How you doing? I hope you’re having a pretty swell day. It might not be swell by the end of this but if the coffee was good this morning, that’s a win.
I’m writing to talk to you about Kelley Armstrong’s book covers.
First, this comparison was sent in by alert reader Ashley-Anne, who found them separately and had to send me the cover images.
Oh, my my.
It’s happened before, and I understand, obviously, that there are only 35 stock images to go around. Look at the pink legs that were everywhere. And yes, the tulle-wrapped legs are evocative of the first Bitten cover, which I can’t find a pic of right now (WTF?)
Problem is, Bree Despain has a total look going for her books, and the tulle-and-pale-legs thing is on her other book, too:
It happens. I totally get it.
But as I noodled around (yes, that’s a verb, and a very good cover image, since you’re not asking but I’m telling you anyway) Amazon, I noticed something truly heartbreaking.
Armstrong’s covers are straying deeply in to the Realm of the Twilight-Knockoff.
And what, by the way, goddam hell is this?!
This just has to stop. It’s Kelley Mother Fucking Armstrong! She wrote the werewolf book that rocked my world! She is the awesome! Stop making her books look like Twiwannabes and get on with the original images!
I’m not saying we have to go back to Stirring the Mist Naked with Man Hands covers but at least have SOMETHING original to do with the cover art.
Not everything is Twilight. Some things are really, really good. Like these books. Stop making everything paranormal homogenized black, red and white crap, please!
And for the love of God, NOBODY buy those checkered tights and then sit like that, ok? Ok.
Surely there is more to be done with cover art depicting strong women than making the images a low-fi knockoff of Twilight. I can only hope, anyway. Otherwise, this is just sad and embarrassing.
Hoping for something else soon,
Sarah
p.s. That font needs to stop appearing everywhere. I look at it, and I think, “Oh. It’s the Kresley Cole font.” Do you want me to think Kresley Cole when I look at someone else’s book? Of course not. That typeface is waaaaay tired. It’s like the Hoobastank of fonts. Make it stop now.
Nothing against the twilight type covers, but have the publishers thought that some of us readers out there really didn’t like twilight and will actively avoid anything twilightesque? I love paranormal romance, but teen angst I’m not so fond of. I remember one of my friends tried to convince me to love twilight as much as she does by showing me how “clever” it was that when Edward was gone the pages just had the months because of course Bella’s life was a void without him. Thinking about this makes me vomit in my mouth.
I bet Kelley Armstrong wanted to cry when she saw those checkered tights. I cannot remotely imagine anyone in that series wearing such a thing. EW.
I loathe the “sexy bare legs” covers, period, though. Also, who are they supposed to appeal to? I’m guessing (at least with the het romances) they are trying to market to straight women, who probably don’t want to boink those legs. Do not comprehend.
Though I did put a protest in with a review I did of a mystery series I liked: the first five or so books had adorable, distinctive covers, and book six was replaced with Sexy Bare Legs and I complained about it in the review. By book seven, the cute covers were back. Maybe we all need to post more things like this to get the cloning to stop?
“Near Dark” with a Twilight-esque DVD cover? Whoa! That movie seriously rocked, and it does have a romance element, but Twilight it ain’t!
Has “Lost Boys” gotten a Twi-cover yet? There’s a romantic element in it, too. 😉
Those Armstrong covers are surprising. I’ve read all those books and seen none of those covers. The original pb edition for Industrial Magic was a shot of legs in normal hose with an arm dangling a pentacle on a chain, or something similar to that. That cover caught my eye and made me pick up the book. These new covers don’t—why mess with a good thing?
Aren’t the covers on Armstrong’s hardcovers still fairly nice. I didn’t buy it because I don’t buy Armstrong in hardcover, but Waking the Witch was non-twilightly, more like the wonderful penticle covers. Wasn’t it, or am I remembering wrong? I love the penticle covers, they are on the bookself with Bitten and Stolen which have wolves on them. Frostbitten, which I didn’t want to buy because of the truely crap-tastic cover is lost in the the TBR pile that ate the house.
Heather
I don’t like the purple tulle one. Her legs are too thin, and the angle makes it look like she’s about to snap that twig she calls a leg.
When I first saw the new cover for Industrial Magic I was all “oh look those tights would look really cool at roller derby practice, I wonder where I can find some”. I’m so happy I have all the originals cause I sure as shit wouldn’t pick them up now with those on the front. I die a little bit inside everyday when a preteen comes in looking for them. I really wish the publishing companies would wake the hell up when it comes to cover flaps.
