[ SECRET POST #2931 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2931 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #419.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

09. http://i.imgur.com/CgLCmhX.png

[(Anonymous)]

Me too! Especially if they've shopped the photos of the people badly, which is often the case. It's creepy like a photomanip.

I much prefer landscapes or still lifes or something more abstract. I like to picture the characters in a book with my mind's eye.

[xenomantid]

I agree. Photographs of actual people on the cover give the impression that the book is a tie-in edition to a movie adaptation. Do you suppose that's intentional?

[(Anonymous)]

That's a good point. Although TV/movie tie-in covers put me off, they're always so ugly, I suppose they must be successful as there seem to be more and more of them.

"If it was made into TV/a movie, it must be good" kind of thinking?

[cushlamochree]

Way more people watch TV and movies than read books. So even if you're only able to convert a fraction of those viewers, it's still a huge potential readership to tap into.

They are ugly as heck, though.

[xenomantid]

Indeed. The idea is probably to capture audiences who are only interested in books that are adapted for film or television or who saw the movie or television series first and want more of it.

[lb_lee]

Nah, the photos thing has become more popular because I think it's CHEAPER.

I mean, paying an artist to paint a cover that references the book properly costs more than people are willing to pay these days. (Not that I can blame them, publishing is a rough game.) With the booming popularity of digital media, photomanipulation is probably cheaper, and often faster.

(This is actually why I design and draw my illustrations and covers; I get more creative control and hey, I don't have to pay me a dime!)

[(Anonymous)]

Same here, OP. Especially if the human models don't look anything like the characters, it throws me off. I prefer artwork that leaves more open to interpretation, or like the above anon, landscapes and still life.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm thinking of my favourite book covers and none of them involve photos of the characters, or at least not their faces. Drawn art of characters is a little easier to take, especially if it's not photorealistic.

The original Hitchhiker's Guide covers stand out as being particularly good designs, and they're based on just typeface and abstract patterns.

[(Anonymous)]

I could go either way. A real person on the cover doesn't turn me off but sometimes I do want to be able to picture the characters without any sort of pre-conceived notion at all of what they should look like or be like. BUT, sometimes the artwork or photo is so gorgeous that it gets me to look at the book where I otherwise wouldn't. It depends.

On the subject of book covers, I took a King Arthur class in college and the professor assigned us some modern books to look at. I don't remember how it came up but she said that a previous class had complained about a particular book before because the cover made them feel like they were carrying around a bodice-ripper book and they wrapped the book up or always carried them so the cover didn't show. :)

[silverr]

I can understand this. I actually don't mind photos per se - I can understand that they're probably less expensive to create -- but I prefer if it's just a hand/arm/back/leg/chest/shadowed profile, etc (i.e., I don't want to see the model's face). I htink that once you see a face the image stops being archetypal (which I guess is what I want).

[(Anonymous)]

I think that's why so many covers do that thing where they don't show the model's face (or at least, not full on)... so people can still imagine characters for themselves. I understand the reasoning, but sometimes poor cover design means a lot of conspicuously headless people on book covers. That's both hilarious and weird.

[diet_poison]

haha, books with photos in the cover art look really tacky much of the time. It can be done well, but it's also easier to do horribly than art without photos. (in fact, in general I think cover art is better if it's not photography, now that I think about it)

[meishuu]

Same. Especially when it's a badly done photoshop. I prefer illustrations on covers.

[(Anonymous)]

Same. It always just looks kind of tacky, and takes away from my mental imaginings of the book.

[(Anonymous)]

Same. Can't do it. CAN NOT do it. If it's something that I want to read in spite of being put off by the photo cover I go and buy old editions from used book stores or get the ebook version instead. A couple times, when I end up falling in love with it, I'll get an international edition JUST TO AVOID THE COVER.

Oh - It by Stephen King

[(Anonymous)]

I first read It, borrowed from a friend, and the cover had an illustration of a clawed hand reaching out of a sewer. That was before the TV movie. I wanted to read It again later and they had that damn clown on the cover (and the side!). I couldn't sleep if it was facing out in my bookcase.

[cloud_riven]

Yeeaaaahhhhh me too.

It's just, give me some room for my imagination to fill in the gaps publisher.

[(Anonymous)]

Beyond not wanting pre-conceived ideas for the characters this has never bothered me.

I didn't realize it was such a big deal until I read the comments.

[(Anonymous)]

Haha, I write original stuff and it's my biggest fear that my book will get published with a horrible cover. Tacky stock photo models standing in for my characters is a part of this fear. XD

Transcript

[(Anonymous)]

Image: the covers of three books: Illuminate by Aimee Agresti (white woman in a red dress), Awakened by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast (shirtless white man with an arm tattoo), and The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress (three women, two white and one Asian, in steampunk clothes), and an open book with “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Above the pages.


Text: I try not to, but I’m put off by books that have real people on the cover.

[alexi_lupin]

I work at a library and the romance novels are the worst for having ridiculous covers, very often with actual people in them. Even worse, there's one publisher that takes photographs of real people (in one case, a still of Keira Knightley from P&P) and uses a painting of that picture on the cover. But like, in a frame that covers about half the cover. The end result is really unappealing.

[(Anonymous)]

Even worse, there's one publisher that takes photographs of real people (in one case, a still of Keira Knightley from P&P) and uses a painting of that picture on the cover. But like, in a frame that covers about half the cover

...what? It sounds like they put too much work into being really lazy and shoddy. I kind of want to see an example out of curiosity though

[(Anonymous)]

My main problem with romance novel covers isn't the people per se, but their clothing. I mostly read historical romances, and I'm really annoyed by cover models supposedly representing characters from the 18th or 19th century but wearing what look like kind of tacky prom dresses.

[lb_lee]

Enh, before there were photomanips, we had uber-saturated clashy color palettes and chain-mail bikinis and (my personal favorite) carefully made paintings features people and environments that NEVER come up in the book.

I admit to not being a fan of the photo covers, but I figure it's a matter of taste. In a decade or two, kids will be all nostalgic about those crappy photo covers, just like I'm nostalgic about those pulpy sci-fi covers with naked fire babes and dinodogs.