Learning from Trouble

There are levels of trouble in cover art land. There's “a little trouble,” like when the eyes of a cover model's face are Photoshopped a little crooked. There's “a lot more trouble” like a cover with nipples so erect that you could hang ornaments and some garlands off them. And then there's “WTFTROUBLE,” which is where we are today. Brace yourself as we take a look at some covers of “Beautiful Trouble Publishing” which specializes in erotic stories, some short, some romance, some bedecked with Poser. But each one teaches something important, I think. And not just the ages-old lesson, 'Always have the eyewash station handy.' 

Now, much of this website is NSFW, but this is extra more NSFW, so be ye warned. 

Here is some trouble sent to my inbox by Nicole:

Book Cover

 

First, there's the cover. He's gonna prick you. 

But then, there's the price: $2.25 – and the size, 129k. 129k is SMALL. How small? Check the reviews: four 1-star reviews all complaining about the waste of money since the story takes “5 minutes to read” and that it “was way too short there was no story no plot build up.” One reviewer says the story is about 10 pages long. 

So now we've learned: avoid expensive, too-small pricks. 

Then there's this one: 

 

Book Cover

What the hell is going on there? Where are her legs? What happened to the rest of her body? 

AND WHY IS HIS ASS ALL WRINKLY WHILE HIS BUTTCRACK IS CROOKED? 

Well, that might be the most realistic part of the cover, really, all those ass crevices. But you'd think if the woman was going to be sawed in half with Photoshop, they'd have at least given the poor guy a bit of a butt lift.  

And yet there is a lesson here as well: Some guys have all the luck, some guys have all the pain, while other guys have women growing out of their thighs. 

 

Book Cover

 

“Just one… more…finger…so…hungry…. almost…there…..”

This one's obvious: spay and neuter your pets, and for God's sake, feed them regularly! 

Book Cover

 

I can't fault the cover for portraying the woman with thighs like Volkswagen Beetles (TM Chris' Invisible Super Blog) because she is, according to the description, a bodybuilder. But I can call shenanigans on the title, If You Must Wake the Tiger, Use a Long Lick, and on the abuse of Scriptina, which should be outlawed from all covers henceforth and forever. 

That said, this cover goes really well with If It's Tuesday, There Must be Dildos, which reigns supreme as the best title ever. Perhaps this is the new wave of advice and fortune cookie fortunes: obscure romance titles. Now we know what to do with Tuesday, and with Tigers! 

The more You Know! 

Comments are Closed

  1. Wench says:

    “You are an over opinionated wench”

    You know, I should really set up a Google alert or something so that I know when people are talking about me.

    Meanwhile, back on topic, if I have to stare at a cover for five minutes just to figure out if a body part is the man’s ass or the woman’s legs, and I’m still not sure, and why ARE there three markedly different skin tones on there? It is a Bad. Cover.

  2. Cody Richardson says:

    My comment vanished. I don’t know what happened.

    Anyway, has anyone seen “The Room?” The guy from the second pic looks just like Tommy Wiseau. All I could hear when I saw that was:

    “You look so SEXY, Lisa. Ha ha ha.”

  3. Lu says:

    Wow…. the commentary on this one has gone wilder than the originally presented covers!

    In no particular order…

    1.  This site does a lot of cover snarking.  Some of it has to do with changing cover trends (see any entry comparing previous edition covers with recent releases), some has to do with genre-identification or name-branding trends.  Cover-snarking is a long-established tradition.  The closest that I have EVER seen the cover snarks come to commenting on the content is when there is a question about some element pertaining to the story – as in, the cover presents the couple on a horse, riding across the technicolor desert, and they appear to be getting in a little extra action – was that from the book, or just cover license?  Content-snarking is always presented in book reviews, not cover reviews.

    2.  Even when the people here do content-snarking, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t enjoy the book, or that they won’t read more.

    3.  Sometimes it’s a matter of personal taste.  What one person loves leaves a second indifferent and creeps the third out big time.  Most of the regulars here understand that.

    4.  While I am not a cover-designer and have never used photo-shop, I have to admit that there ARE covers out in the world that make me stop, look a second time, shiver and keep going.  It raises eyebrows when what is presented as one person has multiple skin tones in different areas of their body.  Some poses look painful (not just ecovers, there are plenty of those in tangible books – my hips and shoulders don’t move like that, and my spine doesn’t flex that much either.)  And disappearing body parts are a bit unsettling to me.

    5.  That said, refer again to point 3, and the later pictures looked much better – skin tones all matches, no vanished body parts.

    6.  Considering the variety in the originally presented (I assume older?) pictures, I’m guessing that those were done to specific requests – Author #1 asked for a guy with a rose here, another author asked for a patchwork image with the couple and the animal, a different author wanted their couple getting into things… and the pictures were done to try to meet the requests.  Good, very sensible to give the author what they ask for… but… I guess just refer again to point 3.

    7.  Seriously though, some people have gone very emotional on this post.  A cover that makes someone’s eyebrows raise as they say ‘whhhhaaaaa?’ is going to get a few comments, and still stands out enough that they remember that title. 

     

  4. Ellen L. Ekstrom says:

    Well, at least we’re spared headless torsos wearing period costumes….

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