One
of the things readers are most curious about are covers. Covers are art, and
art is always subjective—beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that—but
book covers are beauty with a purpose. That purpose is two-fold: one, the cover
should attract the reader’s eye and make her curious to find out what’s behind
the cover. Secondly, the cover should give the reader some clues as to whether
the book is something they would normally like to read. As in, “hey you,
mystery reader, here’s a new mystery that you haven’t heard about it. Check me
out!”
For
those of you who are curious as to why authors like or dislike one of their
covers, you might find this link interesting. Five romance authors, published
by Avon, talk about a cover that they felt missed the mark. It might give you
some insight into why authors think a cover does or doesn’t work.
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| Lauren's Cover |
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| My Cover--you be the judge |
I
get many compliments and questions about the covers of my books. They are
lovely (I’m lucky that way). However, they’re not perfect. A few readers have
asked why there is a brunette on the cover of the large UK paperback release of
The Reckoning when the main character, Lanore, is a blond. The plain truth of
it is that the publishing house was hoping to appeal to the YA market and felt
that this cover—reminiscent of Lauren Kate’s Fallen series—might appeal to
those readers. (That
begs the question of whether or not the books are suitable for teens, since
half the market for YA books are under the age of 18. I’ll let you be the judge
of that.)
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| Jennifer Estep's urban warrior |
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You know what to expect from
Tasha Alexander gorgeous covers |
Which
brings us to the second part of the equation. There are definite styles for
individual genres. The covers for mysteries and thrillers may be similar, but
aside from that you can generally tell an urban fantasy by its cover (there
have been tongue-in-cheek checklists for urban fantasy heroines, for instance:
black tank top, black leather pants, sword, armband tattoo—whether or not this
fits the book’s heroine). Soft pastel landscapes, the backs of women’s heads or
otherwise obscured women’s faces generally portend women’s fiction. Historical
fiction gets women in gowns and figures snipped from an oil painting. Women’s
high heels or a purse, a cupcake and that sort of thing mean you’re probably
looking at chick-lit. This is not to demean these covers for being stereotypes:
this redundancy is important. It signals the reader that they’re facing the
right bookshelf in the store.
Which brings me back to the covers of my books. As you can imagine by my choice of blog topic today, I'm in a bit of a quandary. What do these covers say to you? Where in the bookstore would you say they belong? Do you have a favorite cover you think would fit the Taker books?
Do you think the similarities between these two covers--blond hair, bold typeface--helped Gone Girl? While the covers aren't identical, would readers be predisposed to pick up a book with a familiar cover?
