This past week we had a lot of fun with the covers nominated for the 3rd Ugly Covers competition – many of them were horrible and your comments reflected amazement that they were published. The question most frequently asked was ” What were they thinking”?
As some of you know, I get very exercised about cover art (probably the only exercise I get):) because I believe it is an essential part of the marketing process in selling a book. Much has been written elsewhere about book covers and we poke fun here at cover art and a few publishers which one anonymous reviewer said “are almost re-defining the concept of deliberate hideousness!” You will probably guess which publisher(s) she meant since you have seen many of their covers in the Ugly Covers competitions. It boggles my mind that some publishers release books with covers that, quite frankly, 
give new meaning to the word tasteless. One book cover that has been discussed on this site many times this past week is The Price of Temptation. I really don’t know what the publisher had in mind when this cover was published but it sure garnered lots of attention, which might have been the original intent.
Very few, if any, authors influence the selection of their book covers which is a pity, because covers seem to impact (positively or negatively) on book sales, and the authors are dependent on the income. Decisions re book covers are made by the Creative Directors, the marketing departments of individual publishers and, I suppose, the ultimate accountability rests with the publishers.
I’m restricting my comments here to M/M books, but het book covers are just as bad and I’m wondering if there’s a special school for cover artists to show them how to produce some of the abominations that pass for cover art these days. There are obviously many excellent cover artists – Anne Cain, April Martinez, Croco Designs, P.L. Nunn, Trace Edward Zaber, Scott Carpenter, Paul Richmond – to name just a few whose work I admire, and I know that there are many, many more who produce excellent work. M/M covers seem to range from man titty headless torsos, Poser art, the same overused cover models, one armed men, sometimes a guy with three arms (on a contemporary book cover)*g* and on and on and on.
Some of the contemporary covers I admire most are those on Jordan Castillo Price’s books. Here’s one –
I do understand that book covers can’t and won’t exactly represent what the story is all about but what if the tall, thin hero in the book is a bulky, muscular guy on the cover because muscle sells? Is that misrepresentation or marketing? Authors are asked to produce descriptions of their protagonists and a blurb for the cover artists, but no one knows whether this information goes into a big black hole, never to be seen again, because what emerges as the ultimate cover in most cases bears no resemblance to either the story or the blurb. Why are authors asked for this information as part of the process of coming up with cover designs for their books if they’re going to get the same old, same old? Whenever I ask this question of publishers the answer I get varies, but the most truthful one I’ve seen seems to be the following “the cover doesn’t illustrate the book. It’s a sales tool.” If covers are “sales tools” and are decided by the marketing department, why ask the authors for input? Is this just a PR exercise?
The last mini poll I ran on the blog several months ago indicated that 70% of M/M readers were either strongly or moderately influenced in their purchase decisions by book covers. Surely publishers have this same information from their own surveys, but maybe they interpret it differently! Why is it that so many excellent books end up with cheesy looking covers? One telling example is the first cover for Captain’s Surrender which many readers panned mercilessly. Here’s the original cover and the one on the re-released version of the book. The first cover was not offensive – it was just blah and didn’t say anything about what the book was all about – an Age of Sail romance - while the second one definitely says something about the story and would make any reader want to snap up the book.
original cover
updated cover
I know that there are issues around cost and budgetary constraints which each publisher faces, especially with the current state of the economy, but it should cost the same to produce an ugly cover as one that’s attractive, and in addition, says something about the book. Why hire a cover artist if the cover art has nothing to do with the book and is just a marketing tool? Would it not be cheaper to produce a whole bunch of the same covers and slap them on different books, regardless of the content? (Wait!! I think some of them do that already on their cheaper line of books which is fine because it holds the price down at $1.29 to $1.49)*g*
Here are a few covers that I like, that I’m sure they didn’t cost any more to commission than some that are truly horrendous!
Here are some that are on the flip side of the chart, IMO. The first one looks like the guys’ makeup went strange – I know they’re shifters but WOW; the second is a giant red (or burgundy) arm and 3/4 of a chest – no head; the third (Bad Boys) has an extra arm out of nowhere – maybe the guy is an alien); the 4th – a naked man on a book cover??? I thought that was a no no; #5 – another chihuahua against a background of two headless, bland looking torsos; and the last one is just a horrible cover. Not candidates for the Ugly Covers competition but certainly not art, at least not in my humble opinion.
Readers, what attracts you when you look at a book cover? Would you buy a book if the cover was really in poor taste? Would it make any difference if the book was print or ebook?
Authors, is cover art a hindrance or help in selling your books? One author was quite upset several months ago because there was a woman on the cover of her M/M book, giving the definite impression that the book was a menage, which made many M/M readers steer clear away from it. Have you had experiences where the cover art for your book was misleading and perhaps affected your sales negatively? On the flip side there was one author whose hero had three arms on the book cover and she used that mistake as a promotional gimmick.*g*
I know that some readers could care less about book covers and there are others who would buy a book just because it had a beautiful cover. Different strokes!
Looking forward to a lively debate.
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Not that I can think of the specific instances right now, but really bad cover art has definitely stopped me from buying a book before – even if that book was an ebook. Amber Quill and Loose Id seem to do a very good job overall, while Ellora’s Cave….. eep.
Chris
As you point out, bad cover art does sometimes deter readers from buying a book, or even going as far as to read the blurb. I know I have passed on many books because of the covers. In these cases I’m sorry for the authors who may have written wonderful books, only to be thwarted in terms of sales by a poor cover.
That new cover for Captain’s Surrender is a ten thousand perfect improvement. It’s not only beautiful but does tell you what’s going on, the ship, the guy in historical clothing, the nekkid guy letting you know there’s some steamy stuff but it’s not “in your face”. A fine example.
