Ah yes, the UK/US divide in covers. (Juliet McKenna has a whole folder of these - UK editions, usually epic, US edition, most of the time a single person and very often zoomed in a lot.)
Looking forward to this one. We need books about how to be good people in times of stress and danger.
I think fashions change--I remember epic-looking US covers being in vogue at one time, then going to the single-figure, while some people got "iconic" covers with an emblem or a sword or something. Some of my covers in the UK were close up of characters in action (the Paladin's Legacy covers, for instance, which also went for a very restricted palette. Gorgeous in their way.) But often the covers were deliberately *different* between the two editions. Someone cracked first, and the other saw their cover, and then reacted to it--or that was my interpretation.
Some readers like a scene, some like faces, some like weapons...I suspect publishers look at what sold best and try for something similiar.
I object to only a few things--one of which hits women writers of genres/subgenres that people think of a male-writer-territory. That's making the cover look "feminine" because wow, a female writer. I don't know if it's the Art Director, or Marketing, or what, but I know that Kings of the North in the US had a romance-male figure on the cover that a lot of my male readers complained about, and the original version of Dorrin on Crown of Renewal was a vamp in a low-cut scarlet dress with long flowing locks and holding, basically, an ankh. Had no luck getting a beard on Kieri, but threw a fit and got them to change Dorrin's clothes...what part of almost 50 year old mercenary commander and duke did they not comprehend??? There is no point in any of the books from Paks I on up where Dorrin wears a skirt, let alone a low-cut red gown with her frontage about to hang out. It would have turned off ALL my readers for the Paksworld books, men and women alike.
There's a bimbo on the cover of my book, there's a bimbo on the cover of my book...
Dorrin. Low-cut scarlet dress. Just no.
It's not a compliment to the female writer: it's a sign of the girl-cooties that must lurk within, fit to be read only by women - and that infuriates me.
And not only does this sort of thing turn off people who would have liked the book within, it annoys the people who would have liked the book they were promised and got a very different one, so no-one is happy. Bah. Wishing that your future covers are in the vein of these.
Looking forward to this one. We need books about how to be good people in times of stress and danger.
Reply
Some readers like a scene, some like faces, some like weapons...I suspect publishers look at what sold best and try for something similiar.
Reply
I suspect publishers look at what sold best and try for something similiar
Take it far enough and you get the million Urban Fantasy covers that looked completely identical, and then the pendulum swings again...
Reply
Reply
Dorrin. Low-cut scarlet dress. Just no.
It's not a compliment to the female writer: it's a sign of the girl-cooties that must lurk within, fit to be read only by women - and that infuriates me.
And not only does this sort of thing turn off people who would have liked the book within, it annoys the people who would have liked the book they were promised and got a very different one, so no-one is happy. Bah. Wishing that your future covers are in the vein of these.
Reply
Leave a comment