Look at Your Hands!

Look, I'm going to do something horrible, and get a really annoying song in your head. But I'm really tired of being alone in this torment, so come join me.

I keep seeing this guy. 

This guy:

Book Muscular guy looking at hands with his fingers flexed, this one with a red hooded girl coming out of his hands

I see him a lot.

Book Wolf of Arundale Hall - Same guy with flexy hands in front of a green ocean

 

Really often. I mean, like, all the time. 

 

Book Rebekah Turner's Chaos Bound - dude looking at his hands on top of a grey city

 

I think he's following me.

 

Book Cover To Hell and Back - this same guy looking at his flexed hands with a spindly angel tattoo on his shoulder

 

ETA: And Maree Anderson in the comments alerts me to…another Safety Dance Man:

You missed my cover, Sarah! Yep. Back in 2011 the safety dance dude made it to New Zealand and convinced us to put him on the cover of The Crystal Warrior. Sigh.

That was before we realized he uh, got around a bit and he’d hooked up with an Aussie author-friend of mine for the cover of Moon Thrall (Ellora’s Cave). And then he even turned blond for the cover of Scorched Treachery by Rebecca Ethington!

What can I say? This dude only has one look; he’s the Zoolander of eBook covers 🙂

Book Looking at his hands, black background. This dude gets AROUND.

Book Cover

OH, YES, HE IS! 

Book Another dude, same dude, black background looking at his hands. Seriously. This dude is EVERYWHERE.

Kate K points out he's also on this anthology cover:

Book Cover

What do you think happened?

Did he spill battery acid on himself? 

He just got The Worst Manicure Ever?

I honestly don't know. But I have a theory. 

SING WITH ME! 

 

 

THIS POOR GUY IS STUCK DOING THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE SAFETY DANCE! 

You can dance!

You can dance!

 

Men Without Hats doing the Safety Dance

 

EVERYBODY LOOK AT YOUR HANDS! 

 

Book Wolf of Arundale Hall - Same guy with flexy hands in front of a green ocean  Book Rebekah Turner's Chaos Bound - dude looking at his hands on top of a grey city Book Cover To Hell and Back - this same guy looking at his flexed hands with a spindly angel tattoo on his shoulder Book Muscular guy looking at hands with his fingers flexed, this one with a red hooded girl coming out of his hands
Book Looking at his hands, black background. This dude gets AROUND.Book Another dude, same dude, black background looking at his hands. Seriously. This dude is EVERYWHERE.Book Cover Book Cover

 

Now, for the sequels, they all better look like this:

Two people from Safety Dance video, which is like a cluster fuck of medieval times meets 80s video, holding their arms in an S shape

 

I better see some flexing S-arms on all sorts of romance, right? It's the next part of the dance! 

Comments are Closed

  1. You missed my cover, Sarah! Yep. Back in 2011 the safety dance dude made it to New Zealand and convinced us to put him on the cover of The Crystal Warrior. Sigh.

    That was before we realized he uh, got around a bit and he’d hooked up with an Aussie author-friend of mine for the cover of Moon Thrall (Ellora’s Cave). And then he even turned blond for the cover of Scorched Treachery by Rebecca Ethington!

    What can I say? This dude only has one look; he’s the Zoolander of eBook covers 🙂

  2. Melissa says:

    Men Without Hats one of the many reasons the 80’s were so great! Good times :-). Thanks for the 80’s flash back!

  3. SB Sarah says:

    AW YEAH! More guys looking at their hands.

    Thanks, Maree! I’ve added your Safety Dance dude to the line of dancers.

  4. Necromommycon says:

    A friend and I used to randomly shout “DANSER!” at each other because of this song; I must link her to this post.

  5. SB Sarah says:

    I wonder if at RT I can get people to pose like this for random pictures. Heh heh.

  6. Lostshadows says:

    I like that song. 🙂

    Weird how half of those covers seem to be werewolf books.

  7. CarrieS says:

    I’ll just leave this here:



  8. MissB2U says:

    This one has it all.  People looking at their hands.  Aretha Franklin.  Twerking.  And all in Russian.  Oh you betcha.



  9. I just kept thinking … Game of Thrones with 80s music? This is … wrong.

    There are some times I really regret growing up in a town so small that it had no cable (and thus no MTV) in the 80s. However, this is not one of them.

    But thank you so much for the book cover comparison!

  10. Linnae says:

    Ah yes – gotta love the joys of using stock photos in cover design over and over again!