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I appreciate good cover art and am always up for mocking poor covers but I’m not sure I’ve ever NOT bought a book because of the art. Maybe. If it was for an author I buy regularly, then I’d likely grimace and go to the blurb and base my decision on that. I suppose however for a new author I might pass over because the cover (on the front page of a publishers’ site) is what I’m going to see first. I don’t get to read the blurb THEN see the cover, so yeah, I probably have passed some over but not in the sense that I’ve read the blurb and liked it but thought the cover was so hideous I just couldn’t buy it. That’s never happened.
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I do know however that a good cover has pulled me in. I may not know the author and even if the title is meh, I will likely have clicked on it just to see if I think the story will live up to the deliciousness of the cover. Now the problem is there is no universal definition of deliciousness. Some people love the naked torso, others hate it. I love anything with tattoos, others hate it. I imagine finding the fine line is difficult for designers, but for many of the books we find ugly it’s not the content, but how it’s put together that is the issue.
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So in the end if one of my auto-buy authors comes up with a super hideous cover, I will still buy the book. However for new authors who are trying to attract readers, it can very well put me off their books.
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I’ll just say that on Good Reads a member of the m/m group there did a pretend cover for one of Jordan Castillo’s Psycop books and it was really really well done. (Not that Jordan’s aren’t great anyway but it was pretty nice.) She found that Torquere is looking for cover artists and they offer $50 for e-book and $75 for print. Everyone thought that seemed great but I pointed her in the direction of an article that Alex Beecroft did on the GLBT Booshelf that explained about copyright and buying stock photography and sure for fun we simply google “hot guys” and use a picture and voila, a cool cover, but for a business that doesn’t work and $50 is peanuts if you are paying $45 for pictures and spending 5 hours searching for them plus 2 hours putting it together. Less than $1 an hour? Ummm. Not too many people can afford to work for that.
Tam
You make a number of excellent points.
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I have passed up on buying print books because of the covers. I only bought the original print version of Captain’s Surrender because I had heard great things about it so I held my nose and bought it. However almost every reviewer on amazon panned the cover and I’m pretty sure some potential buyers were turned off. The winner of the 3rd Ugly Covers competition is an excellent example of a book I would not buy, no matter how much I wanted to read it if it were any good.
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Copyright is a huge issue – you can’t just pick up a picture and decide to use it without checking out the ownership and paying the appropriate fees. No legitmate publisher would allow that because it could potentially cost them thousands of dollars to settle lawsuits. Many authors have asked me about the origins of some of the photos on the site and I do try to help if I know the source. However all legit. cover artists have their own stock photos for which they have paid a licensing fee so that’s not what I’m talking about here.
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My understanding is that publishers pay approximately $150 (could be a little more or less) for cover art which I think is a reasonable amount. What I have a few issues with is what the final result for that financial outlay looks like. Every artist has his or her bad days and sometimes a really good cover artist will produce an awful (at least to me) cover. I have a couple of examples here.
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Based on what we’re both saying, it seems that bad cover art does hinder book sales if it’s a “new to you” author.
$150 is top of the range as far as covers go. My impression, as someone who does a bit of cover art, is that the typical price is somewhere between $50 and $75, and the cover artist pays for the stock photos out of that fee.
This explains, of course, why so many of the same models turn up on lots of different covers. There simply isn’t a big pool of affordable stock photos, and if you want a gay embrace or an interesting face, the pool gets even smaller.
There are some free photos available on Wikimedia and on Flikr, but a) the resolution is often too low to make them usable, and b) their legal/copyright situation is often unclear. Bigger stock photo sites, or more specific stock photo sites such as gaystock are set up to deal with large corporations, not impoverished small publishers, and their prices can start in the $500s and easily go up to $1000s.
So, finding pictures of young men who look anything what the author imagines the hero to look like, can be all but impossible. And sometimes even if you’ve found the perfect photo, you’ll suddenly discover that someone else has used it first.
LOVE Alex’s new cover! Tam’s assessment was spot on.
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Wave, I totally agree with your list of graphic artists/designers who know their stuff. (Some of Croco’s material just blows me away!) I do disagree, though, with a couple of your examples. Aesthetic judgment is intensely subjective.
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Never would I let a cover put me off a book IF the book were in a genre that interests me. Cover is completely separate from content, but it does need to convey a sense of content.
That sad-faced child on “Mute Witness,” for example, would throw me off if I were book shopping. It isn’t indicative of what I’m looking for. So, if I weren’t familiar with Rick Reed, I’d pass it up without a second look.
KZ
I think what most of us are saying is that covers do play a role (pro and con) in book purchases.
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For example, that sad faced child on Mute Witness made me want to check out the blurb to find out what the story was all about, which is the first step if you’re going to buy a book. If the reader doesn’t even get that far, then it’s unlikely that they’ll buy the book unless the author is on their auto buy list.
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I HAVE passed on books because of the covers because I wouldn’t want them on my bookshelf or carry them around with me in public places. On the other hand I have bought books (I’m very ashamed to admit this) *g* because the cover was so beautiful I couldn’t help mysdelf.
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I understand that art is personal in terms of likes and dislikes and book covers are supposed to be art. My list of good covers would not be someone else’s, but my point is that it costs just as much to produce ugly covers as it does to commission something more in line with what the book is about.
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Publishers spend a lot of money on hordes of different types of editors, software, website development and maintenance, lawyers (who write their contracts), royalty payments to authors, and on and on, yet the book cover which is the first part of this whole process that the reader sees is the one area that doesn’t seem to get much attention or investment. Infrastructure costs don’t matter a hill of beans if readers won’t buy the books because of crappy covers.
I definitely *have* not bought a book because of the cover and that book was Ransom by Lee Rowan – the original cover was this:
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http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/mas_assets/full/parent-9781905393718.jpg
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I’d seen it on the gay romance lists here and there and simply didn’t want to know – it was only when it was offered to readers as “buy these two for xxx price” with Standish that I was curious enough to click on it and find out why it was being offered with a regency book.
