In the past few days, we’ve been talking a lot about cover makeovers and the photoshoppery that creates multiple covers out of the same image – and stay tuned, because there is MORE coming. I know, how can it possibly be?
Since I began reading romance sites online, I’ve encountered with some regularity the frustration that some readers have when the cover models look literally nothing like the characters described inside. Sometimes, when the character in a romance is a short, curvy, buxom woman with a dark pixie haircut and the cover model is a lithe, extremely slender redhead with curls down to her backside, it drives romance readers right over the edge.
Personally, I’m so used to cover models NOT matching the characters that I’m surprised with they do. I remember being charmed when the heroine in Julie James’ Something About You wore a dress in one scene that was described exactly as it appeared on the cover – only to find out that James made that change after the fact when she saw the images from the cover shoot. It was so unexpected that I still think how neat it was.
So: behold, a poll! Try to contain your excitement. Does it matter to you that the cover models resemble the characters inside? Or do you not care much?
As a reader, I always wondered about the mysterious phenomenon of the non-matching cover models, and then I became an author. lol
And, now, I’m like…if J.R. Ward’s publisher won’t depict the Brothers accurately, then what chance do *I* have???
On my first novel’s cover, they did a fairly good job. My hero’s hair is jaw-length brown and he has gray eyes. They did regular/short brown hair and brown eyes. But, okay. It’s set in Detroit and they got the Detroit skyline in there and used the color scheme I had in mind. So I was overall pleased. The real test for me is going to be my second project (cover expected any day now…), in which the hero is quite physically unique: skull trim, big crescent-shaped scar on the left side of his head, 7 tattoos, and 2 facial piercings. Ha! I got a message of complete alarm from the art director via my editor basically saying, “I hope she doesn’t think we could actually depict him accurately or else she’s going to be disappointed.” Alas, I had already resigned myself that Caden was likely to appear rather generic on the cover, despite the fact that his appearance is one of the central plot points in the story. And, of course, it’s because they use largely unedited stock images. I’ve just got my fingers crossed for one of their graphic artists I happened to meet at the RWA who is the queen of photoshopping and/or actually painting accurate details into her images. [pleasepleaseplease let me get her!] Oops, I digress…
My editor explained that they really do try to be true to authors’ descriptions, but because they use stock images, if they depict a couple, the image may only really get either the hero OR the heroine right, but not both. And then they just have to choose the lesser of two evils…
This is why I prefer rear views of the cover models or with their heads chopped off. They never look like who’s in the book or in my head and it annoys me. I like the cover of Erin McCarthy’s You Don’t Know Jack for that reason. The guy on the cover has the right hair and is in a business suit, so he fits the hero in the story, but you don’t see his face so he can look how my brain says he looks. Plus, I love that book. http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-Jack-Erin-McCarthy/dp/075821409X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287528892&sr=1-1
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if I cared what the *&^%%$£ covers looked like, I’d never, ever have read a romance novel in the first place. I care deeply about the visual arts, yes, but the covers of popular novels are not art: they are wrapping paper, and most of them are revolting. The good stuff is inside. Would you whinge about about the hideous, tasteless wrapping paper if the gift inside is an exquisite piece of jewellery?
Well, then. It’s a lost cause. Romance paperback covers are crap. Ignore ‘em.
🙂
As a reader I’ve always loved it when the cover shows a scene from the book, but it happens very rarely these days. As a writer I long for the same thing but am resigned to not getting it. In my second book, The Wild Marquis, I heard (not saw) about the heroine’s red dress before I finished the book. Like Julie James, I quickly wrote a red dress into the last scene.
“You Don’t Know Jack” guy is in a business suit?! On my copy of the same book, he’s bare chested….growl!
I find it frustrating when the cover art bears no relation to the content of the book. I guess the artists don’t read the books.
By the way, I think Julie James won the cover lottery. That “Something About You” cover is gorgeous, and have you seen the one for “Practice Makes Perfect”? Equally lovely. Those are books I’m happy to carry around anywhere, because the covers don’t embarrass me.