  11. redheadedgirl says:

    I’m looking at the first one, and I’m wondering:

    WHERE THE HELL IS MY WOLF

  12. denise says:

    lololol

  13. denise says:

    and, I love the Safety Dance—80’s girl!

  14. Mary Beth says:

    That was the funniest thing I have read in a while.  How am supposed to remember if I already read the book if they all have the same cover?  And now I have the safety dance stuck in my head.

  15. Just logged in—it’s Waitangi Day (national holiday) here in NZ so I got breakfast in bed from best husband ever—and spotted the updated post….

    Awesome stuff, Sarah. Of course I had to show hubby (who designed my cover) and we’re still laughing about the line-up. And totally stoked about being included. Thank you! We’re honored 🙂

    I gotta say, the 80s had some great music. The music vids, uh, not so much 😉

  16. “I wonder if at RT I can get people to pose like this for random pictures. Heh heh.”

    Sarah you should TOTALLY do random pics of people posing like this. It would be frickin’ hilarious! Not to mention it could give Jim Hines some competition 😉

  17. Kate K says:

    Oh, and he is on the cover of the Enthralled anthology. He is everywhere.

  18. Actually it looks like he just discovered he’s missing his penis “Where did it go?? It was there a minute ago!!!

  19. “The Safety Dance” was my JAM back in the day.  We even played it at our 1998 wedding.  Yeah. Good times.

    But, seriously when you line up all the covers it could be an advertisement for the Weather Channel.

  20. SB Sarah says:

    @Maree: I think I should do this, then. Have random people in Regency garb flex their biceps and stare at their hands? Awesome. 🙂

    @Maree & @Kate K:

    Thank you for telling me about the additional covers! We always need more safety dancers.

  21. Brooke B. says:

    Hilarious! I’ve seen a lot of this since ebooks have exploded and started being produced en masse.

  22. Sarina Bowen says:

    Oh MY God. First—wow! That’s a lot of covers. But having spent too many hours of my own time staring into the depths of the abyss (by which I mean stock photography websites) I have a new appreciation for cover repeats.

    WHY does humanity look so beautiful on Pinterest, but so scrawny on stock photo websites? When the cover designers find a handsome specimen, I think they’re just, like, “hey, it doesn’t matter if he’s staring at his hands in a way which suggests there’s something contagious there. He isn’t totally ugly. So let’s print it!

    Second—I had no idea that the video for Safety Dance was even weirder than that cover shot. I guess lip synching had not been perfected in the ‘80s.

  23. parajunkee says:

    Thanks I will wake up singing this song. You are kind of evil… he’s probably friends with that santa hat guy that is on every cover…

  24. Toni Kenyon says:

    The 80’s were great! Apart from poodle perms and shoulder pads … *shudder*
    Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
    As for ‘that guy’ he’s gorgeous even if he does have a palm complex 🙂

  25. Uh oh. One of those covers is mine. *sobs* I thought what we had was real, but he’s been SEEING OTHER COVERS BEHIND MY BACK!!!

  26. @Sarah: “@Maree: I think I should do this, then. Have random people in Regency garb flex their biceps and stare at their hands? Awesome. :)”

    YES! A million times, Yes! And I would totally steal, uh, borrow funds from our mortgage account to fly to the US and attend an RWA conference to see that 🙂

    ***

    @Rebekah: “*sobs* I thought what we had was real, but he’s been SEEING OTHER COVERS BEHIND MY BACK!!!”

    HAHAHAHA! OMG I just snorted my morning coffee *wheezes* Yep, this dude has NO SHAME. Rebekah, we should start a club!

  27. SB Sarah says:

    @Rebekah:

    I nearly blew my coffee across the counter. HA!

  28. Nalini Singh says:

    Dear @Rebekah, he’s also been seeing covers in other languages. It’s true.
    http://www.libri.hu/konyv/feloldozas-egy-vilag-ket-faj-allando-kuzdelem-4.html

  29. @Nalini @Rebekah: Apparently things got a little too hot and he skipped the country… to masquerade as an uber-sexy Changeling? Oh my!

    I now have this scene etched into my brain where there’s a crowd of romance authors waving their book covers and chasing this guy down the street… and while he’s running he’s looking at his hands *g*

  30. Donna M. says:

    This is too funny. And YES you are flipping evil because I can’t stop that stinking song now. My daughter (a photographer) and I get into discussions about repeat images on covers. What is more bizarre are the bad Photoshop jobs, where the body doesn’t match the head or arm, etc.

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