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So yes, it makes a difference to me, and I’m sure some people who say they aren’t influenced are, even without being aware of it. There’s more going on subliminally than we will ever know.
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As I’ve said before, a book should be it’s own advertisement. That’s the point of it. Yes, it’s to make want to pick it up in the first place, but after that it’s its own little walking billboard (for paper books at least) and if you are ashamed to take it out of the bedroom, let alone out of the house, if you have to disguise it in the dust jacket for the latest Pratchett so you can read it on the train, then all you are doing is making Mr Pratchett a little bit richer.
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I think it’s about time publishers realised this, and started paying decent money–and let’s be frank, we aren’t talking thousands here–for a good few hours of someone’s time. Or perhaps ask cover artists to submit work for titles and blurbs – work to order as it were, and offer fixed “prize money” for the successful artist.
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Many small presses in the gay romance world were started by disgrunted and frustrated authors who couldn’t sell their books, and they were started by groups of friends. Often one of those friends was given the art job because they were the best at “that graphic stuff” and after a while no-one likes to take the job away from them. They aren’t getting paid for the covers, perhaps, and they are part of the company, so it’s cheaper all round – and if the covers are a bit crap, well, the books sell, don’t they?
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An an author, I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had a lot of input into my covers. I designed the cover of Standish and together with Charlie, Lee we cobbled together the first incarnation of Speak Its Name for Linden Bay (reining in the cover guru there’s obsession with “naked men under any circs”).
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When Alex revamped the cover for Cheyenne the books were flying off the shelves even though the book was a reprint.
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I had no input at all on the first Frost Fair cover which was truly awful and said “naked men freezing to death” not “regency historical”
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The new cover – by Alex – REALLY gives a punch. It may not shout “gay” but it says a lot more imho.
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Linden Bay’s budget for covers was $50 – and it showed. $150? We should be so lucky.
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As for the monstrosity that is Night Moves – well, you know how I feel about that. It’s a vile cover – I had absolutely no input into the cover, not a questionnaire, nothing. Just a fait accompli – and it’s not sold. I think it sells one copy a month, if I’m lucky. You’ll never ever convince me that covers don’t influence people, because there are some damn good stories in that anthology.
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Despite the badger in the trousers – I think that Seventh Window had the right idea when it came to covers – or at least some kind of covers. More windswept men on horses clutching other windswept men – it doesn’t do het romance any harm. The only people who stop that kind of cover being produced are the prudes who find gay love offensive, after all. The same prudes who said that Transgressions and False Colors didn’t belong in the romance section–no matter HOW tasteful their covers were.
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Ok. I’ll stop ranting now.It’s my only exercise too.
Erastes
I never saw that cover for Ransom. Oh my! Lee must be so pleased with the new covers from Bristlecone Pine Press and Cheyenne.
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You’re quite right that a book cover is a walking billboard for the book, just like restaurant ads or movie trailers, and if you’re turned off you’ll never be a customer of that eating establishment or go to see the movie.
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Being in a different area of marketing I can understand the cost benefit issues that face publishers, but they should realize that investment in good quality covers provide a return that’s 100% more than the original sunk cost. The important point that they are missing is that horrible covers do affect book sales and ultimately authors’ royalties.
Since I discovered ebooks, I try not to judge a book by its cover. But I have to admit that I’m less tempted to check the book out if the cover is really ugly.
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Wave you said “Would it not be cheaper to produce a whole bunch of the same covers and slap them on different books, regardless of the content?” It’s probably cheaper for them but I’m tempted to say that it would show in the sales of other books. I bought a book this summer and didn’t realise the first three times I went back on the site, that the cover that still showed up in the new release section were two different books.
Elyane
In the cases you mentioned they probably hoped that the readers wouldn’t notice they were using the same cover for different books.
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It does make a difference, I think, between buying a print book and an ebook, although the cost difference between the two is getting narrower every day. There are publishers (Penguin) that sell ebooks for the same $16.95 that it costs for the print books
Wave – regarding what you said about slapping the same covers on – some publishers already take this approach, particularly for their short stories, where it would be impossible to have a fresh cover for each 40 page story, Dreamspinner do it, and so do Torquere.
I agree, Sips and Single Shots and a variety of others (including the guy with the weird elbow in the air) are used on many stories. Hard to come up with individual covers economically for a 10 page story sold for $1.49. But as long as I KNOW, then I do look for author and short blurb to see if I’m interested in that book. They probably sell better than if they had individual ugly covers. I bought a Sip and a Single Shot yesterday based entirely on the authors. But I’d hate EVERY book at Torquere to carry the same cover, covers are part of the appeal of a book and I like to see variety. I just want “nice” variety, not at any cost.
Erastes and Tam
When I said facetiously that they should just slap the same covers on books I didn’t mean to include the Sips, Spurs and Saddles, and some of the DSP covers that are sold for $1.29 – $1.49. Obviously publishers can’t invest in cover artists for these books because the economies of scale would not be realized, and we would end up paying a lot more for them. What I’m talking about is novellas and novels where cover artists are hired to come up with a suitable cover.
I am thrilled to see two Cheyenne/Bristlecone Pine Press covers on your list of “covers I like,” Wave (Speak Its Name, Hidden Conflict). We did give the authors lots of input into the design and at one point we all almost came to blows over some of the images and layout, but the fact that you selected them is a nice validation for all our heated discussion.
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I just received my print copy of The Golden Age of Gay Fiction (gorgeous! absolutely gorgeous!) and I am loving looking at the pictures of the covers in there. It is so much better than looking at the PDF. In fact, I just ordered two books for the classic reviews (Prisoner Confidential and A Queer Kind of Death) based largely on the cover illustrations. They caught my eye, the rest of the description sounded intriguing and I ordered them up. Between this book and one-click at Amazon, I could quickly go broke. LOL.
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Leslie
Those are marvellous covers, IMO. The new covers for Lee Rowan’s Royal Navy Series are wonderful as well.
