The purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of book cover designs in how female representation and stereotypes are used for marketing purposes to reach their target audience. A semiotic image analysis is used to look at two cover designs for the book Jane Eyre: cover A published for an academic target audience in 2016, and cover B published for the general mass-market also in 2016. With theories of paratext and representation the analysis identifies the signs in these respective cover designs and what they communicate regarding their target audience and the woman represented on the cover. Cover A has no common stereotypes of female representation used in marketing and creates a perception of the book as reflective and critical. Cover B uses multiple female stereotypes and favors a perception of the book as more contemporary and stylistic than historical. The use of stereotypes as well as the emphasis on image versus text is found to be the biggest differences in how the book cover designs target their audience and market the book. For graphic design as an industry, this speaks for how important visual elements are in creating context and manipulating perceptions for marketing purposes.