Bitchin' Blog Posts
Your Cover Fortune
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | September 15, 2008 | Monday at 3:03 pm | 45 CommentsI had some Chinese food recently, and as usual, my fortune wasn’t so much a fortune as a vague statement of possible fact. But I do have a fortune for you writers of the category:
Should your book be published in September from Silhouette, duplication may be in the cover.
Exhibit A: September 2006’s A Little Change of Plans by Jen Safrey:
Exhibit B:
September 2008’s The Daddy Verdict by Karen Rose Smith:
Anyone else got “one of these things is just like the other?” stuck in their heads?
Thanks to Awesome Librarian Janine for the links.
Filed: General Bitching, The Link-O-Lator
Tagged: silhouette, food, cover snark, cover copycats, category romance
ev said on 09.15.08 at 03:08 PM • [link]
Well, at least they changed to color of her shirt, although after being preggers for 2 years plus, I don’t think I would be smiling!!
Iasmin said on 09.15.08 at 03:35 PM • [link]
Do they think we’ll not notice things like this? Feh.
robinb said on 09.15.08 at 03:49 PM • [link]
Hilarity! Francine Pascal meets Silhouette Special Edition. What are the oddds that Jessica and Elizabeth, who have each dyed their hair the exact same shade of brown, would meet and get impregnanted by the exact same man? One lives in a wonderful house with beautiful windows, and the other lives on her sister’s patio…...
Silver James said on 09.15.08 at 03:51 PM • [link]
Ah, man…..that’s just….*snorfle*
robinjn said on 09.15.08 at 03:52 PM • [link]
And it’s a piss poor Photoshop masking job too. I don’t know who did it, but the guy has a white halo all around his head (it’s especially bad between his face and the chair) and it’s really obvious how they changed the table/vase. They cropped part of her chair out in the futile attempt to hide that hey, it’s not LIKE the chair they shopped in.
Yo! Sihlouette! I could do better than this and I’m unemployed at the moment!
Diana Castilleja said on 09.15.08 at 04:02 PM • [link]
Oh dear… *blink*
Leslie Dicken said on 09.15.08 at 04:04 PM • [link]
Oh. My. Gawd.
No one noticed THAT in the art department? Eeeeeek!
Anyone else think her fingers are unnaturally loooooooong and slender?? That’s even scarier!
Theresa Meyers said on 09.15.08 at 04:07 PM • [link]
They also moved everything over to the right, just slightly. Does anyone ever wonder if recycling cover art contributes to the assumption by the masses that all romances are just the same?
Bonnie said on 09.15.08 at 04:12 PM • [link]
Yep. Not to mention cheap and careless. That’s just so tacky.
Lorelie said on 09.15.08 at 04:16 PM • [link]
No, no, she’s pregnant *again*. Ya see, her and baby daddy hooked up the first time around, but as everyone knows it’s a bad idea to get married only because you’re pregnant. So they split. But things were pretty bumpin’ and there were some late night booty calls after tot number 1 went to sleep, and next thing you know. . .
So here they are again but this time Will. Be. Different. ‘Cause they’re in love. Plus she read some Dr. Phil books.
Victoria Janssen said on 09.15.08 at 04:19 PM • [link]
I think that guy in the blue shirt is playing around on his woman!!! Women?
Suze said on 09.15.08 at 04:27 PM • [link]
Holy. I can see a new employee being sent to the stock images to choose a cover for a new book, seeing this, and saying “Perfect!”.
What I can’t see is the library of stock images NOT having a “this image was last used for this publication on this date” kind of note on it, to prevent alert readers from noticing too much.
Wouldn’t a publishing monolith have some kind of policy about frequency of use? Or maybe they do, and it’s a bad one.
WendyC said on 09.15.08 at 04:36 PM • [link]
Oh man, that’s just sad. Do they really not have records to prevent things like this happening?
So who thinks that in September 2010 there’ll be another poor author with the same cover on their book? (although maybe they’ll change the guy’s shirt colour this time and remove that halo surrounding him!)
Ms Manna said on 09.15.08 at 04:38 PM • [link]
Secret twins!
joykenn said on 09.15.08 at 04:42 PM • [link]
Hey, what about the models, what about the artist? Do they get paid twice. Betcha not! Boy, these guys are cheap. I’m not buying any of these books these days cause they are all beginning to sound the same and I’ll blow my book budget entirely on “junk food” reading. I want a nice meaty stew instead of jello. Yeah, its like jello—sweet, synthetic tasting and over too fast. The slam-bam-thankyou mam of romance reading.
Jennie said on 09.15.08 at 05:00 PM • [link]
It reminds me of those side by side puzzle pictures where you’re supposed to find the 10 differences between the two pictures.
My word is mass55—does that mean the cover has/will be mass produced 55 times?
Marsha said on 09.15.08 at 05:16 PM • [link]
Reduce, reuse, recycle!
kalafudra said on 09.15.08 at 05:29 PM • [link]
My thoughts exactly!
You know, those twin studies they conducted, where the twins end up with partners eerily alike? Well, these four just found each other.
spinsterwitch said on 09.15.08 at 05:32 PM • [link]
This is very funny! My word is few19…they apparently only have a few stock pictures.
Darlene Marshall said on 09.15.08 at 06:00 PM • [link]
Oh, the poor authors! We should take up a collection and buy Harlequin some new stock pictures.
katiebabs said on 09.15.08 at 06:07 PM • [link]
Maybe the Daddy Verdict cover is just showing the twin brother and sister from A Little Change of Plans? *snort*
That is too funny.