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I think giving the authors a voice makes them feel part of the process. The books are, after all, their blood, sweat and tears and represent many sleepless nights. The publishers will still have the final word but the authors won’t feel so helpless.
(reply to Wave) I’m not sure asking authors for input makes us feel part of the process–not when the input is disregarded. In some cases I think it’s just so the publisher can say ‘the author had input.’ Input that’s ignored is worse than none at all.
Lee
That’s one of the important points I was trying to make! DON’T ask the author for input, have them go to all the work involved, if you’re going to ignore their input. It does seem like a PR exercise on the part of pubs. who can’t be bothered to use the information they requested.
Wave, great post! I agree with you on the importance of cover art. Like Tam I’ve passed over books by an author I don’t know if the cover art looks bad. A couple of publishers feature art that consistently makes me avoid their websites.
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Most cover art I can tolerate even if little things start to seem cliché like the close-ups of the naked man-chest we always see. But I’ll admit that little persnickety inconsistencies bother me such as if it’s an interracial romance and yet we get two naked white man-chests on the cover, ha, ha! Something else that bothers me is when I see the same cover-model or stock-photography image show up on two or three different covers. It’s especially weird when it’s the same model because I’ve imprinted on his face as belonging to the character in the book on whose cover I first saw him.
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What attracts me to book covers: good harmonious use of appealing colors (especially in the rose and blue spectrum), a clear font for the title, and simplicity in the design. I don’t like a really busy cover with several different things stuffed in it (for example, two guys kissing in close up, a still-life arrangement, and a setting sun all arranged on the same cover). A landscape with a one or two guys seen in the medium-distance is fine with me.
Weirdest one I got had a woman on the front. Because of the “busyness” of the picture I didn’t realize there was a blonde woman on the cover. So I’m reading and thinking maybe I bought myself and m/f/m by accident and I’m reading and waiting for the woman and waiting for the woman and “the end”. Hello? Okay, there was one walk-on role by a secretary and that was the only woman in the whole freaking story. Why was there one on the cover? LOL So I think in this case they got lucky that I didn’t notice her and bought the book based on the blurb, however for someone scrolling through and seeing a woman on the cover you would ASSUME it’s some kind of menage at the very least if not pure m/f. I can only imagine an author’s confusion at seeing a woman on the cover of their book when there isn’t one in the story at all (to speak of). I’m not sure if people can see this if you’re not logged into Good Reads but looking at it now I can’t believe I bought it. It screams m/f to me. http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/6613047-eye-of-the-beholder
Tam
I couldn’t see the cover because I don’t belong to Goodreads, and I refuse to join yet another reading group.:)
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I would never buy an M/M book with a woman on the cover. I read M/M to get away from anything that smacks of het or menage – I guess you could say that I’m one of those would have shied away from the particular book that I mentioned in the post. The author was almost in tears and Lynn had to put a huge disclaimer that the book was not M/M. Her problem was solved when the pub. wanted to put it out in print and she demanded the removal of the female from the cover before signing on the dotted line.*g*
You should be able to see this. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vJqROwhGFAs/Sk_f1aQ2GmI/AAAAAAAAAUg/DJSl-koRmAM/s1600-h/Eye+of+the+Beholder.JPG
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I would never buy it either, not sure what drugs I was on, but the blurb didn’t mention a woman and since you can see mostly her mouth and some hair I probably thought it was a blond haired guy. LOL It was an okay story and as I said, nary a woman in sight except as a manager, but no whiff of a relationship. Weird that they would use that cover. Or a case of a publisher (phaze I think) not caring that the cover is not even CLOSE to the story. Proper sexes of the protags would be a start.
Val
You’re right about the inconsistencies on the covers, such as some that feature a white couple when the story is interracial. The other beef I had when I bought het books is the thin female cover model on the BBW line at Loose Id. Is “voluptuous” not a good thing to feature on these book covers? But I digress – we’re talking about M/M books.:)
As one blogger said, some publishers are almost re-defining the concept of deliberate hideousness. Maybe they want to shock us or see whether we’re looking.:)
“As one blogger said, some publishers are almost re-defining the concept of deliberate hideousness.”
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Wow, what a clever line!
Val
“As one blogger said, some publishers are almost re-defining the concept of deliberate hideousness.”
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Do you like it? Feel free to use it at any time – I’m pretty sure the originator wouldn’t mind.
Oh, ho, ho — ha, ha!
Here’s where the subjectivity of it comes into play.
While the original Ransom is far less gorgeous than the new version the original was “different” enough (to me) from the other new releases at the time to make me click to read the blub/excerpt and ultimately to buy it.
Clearly though, all cover art folk do not have that “artistic eye” that can bring something special to a cover.
It’s especially tough with the historical things because unless one has a mega budget you aren’t finding a lot of period appropriate in the stock photo realm. That makes having a trained graphic artist doing the work so important.
Barb
I never saw the old coover for Ransom but if I had I probably would not have bought the book because it doesn’t represent what the story is all about.
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Clearly there are not enough stock photos in the historical genre and this is a problem. However sonme publishers like Cheyenne/Bristlecone Pine Press seem to have no difficulty producing quality covers for their books. I’m no artist but I think their covers (the ones I have seen so far) are wonderful.
I have pretty much ruled out the publisher with the ugly covers altogether. By which I mean I wouldn’t buy a book by them – I associate their bad covers with poor production quality and therefore bad editing and authors who don’t care about their work enough to want a decent cover for it.
I know I wouldn’t submit a book to them unless I was desperate, because I’d rather self publish than have a Poser cover. So, for me, their bad covers not only stop me from reading their books, but they impact the publisher’s entire reputation.
I’m really happy to see that you like the cover of Speak Its Name
That’s one of mine, done for $50 and using three stock photos. The cover for Hidden Conflict was by Jordan Taylor and she did it for $0 using photos she took herself. So it’s possible to make nice covers cheaply. It just takes a lot of imagination and time.