I didn’t know she changed the content of “Something About You” to match the cover, but I think it was a good idea. I love that the cover and book match.
OH!!!!!! [My hand is up, waving madly—ASK ME, ASK ME!!] Thanks! In the mid-90s, I wrote my second book, A Light For My Love. The characters were very carefully described; the heroine was Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (in my head) and the hero was Kevin Costner, before he made sensational news with his infidelities. I was writing under the Topaz imprint for NAL, and they were using the same model on all their covers [major sigh—book signings with him were, um, not stimulating, mentally or otherwise]. I got the cover flats and there he was—my carefully described sun-and-weather-bleached blond, green-eyed sea captain hero was now a dark-haired fop wearing a puffy shirt on the book spine and a glistening shaved chest on the cover. He made me think of a cocker spaniel.
When I mentioned this problem to my editor du jour (I had five there), she said, “The model doesn’t look good as a blond.” With Mediterranean coloring, no, I’m sure he doesn’t. I just hadn’t realized we were working for him now. A few readers actually wrote to me to complain that the cover didn’t match the characters, and I gently told them I had no control over the cover. One wanted to know if I realized the error. Uhhh . . . yeah.
So to answer the question—YES, it bothered me, and it bothered my readers. I loved that story and when I got the chance recently, I gave it a new cover. And yes, if there are characters on the cover, it’s good to have them resemble the author’s descriptions.
I honestly don’t care. I quit looking for a connection between the cover and story characters years ago.
Now, the only thing a cover does is tell me at a glance the type of romance. Period clothing = historical (maybe it will show me the era, maybe not). Tribal tattoos and/or large wolves/panthers and/or lightning coming out of hands = paranormal. etc, etc, rinse, repeat.
OMG, Alexis, I had to google your cover, and I’m sorry, NO OFFENSE, but now I can’t stop giggling:)
I don’t know about hair coloring, but I’d be much more concerned that it looks like the guy is breastfeeding the heroine! I can’t believe the people who approve these covers don’t notice things like that.
oKAY..I hope I don’t get bumped by my computer before I get this in.
1. The one that absolutely made me nuts was Cherry Adair: TFLAK – IN TOO DEEP…any whaaaay the hero only had 1 eye and wore a patch! @ ON THE COVER Aren’t we surprised??
2. This is a biggie , for me, hair vs hairless manly chests…OHHH the heroine loves/is intrigued by/fascinated (yada, yada) the hair on his nipples arrowing down the the v where it enters his shorts, pants, smalls, buckskins. How many covers with hirsuit men have you all seen? I can recall 1. I know it covers up the 6/8/10/12/16 pack,
3. Changing John DeSalvo’s hair to blond. That’s just euwh. (One of the old Sandra Hill Vikings)
Cait
ps – I have a number of your books, Alexis. Not this one, though, I have enjoyed them all.
Coloring really irritates me when they don’t match. If those don’t match I will always have a conflicting image in my head when I’m reading. My biggest peeve is hair length, though. I just don’t find guys with long hair attractive – it is what it is – and if there’s a hot, sexy, buzz cut on the cover I will be royally pissed off if the author waxes poetic about the hero’s long lush tresses. Shallow, but true.
Lindsay, I LOVE the cover model on Trial by Desire. I have the book but haven’t read it yet.
I don’t mind when the cover models don’t match the H/H exactly but like others have mentioned, it bugs me when an obvious, frequently remarked-upon feature of the H or H is clearly missing from the cover.
And whitewashing is always, everywhere, forever unacceptable. It just says to me that the publisher doesn’t respect the author or the readers.
Kanaxa, Kanaxa, Kanaxa. I love her covers—who remembers Blood, Smoke and Mirrors?—and requested her for my first full length, and it’s awesome. I’ve heard so much cover angst from fellow authors – esp. ebook authors – and I was terrified that my lil cover would suck, but it doesn’t. It reflects the story and, altho the cover model doesn’t match my heroine exactly, she’s got just the right “feel.”