Kimberly Van Meter said on 09.15.08 at 06:39 PM • [link]
Wow. That is unfortunate for the authors but HQ and SIL aren’t the only pubs to have been caught recycling covers…I seem to recall something similar being pointed out on this site before. I don’t know how this happens. I just hope it’s the exception rather than the norm. No one I know has had their covers recycled (thank goodness!) and I’m hoping that it was just an unfortunate slip on the part of the art dept.
robinjn said on 09.15.08 at 06:45 PM • [link]
I don’t know how this could be an accidental slip up of the art department. If they didn’t know they were doing a repeat, why try using all their Photoshop skillz (such as they are) to make it look different? Different background, different table, different colored shirt.
If they didn’t know it needed to be changed so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious, why change it?
Oh, and is it only me who is somehow profoundly bothered by the phrase “Dads in Progress”? In progress to what? From where? Are they a faulty system that must be updated? A sloppy construction project that needs to be fixed?
dangrgirl said on 09.15.08 at 06:52 PM • [link]
That some good Photoshopping. Should I stick Seinfeld’s head in there, looking through the window of Exhibit A?
rebyj said on 09.15.08 at 07:05 PM • [link]
They’re just getting lazy.
To me, I would think it sells less books because if I were in the store looking to purchase, I’d see a familiar cover and immediately assume I’ve already read it and move on to an original cover.
kirsten saell said on 09.15.08 at 07:40 PM • [link]
If they’re gonna reuse cover art, maybe they could pick something that doesn’t give me the freaking willies. That woman’s smile? Creepy. I keep thinking it’s a pod in her belly.
*shudder*
Shae said on 09.15.08 at 08:26 PM • [link]
Bored at work and did a quick and dirty shop of the picture, lol - http://pics.livejournal.com/lezlishae/pic/0022x0k7
I amuse myself. :P
Teddypig said on 09.15.08 at 08:27 PM • [link]
Next they can use this for the cover of Just Like Mama Taught Me: The Bristol Palin Story
Suze said on 09.15.08 at 08:28 PM • [link]
Heh. I refer to Presents as being like jellybeans. Munch munch munch, whoops! They’re gone! Sweet, enjoyable, easily forgettable, and really shouldn’t form the foundation of a diet. (By which I mean what you eat, not a weight-loss program.)
Dude! They already get WAY too much of my disposable income.
Suze said on 09.15.08 at 08:30 PM • [link]
Or the cover of the indefinitely-suspended book on Christian child-rearing by Britney & Jamie-Lynn’s mom. Tee hee.
dangrgirl said on 09.15.08 at 08:31 PM • [link]
Nice Shae!
Teddypig said on 09.15.08 at 08:40 PM • [link]
Oh I heard of that one…
Hit Me Baby One More Time
Jennifer Armintrout said on 09.15.08 at 08:51 PM • [link]
I’m WTFing more over the title of “The Daddy Verdict.” Was he sentenced to fatherhood as like, community service or something? Is “The Daddy Verdict” something that happens in family court, and then they seize your bank accounts and wages?
Come on Harlequin, what are you guys thinking sometimes?
CherylPangolin said on 09.15.08 at 09:36 PM • [link]
I’m just wondering when nascent bald spots became part of the image of the ideal baby daddy?
Eunice said on 09.15.08 at 10:17 PM • [link]
Jennifer>
My first thought on “The Daddy Verdict” is “Paternity Test.” Not very romantic.
FallFromGrace said on 09.15.08 at 10:33 PM • [link]
decision33…
I’m thinking any of the previous 32 would have been better.
Kathy said on 09.15.08 at 10:36 PM • [link]
*SHAE*-Tooo damn funny. Can you do anything else with the same people. I need some amusement. hahahahahahaha. You are good.
Jennifer Armintrout said on 09.15.08 at 10:38 PM • [link]
Now that I think about it, the first title isn’t all that much better, either. “A Little Change Of Plans,” as in, “I wasn’t PLANNING on marrying you, but now that you’re knocked up, you wanna just go for it?” That’s kind of bleak.
Shae said on 09.15.08 at 11:08 PM • [link]
I could, but now am home from work and working of crafts (yays!). I can link to you a random thing I was doing a few months ago. I noticed my sims (the sims 2 pc game, that is) could be easily made into Ellora’s Cave style covers - so I did a whole bunch of them. You can click them to see the full cover. :P
http://pics.livejournal.com/lezlishae/gallery/0003pr0x?page=1
Esri Rose said on 09.15.08 at 11:15 PM • [link]
Shae: GREAT work! Remind me to have you make up my next pen name.
ev said on 09.16.08 at 01:15 AM • [link]
No, No, No. It’s an Alternative Universe. Why else would they look like creepy versions of a previous cover? It’s not because some idiot used it thinking NO ONE WOULD NOTICE.
amy lane said on 09.16.08 at 01:25 AM • [link]
And I’m appalled with two ‘P’s. For pregnant woman, I guess.
Jenyfer Matthews said on 09.16.08 at 10:08 AM • [link]
Excellent point - me too. Are you listening, HQ and Silhouette?
Julietta said on 09.17.08 at 02:17 AM • [link]
So speaking of fortune cookies:
(and this is a total change of topic, but it’s what I first thought of when I saw the pictures and the title)
Do HQ/ Silhouette titles work with the fortune cookie game (add “in bed” to the end of any fortune)?
A little change of plans… in bed. WIN!
The daddy verdict.. in bed… FAIL!, unless, in the heat of the moment, the question is “who’s your daddy?”
andrea said on 09.18.08 at 05:16 AM • [link]
Cover reuse contributing to the assumption that romance books are all the same?
BWAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA. Try maybe the crappy writing and stale, run-of-the-mill stories.
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