And that’s the rub, of course, because time costs money. If a cover artist is trying to do it for a living, $50 doesn’t cover an awful lot of time spent trawling through stock photo sites, doing designs, having them rejected, trawling the sites for different photos, making other designs and refining them etc.
If we could get away from the “two naked hunks on a background” covers, in preference for “one or two clothed people on a background” or even “no people at all!” covers, though, I think the available pool of stock photos would be greatly expanded, and everything would become a lot easier for cover artists everywhere
Of course then we’re back to the marketing adage that ’sex sells.’ I don’t know where I stand on that one, other than to point out that almost everyone prefers my clothed gents on False Colors to my naked gents on Captain’s Surrender.
I took the picture with the crosses (cemetery) on the Hidden Conflict cover. Not to quibble or anything but I’ve never had a photo published, so that’s an accomplishment for me that I’m proud of…LOL
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As for False Colors and the new Captain’s Surrender…I almost might like the new CS cover better than FC…we’re talking miniscule degrees of difference, because I love the FC cover, too. But I always felt like the guys on FC had a trace of modern and didn’t exactly scream 1700s to me, like the man on the CS cover does. Plus, I like the painting vs. photo (we had this discussion recently — in the comments on my review of The Golden Age of Gay Fiction, I think. The cover for that is a painting that was commissioned by MLR. I imagine that must have cost more than $50).
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My impression is that we are seeing a trend of better covers and more variety, which I am happy about, because I was getting really tired of headless naked torso covers which seemed to be the only thing on the market for quite awhile.
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Alex
I understand your perspective about not submitting books to certain publishers, yet one of the pubs that we make fun of is capable of producing a few good covers as evidenced by some of Jordan Castillo Price’s books. Perhaps she has input into her book covers there.
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I think the headless man titty covers that seem to pervade M/M is from the time when it was not politically correct to show two men together. Again, Jordan and other artists are leading the way by having print covers show two guys actually kissing.
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Alex it’s too bad you’re such an excellent writer or your colleagues would be clamouring for your services as a cover artist, based on what you have produced to date.
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Naked still sells just as the heat level in a book seems to determine whether it will be a best seller. One publisher reinforces the point that sex sells whenever I have a poll on M/M romance, and she’s probably right. I just hope that we get away from the headless man titty covers sometime soon – they were old a year ago!
Oops! Sorry Leslie
It was quite a bit of a joint effort, that one – though not something I think most publishers could afford to do on a regular basis. All that brainstorming!
I think I might like the new CS cover better too, if only because of Josh’s lovely red hair, but also because of the painted quality. But in terms of nude rather than clothed it’s a sort of half way house with one of each
Curiously enough, Captain’s Surrender with the old cover continually sold much better in Amazon’s erotica list than it did in the romance. Which rather concerned me because it has very little in the way of sex. All those disgruntled readers, misled by the cover into expecting steamy when actually it was sweet! I feel quite bad about that.
But yes, I agree, I think the standard has risen quite a bit over the last year, which is great news.
I have totally allowed myself to get sucked into buying a book based on the cover. Sad thing is I’ve read descriptions, felt unsure about the story and STILL been sucked in by the cover art. Recent example: Patient Eyes. What a clunker.
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Interestingly, sometimes the covers are too tame. I also like the current cover of Strong and Sudden Thaw, but have you seen the original cover?
http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Sudden-Thaw-R-Day/dp/0978753119/ref=ed_oe_p
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A good example of head scratcher as to why they felt the need for a change would be Michael Jensen’s Frontiers. It’s a historical romance that retells the story of Johnny Appleseed with a gay twist. Wonderful story. Here is the original cover:
http://www.amazon.com/Frontiers-Michael-Jensen/dp/0671027204/ref=ed_oe_h
Very nice, two men looking over a valley.
When it came out on paperback it was this:
http://www.amazon.com/Frontiers-Michael-Jensen/dp/0671027212/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255977779&sr=1-1
I didn’t see the need for the change. The new cover is almost misleading, like it’s a novel about cowboys or ranchers.
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The things is though, I love a good cover. I like to see two men in romantic poses. It’s one of the things I miss since I was given a Kindle for my birthday. The cover is still visible on the Kindle but it’s black and white…boring. However, the biggest plus is that I can now read on the train and not have been staring at me like I’m exposing them to porn.
Mike
Like you, I, too, have been sucked into buying books because of the covers but it’s the same as being sucked into buying them because of the blurbs or excerpts. At least if there’s a really nice looking cover I could stare at it.:)
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I checked out those links – I had never seen the original one for A Strong & Sudden Thaw which I think is so wimpy and colourless compared to the one on the site. But the reverse happened for Frontiers.
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I do love cover art especially when it says something about the story.
For me personally, covers speak more about publishers than the actual book or author. It shows how they treat the authors and their hard work.
That said, there are bad covers and really bad covers. Sometimes you can actually recognize copy/paste/Photoshop nightmare that took five whole minutes. I think it’s disrespectful to the book and to the author to say the least, not to mention the readers. And sometimes, in spite of all the effort, the covers just don’t work. That’s unfortunate, but the invested time and effort count for something.
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When I see really, really bad cover, I usually wait until I read several reviews of the book and then make my decision. On the other hand, there are authors who are on my auto-buy list and it will take much more than ugly cover for me to skip their work. But, in that case, I would choose e-book first.
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An example of really great covers – Administration Series by Manna Francis. They are discreet and tasteful, colors are great and they actually have something to do with the stories. I was happy to see that the stories were treated with great care. That’s a great plus in my book for the publisher.
As an example of another cover that many thought was beautiful — Facade, just recently reviewed here with a very low rating. Some things just get wasted, it seems.
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L
I was going to comment on that cover, it was really really lovely, but I didn’t because generally the only time i comment on the reviews (because i don’t read contemporaires) is to comment on the covers!!
