I was going to say that the animal on the cover ought to be a human, given that furries (et. al.) are animals of a sort, and what’s on the cover should be “opposite” somehow to the reader, but then I realised that the book is for someone who presumably isn’t a furry, and so the cover should indeed be some kind of animal.
The potential problem is that the animal should be entirely unrelated. The wolf (dog? canid?) is thus a bad choice because - from what little I’ve seen - canids seem to be pretty common preferences*. Thus it ideally should be an animal that it’s incredibly unlikely anyone would identify with. Or as.
Thus, may I suggest: a paramecium
* I’m not sure “preference” is the right word here. I may need a copy of this book.
In an online study, we collected information on more than 6,000 distinct fursonas, which were categorized into 852 unique species (which were subsequently organized for ease of presentation.)2
Many of the species listed were unique and, as such, cannot be presented in order to preserve the anonymity of our participants. In the figures that follow, such species are aggregated in the “other” categories for the most relevant group.
First, we present the data for all species. We then proceed with a group-by-group breakdown of popular categories. Within each category, “unspecified” means that the species was simply identified as the category (e.g., within the “wolf” category analysis, “unspecified” refers to people who just put “wolf” rather than any specific breed/type of wolf).
Please note that this category breakdown is not meant to reflect biological taxonomy or cladistics, but is instead meant to be a close approximation of how groups of similar species “clustered” together (e.g., the authors know that a wolverine and a badger are not “rodents,” but included them in with “small furry mammals” for ease of analysis).
Hybrid is #1, at over 14%. Then Wolf, also a bit over 14%. Then Fox, a bit over 10%. Then Dog, at 9%. The only other non-other canid category is “canine”, at about half a percent.
So say on the order of half of the fandom at most, if you assume Hybrid and Other are mostly canine. Maybe as low as a third.
I was going to say that the animal on the cover ought to be a human, given that furries (et. al.) are animals of a sort, and what’s on the cover should be “opposite” somehow to the reader, but then I realised that the book is for someone who presumably isn’t a furry, and so the cover should indeed be some kind of animal.
The potential problem is that the animal should be entirely unrelated. The wolf (dog? canid?) is thus a bad choice because - from what little I’ve seen - canids seem to be pretty common preferences*. Thus it ideally should be an animal that it’s incredibly unlikely anyone would identify with. Or as.
Thus, may I suggest: a paramecium
* I’m not sure “preference” is the right word here. I may need a copy of this book.
https://furscience.com/research-findings/fursonas/3-1-species-popularity/
Hybrid is #1, at over 14%. Then Wolf, also a bit over 14%. Then Fox, a bit over 10%. Then Dog, at 9%. The only other non-other canid category is “canine”, at about half a percent.
So say on the order of half of the fandom at most, if you assume Hybrid and Other are mostly canine. Maybe as low as a third.