about 'serious subjects' written by women being given 'girly chick-lit covers and glib titles' when those written by men are not. The so-called 'pink plague' has been highlighted in recent years and in 2011 British author Polly Courtney left publisher HarperCollins after her novels were given 'condescending and fluffy' covers. Her third book It's a Man's World, which follows the story of a female journalist tackling chauvinists when working at a lad's mag, was given a front cover showing the legs of a woman wearing heels and the tagline: 'but it takes a woman to run it'. How Clockwork Orange would look if it was written by Antonia Burgess (right) instead of Anthony Burgess (left)