Love that cover. Think how many people will get sucked into buying the book because it’s so beautiful. Proves my point.:-D
I don’t know if this has been emphasized enough, but in the cover business there’s a distinct difference between print books and ebooks. Ebooks are – more or less – hidden on my hard drive. I don’t care about their covers so much, though some people I know stipulate that their laptop should be cremated with them *g*. However, generally I prefer “real” books, i.e. paper ones, and I do own a number of print books that I will (or at least should) only ever take out of my house under cover of darkness. Yes, I bought the books, yes, I enjoy reading them, too, but I really, really resent paying for books that I find so embarrassing to look at that I have been seriously considering buying a cover to be able to read them over breakfast in the neighbourhood bakery.
I agree that ebook covers are tucked away on readers – but i’m seeing more and more publishers going in for both formats. PD Publishing were strictly paper, and they are now going to do ebook and audio – Noble Romance (to name but one) has been strictly ebook, and is planning to do paper in the near future. With the current technology its easy to do – send a file, produce a paper book. Publishers don’t want to be creating a book that is hidable AND one that can be taken on the train, so they need to look at creating one that is acceptable for both markets.
I sometimes wonder how much of this is our own paranoia. I never notice the cover of books other people are reading and I know when I read in public the books is open on my lap or a table meaning the cover is facing down, so unless someone is laying on the floor at my feet they won’t see the cover and usually as I said my hand covers most of the picture when I’m holding it (paperback moreso than larger hardcover). I don’t hold it straight out in front of me so I’m not sure other people really do notice the covers of books (even if they were disgustingly graphic) that we read or we just think they will. LOL I always tell my teenager “Trust me, no one is looking at how you’re dressed because they are all too worried about everyone looking at how they are dressed.”
Tam
If you’re short sighted or the reverse you would hold the book differently and people would be able to see what you’re reading. I always check out books that other people are reading to see if it’s something I’ve read. Unless you put a brown paper cover or something else on it the cover is usually mostly visible.
I find with ebooks i do not pay as much attention to the cover as is do when it is a print book. When I am in the library, or the store I am drawn to the colors of the cover, the picture, and the title. I have found myself picking up the same books over and over again even when i read the dust jacket blurb and remember that the story did not appeal to me the last 4 times i picked it up. With ebooks I only pay attention when it has a woman on the cover and i am looking for m/m. Ebooks are usually in categories already, they often already come with a blurb you can see right away, making the cover not as important. Another differences is when you are reading on a reader or the computer no one else can see the cover and know what you are reading , unlike print.
I am not sure if the illustration process is the same with all publishing houses, but, I think it would be easier for the artist to be able to read the whole book and not just a blurb.
Ah yes, cover art.
I’ve had gorgeous and hideous, amazing and weird. If you thought the technicolor Robin Hood on the HEART OF A FOREST cover that made round 2 of Ugly Covers was bad, you shoulda seen the original. I just called it “Avenging the Scooby Snack” and notified the artist that Robin Hood would NOT wear a black t-shirt with a ribbed neck.
I’ve had the two white gym bunnies given me for an interracial romance. But my pumpkin molestor still takes the cake. He’s committing veggisexual acts right there on the cover! And worse, it was a stock cover, one of four.
I have bought books because of their covers. I have passed books up because of cover and title.
These days, Trace Edward Zaber does some of my covers. I feel very lucky.
Angelia
I remember that cover well. The guy had the skinniest arms and his chest looked as if it had caved in (even though he was wearing clothes I could tell he wasn’t ‘built’):-D Definitely not a nice looking Robin Hood!
I’ve been under the impression JCP does her own covers. I could easily be wrong, though. In any case, they are a departure from that publisher’s other offerings, and very distinctive. I like ‘em a lot; each one delivers its own unique little jolt.
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True what Erastes said about subliminal impact. Fugly covers do tend to suggest low quality all around. I try my damnedest to avoid making that kneejerk connection, but it sometimes requires a concentrated effort.
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It really is unfortunate so many publishers are convinced nudity has to be the focal point of their covers. It may have been eye-catching at one time, like when EC started up, but near-nekkid models have now become a yawn-inducing romance cliche. They cause covers to fade silently into the woodwork rather than stand out and make a statement.
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I’m all for more artistry and relevance to content. But I’m only a writer.
Thank so much for including my work as an example of covers you like, Wave! I think cover art is *critical* to the success of an ebook, and I’m appalled at the amateurism of many covers on the market today. Lack of control over cover art was one of the factors that made me begin my self-publishing odyssey.
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I think that bad typography is what makes covers problematic for me. If we were able to take the typography from the new, absolutely luscious cover of Captain’s Surrender and put it on the old cover, the old cover would look a lot more professional. Good typography over the most generic of naked manchests is pretty inoffensive to me. I have problems with the typography in Mute Witness, Urban Wolf, and Cursed above, for example. I’m not sure why cover artists are so fond of applying bevel and emboss effects to their type. I think it seldom looks good.
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As an aside, my 70-year-old auntie is a bit leery of being seen reading PsyCop: Property in public with Vic and Jacob giving each other a big ol’ kiss. But she got over it.
Hi Jordan
I love most of your covers except for a couple *g*
I see what you mean about the typography of Captain’s Surrender (the new cover), Mute Witness and a few others.
I most definitely think that cover art is important, whether its for an ebook or printed book, and whether its m/m or any other genre. Even though people often use the very well known saying “don’t judge a book by its cover,” most people do judge a book by its cover — including me.
Its very important for a book to have a well designed cover, as well as a cover that depicts what is actually inside the book. If you think about it, its really quite obvious: after all, the title and cover are the first things that a reader sees when they pick up a book. And if the author is not well known, either to the reader personally, or to the mainstream of readers in general, its even more important to have a good cover. When I’m grabbing a book off of a shelf, or browsing online, there are millions of books to choose from, and so the ones that ’stick out’ are usually the only ones I even give a chance.