RebeccaJ said:
It’s okay—I already pulled out my hair about this one and regrew it. 😉 I can’t even claim something wonderful and famous like the three-armed heroine on the cover of one of Christina Dodd’s books. And this, after the editorial and/or sales department had stared at a poster size cover in their offices for months. As soon as the book hit the shelves (too late) they realized their mistake. But that was kind of cool. Not like mine.
Having been blessed by all kinds of covers from all kinds of publishers from e to NY, I’m always just pleased that the book has a cover. The variety of input I have varies considerably as well.
Covers where I’ve expected to hear negative comments back from readers haven’t caused a ripple and then others, which I think are awesome like the Kiss of the Rose one, I get screamed at for because costume experts think there’s a safety pin under her arm or that its Elizabethan rather than Henrician, etc etc.
I buy books by author name and very rarely by the cover, so maybe I’m an oddity. 🙂
Another “dog where there isn’t one” cover is Accidentally Engaged by Mary Carter. I thought of that when I first heard the Crusie-dog story.
Man, A Civil Campaign was one of the worst offenders, wasn’t it? I can only resign myself to it by assuming they meant to portray Gregor and Laisa. Who isn’t all that blonde, but that’s still closer than *gasp* portraying short romantic heroes.
This is not a problem unique to romance fiction. Maya Kathryn Bonhoff has a brilliant song “There’s a Bimbo on the Cover of My Book” which explains all the things that end up on the covers of an SF or fantasy book even if it’s not part of the actual story. And then there’s the truly tragic bit about the author’s name. Anyway, she’s a very good singer as well as an excellent author, and the song is brilliant.
I bothers me. Yes.
What bothers me more? When the blurb on the back cover does not reflect the book. At all. Someone needs to be whopped up side the head with a knobby stick when they do that.
I don’t really care if the characters on the cover match their description in the book, though I find it cool it they do. What I can’t deal with is when the feel of the cover in no way matches the feel of the book. Does that make any sense?
Yeah, the blurb problem is more of an issue for me, too. Or the blurb only mentions the first half of the book. What?
In More Cover Questions: Boys on The Right, no Left, no Right
And now this poll! Did I cause it, or just do the lead-in? Grinning, either way.
I wanted to ring in Bujold but Becca beat me to it:
The covers of the first two Sharing Knife books are the left and right halves of a single picture depicting a scene where Dag summons fireflies to wreath Fawn in their light. It’s gorgious, and Lois says the two volumes are a single book split in half for size. And it’s a Fantasy on the one hand, and a capital “R” Romance on the other. The covers of the other two books in the series aren’t bad, either.
Her website contains a discussion of cover art on her Vorkosigan novels. The worst offender might be the book Komarr, which features a redhead instead of the Brunette from the story, and an object described as “the flying cuisinart” which also does not appear in the story.
All that aside, I’ve read numerous essays by authors and publishers alike that point out that the cover has to grab the eye. If you don’t pick up the book and read the cover, or the inside of the jacket, or the first page, you probably won’t buy the book. So, while I really appreciate a match, what I want is a Good Read. I’ll forgive a cover for being totally bogus if I liked the book.
anti69? No, I’m not!
I don’t mind some small differences, but when it’s obvious that the cover models look nothing like the characters, it drives me a little batty. Sometimes the story is good enough that I don’t care much, but it can be a big distraction from the novel.
One of my favorite cover sets is from the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray. If you haven’t seen them (or read the books), you should check them out. The series is really good, just like the covers are.
@Gary: yes, it is ALL YOUR FAULT. 🙂
When l read bound books, it can really bug me since I see the cover each time l pick it up. However, with e-books it’s not an issue since my reader opens to the current page and I am not faced with the book’s cover.
