It's been a year of discussing cover art, everything from the model poses to racial depictions to current trends. We've mocked art, we've criticized it, we've ogled it, and we've even tried to reproduce it. Today, though, we're simply admiring what happens when cover art goes right. So here we are, with what I find to be the prettiest and most ( Read more... )

So we often do a lot of discussing of cover art here, and on occasion I've been accused of missing the point or obsessing over unimportant details in this regard. I'll admit, we've got a lot of cover commentary and discussing going on. I mean, pretty well every review has some form of cover commentary in it, and I have a fairly well-used tag ( Read more... )

We spend a lot of time discussing cover art here, both in general and specific terms (ie: dissecting cover trends versus commentary on the book being reviewed). Occasionally I get some flack for this, people accusing me of not understanding how the publishing industry works. Yes, it's absolutely true that unless you are self-published or have ( Read more... )

Ever since I posted photos of myself contorted in ridiculous cover art poses for both fantasy and romance, people have poked at me wondering if I'll do another one or if I'd be willing to do [insert specific cover here]. After those two posts and the one focused on YA covers, I'm not sure I have anything new to say on the subject, but since the ( Read more... )

So judging from a few recent comments, it's been long enough since I did a big full rant on my dislike of headless book covers that people have either forgotten or not had a chance to read it. The epidemic of cover models with bodies but no heads continues to spread, and continues to annoy me, so let's have it out here.

Look, I know exactly why ( Read more... )

Today I don't have a real blog post. Really I just want to point everyone over to Kate Hart, where she's got some amazing infographics about YA cover art in 2011. Most important are the parts about depictions of minorities in cover art. (Hint: the numbers are dismal ( Read more... )

Oh, good! This is just exactly what the world needed: more covers with white people on them. Look, it doesn't matter that the character in the book is repeatedly described as having non-white features, we can just ignore that because we just don't have enough white people gracing the covers of novels. We'll shoehorn those invisible and oppressed ( Read more... )

Hey, guys! It's clearly time to discuss cover art again! Sorry, there's no new photoshoot to go with this post, because I don't think today's subject needs much help to emphasize itself ( Read more... )

About a month ago, I did a post about gender and cover art in the urban fantasy genre. I'm not sure it's something I can sum up in just a few words, but someone on twitter rightfully commented that my choice of language covered it all: men are in stances, women are in poses. Men are portrayed as strong, confident, and competent. Women are sexy ( Read more... )

And here it is! The very long and image-heavy post nobody asked for, but that's what you get today. But look, it took me forever to put together and hurt my back and I did it all for you, so you should at least humour me and glance over it, right? Right.

As mentioned yesterday, I took some inspiration from Jim C Hines's Striking A Pose blog ( Read more... )