Great topic! “Help or hindrance” is right–it’s always one or the other and sometimes both, depending on the reader.
Ransom’s on its 3rd cover now. I didn’t care for the first one, mostly because of that frizzy perm they put on Davy, and the ‘fog bank’ effect always looked like a bad print run. To be fair, it was their first m/m cover, and I think they were hedging their bets by airbrushing out the nudity. LBR’s cover artist had a real flair for m/f, but I don’t think she had the same feel for m/m. Even so, it was a big step up from the poser covers on so many other m/m books. The revised cover done just before LBR was bought out was much closer to what I’d hoped for (the boys on deck, from the back, bare from the waist up but hey, maybe it was a hot day?) but I don’t think that was in print for more than a few months before the Cheyenne edition came out… which has ships yay! and I think the strong color gives a sense of menace.
Call me a perv–I think if there’s explicit material in the book, there’s nothing wrong with a slightly sexy cover–though I don’t see anything appealing about the slab-o-abs. I prefer the cover models embracing as a way to screen the faces, or at least in some arrangement that suggests an emotional connection–very tough to manage on a small-press budget! I think if I won a lottery, some of the $ would be earmarked for cover art.
The duplication of pictures is pretty much inevitable, and the worst thing is that there’s no warning that the cover isn’t going to be nearly as original as the artist hoped. I’m almost superstitious about not unveiling the cover for Walking Wounded until the last minute, because Alex did such a beautiful job and one of the pics we considered has already appeared elsewhere.
Those nice-vs-not so good covers… I’m picky; I only liked about half the ones you chose. That little boy cover doesn’t have anything about it that suggests anything positive in the sense of m/m, and could be badly misinterpreted. And those two changer covers… the one upper-left makes me think of a horrible photo I saw once of a man dying of untreated facial tumors, and the lower right is either a very spooky dog or a very, very ugly man. (shudder). Those poor writers!
My preference is the ‘models with some vague resemblance to the characters in a setting relevant to the story.’ Dream on, I know. The ‘two close-enough-to-character-guys over a picture that says something about the story’ seems to be the style right now, and a good artist can do a lot with it. One image, two at most… anything beyond that and my eye moves right past the clutter. I really think a simple design, like Alex first had on Witch’s Boy, would be preferable to a lot of what winds up on book covers. Plain brown paper is better than 90% of the Poser pics I’ve seen.
As for the author input–I saw tremendous differences from one artist to another at Samhain. Alex and Charlie got artists who actually worked with them; I wish I had not wasted the time filling out the forms. No alteration of image, no chance of working with a different artist… I am inexpressibly grateful to have Alex doing my covers right now.
As for whether covers put me off? Oh, yes they do. There are a couple of publishers whose sites I don’t even browse because of the awful pictures. But I almost never buy anything without reading at least one excerpt, and I don’t think I’ve ever bought a book for the cover alone. I mean, realistically–I can look at the cover online anytime, no? But you can’t even legally give away a disappointing e-book. (I’ll save the rant on that subject!)
Covers do matter. Even if they’re not visible on an e-reader, it’s the image on the website that either draws the eye, or scares the bejeezus out of the browsing reader.
Lee
I love sexy covers as much as the next reader but when they are all the same old, same old, they get old pretty fast. The days of the headless torso man titty covers I hope are gone the way of the dodo bird. They do nothing for the books and there’s no way to differentiate one book from the other.
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Everyone has different tastes which is a good thing but I think that most of us can agree on tasteless and boring.
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I think your newest cover for Ransom is wonderful – the bloggers were raving about it.
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As I said earlier, it’s a pity in a way that Alex is such a wonderful writer because she could be an excellent cover artist. She has already proven herself with the covers I’ve seen.
Covers actually matter a fair bit to me, but especially when it’s a new(ish — to me) author. I find I’m more willing to ignore craptastic covers if I’m familiar with the author’s work.
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Add to this the fact that I’ve had covers that represented the main characters as entirely different from their actual appearances (wrong hair colors, body types, etc… and in one case, tattoos when neither main char. had any) and I started campaigning for “no people, especially no faces” on my covers.
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I’m not saying that most readers will necessarily compare people on covers to the descriptions in books. I do it rarely, myself. That said, though, I sort of feel like it’s misleading and I can’t be sure when someone WILL compare in that manner, y’know?
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Personally, in my pre-ebook reading days, I did judge much more based upon cover art. I intially passed on one of my favourite series for years, just because I didn’t care for the covers. Eventually I bought the first book as a used paperback and discovered that I loved it, cover aside, after which I purchased the rest.
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Sadly, I have zero graphics skills and I find that it’s incredibly difficult to translate my mental image of what I’d like a cover to be into words that will mean the same thing to an artist reading those words (assuming they ever do).
TC
I think you made the point of what I’m saying. Many readers (who have no graphic arts skills but know what they like) pass on wonderful books because of shitty cover art.
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I can’t say enough about the craptastic cover art on the majority of Changeling covers except for Jordan’s Channeling Morpheus series. I’m not sure if Changeling are having fun at our expense or if they really think that their covers are awesome. All you have to do is check out the entries in the last 3 Ugly Covers competitions (and the ones you see do not even represent 1/4 of their covers that were submitted) to find that a large proportion of the covers nominated by readers are from this particular publisher.
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Many readers compare the cover photos to the characters in the book and mention them when we’re discussing reviews. Personally I like to see a face rather than the man titty covers. The M/M books without faces suggest to me that the publishers and cover artists are somehow ashamed to portray gay men in romantic situations. Why be in the business if you’re embarrassed by your product?
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Obviously there are authors who are not technically competent to judge cover art, or don’t believe they are, or could care less, and that’s fine. But for those who want input I think there should be an avenue opened for them.
I gather that what Changeling likes about the Poser covers is that you can have total control over what the character looks like: skin color, hair color and style, tattoos, props and pose.