To be honest I think it shouldn’t be that way for just the odd genre, it should carry on across the range as it feels like the publisher cheaped out on the cover art and just picked a piece rather than commisioned something specific.
It sort of goes hand in hand with the thought “if they can’t be bothered to get the detail’s right how much are they behind this title.”
I never heard that story about Julie James’ cover either! I had no idea she re-wrote it for the dress due to the cover!Surprise, surprise! I wasn’t overly thrilled with the cover anyway, though I LOVED the book. I much preferred the covers of her first two, particularly the first. I wish they’d stuck with that trend.
Nathan Kamp – sorry, I’m so tired of seeing him everywhere, I roll my eyes now when I see him on a cover! I know him so well as Nathan Kamp the romance novel model now – he is NEVER the actual hero to me from the book. It’s like some superstar high profile actor, it’s hard to see him as the actual character in a movie (i.e. Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt) I want to see more of a variety, he’s okay, but never really did it for me.
And then there’s the whole shaved everywhere cover models. Who decided this was the way to go? When the author takes the time to describe a character’s manly chest hair or rhapsodise over his happy trail, show some respect!
Oh, the happy trail, how I miss it… Speaking of which has anyone seen Charlie Hunnam’s Men’s Fitness cover? Yowza!
I’ll fifth what others have said before: I hate whitewashing, but I can live (or at least accept it isn’t going to change) that the hero/heroine don’t match the cover art. Hence why I tend to prefer covers that don’t have humans on it. As long as the cover art is good (since yeah, covers do attract new readers), and as sugarless said gets the feel of the book, I’m okay.
Best cover: Bet Me by Jenny Crusie – the shoes are part of the heroine’s character, the cover is light and happy, and she even has cherries (which is what her first fan group was named after) so it ties into her author brand too, and it reads comedy romance to me. Favorite cover, by far. And no stinking humans are on it to mess it up. 🙂 She’s actually ended up with some really good covers, in my opinion.
E-books, in my mind, tend to have horrible covers. I’m sure there are exceptions but if I look at my (admittedly small) e-book collection, there’s maybe two good covers and two okay ones, and all the rest look like a lesson in how not to photoshop.
Alexis, I hope it was a best seller for you, regardless of the cover!;)
BTW, even though it does bug me, I’m surprised that so many other people want the cover models and the descriptions to match.
Interesting post, Sarah!
Being quite visual, I was dismayed when they changed the cover of my fave romance of all time, Lord of Scoudrels, from the over-the-top-yet-lovely classic cover to one featuring some drippy dame’s bare left shoulder. WTH? I’m pretty sure I picked the old paperback up because the woman on the cover had super-shiney-gorgeous-romance-cover-hair. At least the heroine rolling about in a fantasical field of flowers on the original looked like the person described in the book. The new, less representative, front image is so blah, who would be intrigued enough to read the back cover?
I happen to like when the hero and heroine groping each other on the outside of the book match the two characters knockin boots on the inside. it’s not a deal breaker of course. If the book is well written and exciting to read, I won’t toss it over my shoulder if I find out that the Fabio look-a-like on the outside really bears a striking resemblance to Geroge Clooney on the inside.
But I sometimes want to.
We just have to remember, that unless it’s Nora, the typical romance author doesn’t have much say in the matter.
I got lucky. I was worried my cover might not match my characters, but my publisher and cover artist took time to really get to know the story and the hero and heroine. As a result I have a cover that captures the feel of my story, the look of my characters and even their personalities to an extent. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the result.
I suppose I’m the exception to the rule.
Loved the post!!!
Good luck to all those writers out there!
Tamara
I just wish more publishers would respect the hard work their authors struggle through in order to pull a story out of their heart and soul and transfer it to the page. it’s not easy.
I think what bothers me about cover art not matching the content of the book is that it looks like shoddy work—like the publisher doesn’t give a crap and is just phoning it in.
