First, check out this fine piece of cover art for Rick Moody’s new book. It’s a popup, but go on, it’s worth it.
Would you look at that cover and think, ‘Oh! Yes! A satire on Hollywood’s independent film industry!”
Of course you would…not!
Noble and clever Ron Hogan forwarded us this article about how the cover is turning women off to the point where the publisher has redesigned it (warning: NY Times requires registration after the dateline of the article) to reflect more of the book’s content.
Oh, if only the same were true for most romance authors. Can you imagine – “No, you will NOT have big man-titty on my book cover!”
It certainly turns me off as it brings to mind badly done D&D fantasy novels. And it just sucks.
Wow. A two-pronged man-stick AND a geyser. How….subtle.
Aoife – that’s exactly what I thought, too. Well, that, and “phallic much?”
Too bad they didn’t think to put the giant stone penis under the ejaculating geyser.
Bad D&D cover. ROFL. To this day if I say “hoot hoot hoot owl” to my brother and/or several friends, we collapse in laughter. Vive La RPG!
But seriously. Like, what’s the significance of the one bent prong?
Now, you see, I can live with this cover. But only because:
a) I have no idea who Rick Moody is
and
b) I just lurrrve Genghis Khan.
So there.
But it is kind of Conan Gone East.