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I would think a poser model could be an OK starting point if you’re going to then take it and make a digital painting out of it, but I don’t care for Poser or other 3-D rendering output as a final product. It looks unfinished to me. I also find I don’t usually care for the composition on those covers with characters at middle distance, centered, with too much space around them.
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It’s great that the covers on my Changeling work are well-liked. I was encouraged numerous times by Changeling to just go with a Poser cover.
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I was not the creator of the covers; it goes against Changeling’s policy to let an author do her own cover. I was particular on my cover art request form about what I wanted, and included thumbnails of how I hoped my final product would look, with links to all the source stock photos.
I have to agree, Wave, about some of the Changeling covers I’ve seen. I HOPE they’re having a bit of fun, but who can say?
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I’m not a big fan of the headless-torso covers, though I can’t say they bother me overly much. What I meant when I said I prefer no faces is simply that. No full-on front views of faces. Partial views because the guys are hugging or something along those lines? Fine, and definitely better than neck-to-navel only.
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I guess I’m saying we’re in agreement, for the most part… in an odd sort of way. *hee* Though I also agree with Lee Rowan. It doesn’t help at all when a publisher asks for an authors input and then ignores it completely. Eventually, that leads to seeing ‘art request forms’ as a useless exercise, but hat’s a whole other story, I think. LOL
As an author, I’ve been incredibly lucky with my covers, for the most part. I have a whole bunch of Anne Cain creations, for one thing
But most artists I’ve worked with have been great. They’ve been open to my input. Scott Carpenter even used a picture my husband took on Mount LeConte as the background for the cover of Twilight (3rd book in the BCPI series). I realize that cover art is pretty important to most readers, so I’m grateful to the artists I’ve worked with for the wonderful work they’ve done on my covers.
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As a reader, though, I don’t really care about cover art. I mean, I love to admire a beautiful cover. But I’ve never bought a book just because of one, and I’ve certainly never passed over a book because of an ugly or boring cover. I’m far more likely to be influenced by the book’s title. I’ll skim on past a title that doesn’t grab me, but if I see an intriguing title I’ll click on through to the blurb (or in a bricks and morter store, pick up the book and flip through). I first picked up Stranger In A Strange Land because of the title. I was skimming spines; couldn’t even see the cover. I’ve found a bunch of my favorite books that way
Ally
I’m sure you know how lucky you are to have Anne do most, if not all, of your book covers. Most authors are not as lucky and they struggle with inferior covers and hope that someone will see past them to what’s inside
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Presentation is just as important as content,as many authors have found out. I’m one of the readers who would have a hard time buying a print book with a cheesy looking cover. Lots of readers do look at the cover art and many of them are influenced by what they see first – the book cover. If they can’t get past the cover then there’s no sale and many authors depend on the income from the book sales.
Late to the party again! My thoughts anyway. I can’t deny that cover art will affect me when buying. It must affect readers, because otherwise all books would be published with plain colours with nothing but the author and title on them. It’s more like to affect me negatively than positively. I’m be unlikely to buy a book I didn’t fancy otherwise purely based on the cover (though there’s this Mill & Boon from a couple of years ago I’m looking out for second hand because the cover guy is just so… well anyway…)
The one I like most is one I spotted myself, where the same image was used on two different books by the same author. That made me chuckle. Would it be offputting? Category romance fans go through a lot of books, they can’t recall all the titles, which are kind of samey anyway! So a reused image might make them think, “I think I already read this” and not buy it. Maybe that would just be me. I have a good memory for pictures.
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But I could be put off buying a book by a really hideous or embarrasing cover. It’s not fair, I know, it could be a perfectly fine book, but I’m only human and have a negative reaction to ugly things.
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It could be I’d never even get as far as reading the blurb to have my mind changed and give it a go, because a lot of my To Read list is populated by books I’ve found on the “related” or “recommended” pages when I’m looking up a book on Goodreads or a retailer site. Usually all there is to entice me to click through and check that related book out is a thumbnail of the cover and the price. If the cover is bad even at that size, there’s a good chance I’ll be put off clicking to see the full horror – I mean details.
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If the cover isn’t so much hideous as just amateurish and cheapo looking, then it makes me nervous about what else the publisher has skimped on. Like proof reading. That may be unfair, maybe they spent the money on editing and proof reading instead, but am I going to take a chance on that? I’d rather just have quite a plain cover. Fathom’s Five that was reviewed on here a few days ago is an example of that. Without the good review it would be one I’d probably pass over, since the cover while not horribly ugly, does looks cheap and thrown together. And it sounds like I’d miss out on a good book because of that.
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Do you think ordering online as opposed to going to a bookshop makes a difference? There’s some covers – more the ones with nudity on that ugly ones – I might be a bit shy about buying in a shop. Silly I know, but I am! On-line, well, I’s not as bothered. If it’s really, really too embarassing to take out in public I’ll just have to read it at home!
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I found a site recently that collates all the Mills and Boon and Harlequin historical romances that use the same cover images tweaked a bit for different books. There are some that have been used four times! Hey, sometimes they’re subtle, they change the colour of the heroine’s dress.
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In the end I suppose it comes down to, you’re looking at two books, they both sound like good books, they appeal to you equally. They both cose the same. You like both those writers. But you can only afford to buy one of them. If every other consideration is equal, how many of us can say we wouldn’t choose the one with the more attractive cover?
Hi JFM
I’m one of those readers who is definitely put off by a cheap looking cover like the ones on the Changeling website. Ugly covers – same thing, especially if it’s for a print book.
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There are not that many stock photos but surely they can give them different clothes.
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The best thing for erotic literature was the advent of ebooks because many women were too embarrassed to go into a bookstore and buy what they wanted (not me but others.) Same thing with ordering online. The advent of amazon has freed a lot of readers, women especially, to order the erotic books they always wanted. My postman is very curious about my reading matter and he doesn’t understand how I can read so many books:-D
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In your example I would definitely buy the book with the attractive cover if I could only afford one.