But the situation is quite different from the author’s point of view. Many authors care very deeply about each book they write and want every detail to be perfect, and it’s that kind of attention to detail that can turn a merely “good” book into a great one. So I can see why several authors have changed the content of their books to match the covers—these, presumably, are detail-oriented authors who want everything to be as close to perfect as they can make it, and good for them! I bet they write damn good books. Unfortunately, there’s still an element of luck to it. If you write a disabled or scarred character and the cover model is gorgeous and perfect, there can be no changing the book to match. And if you wind up with a “flying cuisinart” on your cover, what are you supposed to do with that?
I think the reason covers are often so bad is that the person who cares the most deeply about the book (the author) is not involved in their creation. (Usually.)
I’m not saying authors should be responsible for their cover art. I personally shouldn’t be responsible for any kind of artwork, because I am horrible at visual design—that needs to be left to people who are actually good at it. Also, I recognize that covers are about branding and marketing, not just about the contents of the book. But is it really so hard for publishers to at least get the hair and eye color and basic physique of the hero and heroine right? That doesn’t even require the artist to read the book. It only requires that the author provide the artist with a physical description.
@jenniferarmintrout @jamisings
I agree with you on all counts. My issue as an author of Rubenesque books is that it’s very difficult to find stock photos that fit.
I do my own cover arts, mostly because I like the creativity that goes into it…and oh all right, I like having control of the finished product! I always end up having to choose pics of good-looking men instead of the women I’d envisaged.
I’d love to have a cover with a plus-sized woman that would fit the description of my heroine, but I haven’t been in luck so far.
Maybe that’ll change, but in the meantime I’ll be happy when photographers realize there is a need out there for models that aren’t stick-thin (wearing lingerie too as I write erotica and that would be so useful). Anyone? No? Nevermind then.
This does bother me. I’m a visual person. Yes I have a good imagination but unless I see a good representation all the Heros in the books end up looking like McSteamy or the Rock to me. :0)
Back when I was first reading the Anita Blake books I loved going to the website because she had model and celebrity pictures that she though best represented characters in the books. I still to this day picture Selma Hyak as Anita. :0) I think Sherrilyn Kenyon has done this in the past also but I cant rightly remember.
One that didn’t match that peeved me was a Kresley Cole book about one of the demons (Rydstrom’s) that didn’t show his horns on a full facial shot on the cover. I was soooo looking forward to seeing the horns curving back on his head. :0( denied.
I also get very disappointed when there is scarring or a huge tattoo that is mentioned in the book alot and then shows up NOWHERE (not even a shadowed area) on the cover model. Just finished reading Kerrily Sparks “Eat Prey Love” and Carlos has a panther tat that is on his chest and wraps around his neck and collar bone. Alas the cover model is shirtless and not one hint of tat anywhere!!! Oh and he totally looks white boy. Carlos is Brazilian folks!!! Get with it!
Bah!
************************’
spam word – figures98. hmph, it does figure.
*** clarification – Carlos’ tat in Eat Prey Love is a panther. On the cover he has the generic, seen on all romance cover lately tribal tat. I really used to love tribals. Now they’re kinda cliche and not as sexy.
I agree with Alissa. While the cover art doesn’t usually make or break a book purchase for me, I want to know that someone put the time in. I feel like it shows respect for the author’s efforts and for me as a reader.
Also, I feel like not matching the cover art to the story is just lazy. And I don’t know about you, but if I were that lazy and that oblivious to details in my work, I’d be fired.
If it doesn’t have Kinuko Craft as the cover artist, I don’t care what’s on the cover. If she’s there I buy the book. I don’t even see the covers when I read the book on my Kindle, and even if I did, it would be in B&W. Covers are wrappers, and I enjoy some cover art, but I wouldn’t make a buying decision based on it, K Craft excepted.
I agree. I look for three things on the covers: snark-worthiness, title, and author. If it’s snark-worthy, bonus points, but I don’t actually care if they match the characters’ descriptions. It’s nice when they do—sometimes I’ll check—but it’s not a deal-breaker for me.