fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3125 ]

[ SECRET POST #3125 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3125 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
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02. http://i.imgur.com/rM8NFYm.png

Amusingly enough the chances of quality vs crap do seem to skew higher that way (exceptions are when the book is reprinted due to popularity of a TV show or movie adaptation, like my original copy of The Stand came with a cover based on the tv show with Gary Sinise.)

Ah, the old "judging a book by its cover" gambit. I like it!

Pretty much the same, but I'll exclude those cover paintings which are trying to fool you into thinking it is a photorealistic cover (because they aren't, the women on them have comic book spines and hips). I realize that excludes a large portion of modern urban fantasy, but I'm assured that nothing of value is being lost there.

"City at World's End" makes me think of "The City on the Edge of Forever". They're different things, brain!

Some of these are pretty nice covers! I would never read a book for just the cover though, no matter how attractive. (The Twilight novels have lovely covers, but I'm not interested.)

Edited 2015-07-25 20:31 (UTC)

we all judge book covers, or we'd buy every book in the store

anyway I have the opposite problem b/c I like the idea of scifi and fantasy but the painted covers are always SO cheesy I can't get beyond it. they look like the crap you'd find in the house of someone who collects healing crystals and cats

I have a terrible weakness for godawful pulpy sci-fi covers. I specifically still have my crappy dilapidated copy of Fire Dancer (back when it was marketed as sci-fi, not romance) because the neon colors and the naked chicks are my childhood.

(At least the naked chick is setting everything on fire?)

--Rogan

That is what pretty cover art is for! It attracts attention long enough for someone to pick it up and read the blurb. Once someone is reading the blurb, half the sales pitch is done!

I miss the old painted romance novel covers, even the supremely cheesy ones although I do prefer the more neutral ones.

But I really can't stand the photo covers they mostly use now.

I think this is why I avoid the YA section more than I used to. There are still good books there! However, now they all have some girls photo plastered across the whole cover. It just looks CHEAP.

Same with the photos of leather-clad asses on all the urban fantasy books in the SFF section.

Where are my creative covers at??

Cover art these days seems very heavy into "branding" for particular genres rather than aesthetic appeal. You slap a teenage girl's face on the cover of a YA so people know it's YA, there's leather clad badass chicks on urban fantasy so people know it's urban fantasy, etc. etc. Historical fiction/romance have tons of ladies in floofy gowns, often looking out of windows. I understand why it's done, but most efforts really lack creativity. :(

I think part of it might be due to budgetary reasons? I've heard the photomanips are cheaper (and possibly faster) than hiring a cover artist. I'm not sure how true that is though.

--Rogan

What about different editions where some have painted covers, some have photos of people, and some have nothing/other? Do you check to see if there's an edition out there with a photo or does it not matter as long as the copy you have has a painting?

Not the OP, but I go to a lot of trouble to buy the editions with moody or painted covers and not the nasty photo ones which kill any sense of fantasy for me every time I pick the book up to read it.

It matters a surprising amount, especially in a novel with a lot of worldbuilding.

That makes me think of Harry Potter. There are the editions with the painted covers and blocks of bright background colour and then there's the editions with dark, photographic covers, usually of objects relevant to the book's plot (a picture of a dark island fortress for PoA, a goblet of blue fire for GoF).

At one point when the books were first released the matter of the different covers came up when I was putting in my preorder. I went for the bright "children's" cover because the books I already had those covers and I wanted my set to match each other.

Maybe it's nostalgia, but I have a fondness for painted covers, too. It doesn't dictate my reading choices, but I miss the pretty (or sometimes WTF bad) artwork. I'm not a huge fan of using human models on covers, especially when publishers insist on cutting off heads or only showing people from weird angles.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-25 22:21 (UTC) - Expand

I loved the Star Wars EU covers. A lot of them make no sense, they try to emulate the feel of the movie posters so there are a lot of floating heads and such, but that was really all part of the appeal to me. If they aren't awesome space ships or some sort of weird mishmash of characters in awesome poses, it didn't feel like star wars to me.

I hate how formulaic covers have become since the advent of ereaders and kindles. They don't show the covers properly on those anyway, and artists have basically stopped trying because of it.

I am quite ruthless in my judging, including by the covers. Although mine is more around "does the spine stand out from all the other spines"?

Enh, I sometimes dislike those, but my DEEPEST cover hate goes for the random painting from the rough same time period/region the story comes from that tells you absolutely nothing about the book's contents. (Bonus points go if the cover text only says how amazing the book is and nothing regarding what it's about.)

Looking at YOU, Classic Lit! *shakes fist*

--Rogan

I mean, an interesting cover might get me to pick something up and read the blurb, but a bad looking (or embarrassing) cover won't make me not buy something if the story interests me. And, well, sometimes the author has absolutely nothing to do with cover because the cover will have no real connection to the book that I can see.

Re: I don't really care about the cover

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-26 02:28 (UTC) - Expand

I fucking adore painted covers and have desperately sought tutorials that can teach me the miracle of how to paint like that. No judgment from this corner, anon.

I also don't like the trend of having photos of real people on covers. I think this makes books look dated very quickly, and I always snicker when I see an obvious unaltered stock photo being used on multiple books.

(I freelance as a book designer, fwiw.)

Hmm... I don't really mind the photomanip type of covers, but most of the fiction they are on is not what I would care to buy anyway - that is, YA novels.

Almost universally, my favourite genre, Fantasy, goes for painted covers. I love a good painted cover, especially if it gives a good image of how the main characters look.

I retain fond memories of the covers of David Eddings, Paul Kidby's Discworld art, John Howe's LotR, Silmarillion and Hobbit covers. These are significant books in my upbringing that also had great cover art (that was painted).

I usually don't care if it's painted or a photo, but my favourite cover artist is Thomas Canty.

OT, but hey; I'm just thrilled to see The Old Curiosity Shop and The Stand together in a secret.

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