Let me see if I can turn off the italics.
I love the Twilight covers.
Hate the books.
I won’t buy any book that has a Twilight-knockoff-cover, because it will make me think of Twilight and all the squicky feelings associated with it.
Despain’s novel was so unoriginal and derivative of everything currently in the paranormal YA genre so I can see why it got a Twilight style cover (hey, you’ve got a cash cow, go effing milk it!) I’m still not over seeing a Twilighized cover of Jane Eyre. *sob*
Yeah. I don’t believe Kelley has any ( as in zero) input on the covers.
It seems like a publisher grab for the Twilight niche buyers; which is a freaking big niche that spends $$$.
Since Kelley also has a YA series, the publishers want to ride that wagon as far as it will take them.
I love twilight as much as the next teenage girl, but I do have to admit that people are wanting some the Meyer magic to rub off on them…Just let he woman get some glory and leave her alone. *Though I amshocked at the Withering Heights cover*
I did a double take when I saw the checkered legs cover at Barnes and Noble. The original covers weren’t terrible but these are too generic copy-catish. They don’t do justice to the awesome stories that are inside.
BTW, at my house, “Stirring the Mist Naked with Man Hands” was been dubbed “Satan’s Chili Supper”.
Well, I like the checkered tights, but not for that book (or series); I’m definitely also getting the Wonderland feel from them. And while I like the Bree covers (though they remind me of promos for Big Love, a season or so ago), they do not match the writing style or stories of Armstrong’s series, besides being a copy-cat. I really liked the clean look of the Twilight books, so if they’d just do a different color scheme so it won’t be as strongly associated, and drop the apple, chess piece, etc item choice, we’d be good to go.
Well I can’t say I love the looks of the HP covers, I give the cover designer a lot of credit for making something that strongly touches on the book. (I’m talking about what I think was the original British or American covers, like this.) Harry, doing something that somewhat relates to the book, in a very specific and not always usual (the green, the orange) color scheme. It seems like it would be hard to copy those because they are so specific to the book. (Though I have no clue what the unicorn in the background is doing on that first cover.)
Hey, Sarah – what werewolf book?
The worst things about that font are:
1. It’s called Manson Family. Seriously.
2. It’s been around at least 17 years. (The date on my copy of it is 1993, but it could be older.)
I’ve been sick of that stupid font for at least a decade. It got played out in the 90s.
The problem with the Twilight covers is that they are essentially a blank slate. Much like Bella, the covers have no content to them yet are instantly recognizable. It makes them an easy target for copying. The same cannot be said for at least the Harry Potter books I have. There is so much going on in each cover that a publisher would have to be crazy trying to replicate the look for their unrelated books.
yes!
Ok that thing with the Kresley Cole font drives me bonkies. EVERYONE does it now. Also, I have to agree that the twilightesque covers really turn me off of books. I just automatically assume they are going to be like twilight and avoid them (I know someone already said that but I wanted to chime in with my Here Here!)
You know what the said thing is? when I first saw the twilight covers, because twilight became teen madness, I thought they were artsy mature covers. I really liked them. Now whenever I read a large black hardcover on the bus I make sure that the title is in full view, so people don’t think I’m reading Twilight.
Oh, and the Wuthering Heights thing? Apparently that is because Meyer mentions Wuthering heights, Pride and Prejudice, and Romeo and Juliet. So they wanted to release copies of those books that would create a link for twilight fans. To broaden their horizons I guess
Ahh, that’s so sad. D: Honestly, if I were to see book covers that look like Twilight, I’d probably skip them.
I saw this one book Wuthering Heights, I think (I haven’t read it), and the cover looked SO similar to Twilight…the worst bit of all—it wrote in Twilight font “Edward and Bella’s favorite book!” right near the title. Vomit. >.>
I hate, hate, hate when they re-issue a book with a new cover. I have to admit to being like Kristina with this one. When I am buying a series of books, they all need to have the same cover. I place them on my bookshelves together obviously and I like the uniformity the same covers give. When I have a book with a different cover, it just looks plain wrong and I also have to prevent myself from buying the other books in the new cover so they all match. I don’t have that kind of money.
I am not a huge fan of the Twilight covers, but I hate this copying of it. Harry Potter was just as popular, but you don’t see those covers being copied left, right, and center. Yes, black, white, and red are great colors and make eye-catching covers, but enough already! I want to see other things. Plus, as people said, they hated Twilight and would skip an otherwise great novel because of the cover.
Armstrong’s covers are straying deeply in to the Realm of the Twilight-