Do bad book covers influence you

[pyan]

There's been some really horrible ones, though...this is the cover of the unauthorised Ace edition.......

[The Ace]

a) I had nothing to do with the above.

b) I don't mind the covers, so much as the contents. I hate a bad book.

[scalem X]

Actually the cover that spoke the most to me was the cover of the hobbit & lord of the rings dutch editions from before the movies. Very simple but it was so... (The hobbit features the title (De hobbit) and a single elvish character underneath in yellow, the book is blue. Lotr was a brown cover with in black the title(In de ban van de ring) and underneath in a circle the writings of the ring) The horrible thing is that I can't find a picture of either on the internet.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Clansman

I often suspect a cover artist only reads the synopsis before painting, or pulls some piece of crap out of their closet that they haven't yet managed to sell.

This is hardly fair to cover artists, I'm afraid. The truth is that they are often given very little to go on by the publisher, are pressed for time, and are frequently bouncing between feast and famine, so they need whatever commissions they can get.

This is hardly new, as I recall tales of various pulp artists where they would sometimes get the contents for several magazines at a single go, and they were supposed to come up with the art for individual pieces as well as the cover in a matter of days; this meant they seldom had any time for doing more than scanning (at best) the stories, and usually were up 2-3 days straight simply trying to get the work out in time for the printer. I don't believe it's that bad (usually) today, but now and again I hear tales that indicate it's not always that much better....

[scalem X]

I absolutely agree JD.

[Taltos]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

This is hardly fair to cover artists, I'm afraid. The truth is that they are often given very little to go on by the publisher, are pressed for time, and are frequently bouncing between feast and famine, so they need whatever commissions they can get.

Form what I've heard from the local book publishers - and gathered from some other places there are some different approaches:
1) the book cover is made for the book and the artist has a idea what the book is about - cover design is usually good
2) artist has rough idea what the book is about - it can be extremely bad as all SF just has to have "Flying saucers" on the cover ... right
3) artist gets free hands in designing the cover - this can end in very abstract cover designs, both good and bad things can come out of this
4) if the book is a part of series - the cover is styled as the earlier ones and added some bits and pieces of the story - in good case. In bad case it's just something to make it different from other books in the same series - for example the name of the book and the author name
5) in some cases (usually when translation is made) - take a piece of SF/Fantasy art (Royo is always good pick) and put it on cover - no matter whether it actually has anything to do with the novel or not - Russian publishing houses did a lot of that - not to mention that in some cases they took the English book covers from the same book serie - just put them on different book. That way I have a nice Harrison "Stainless Steel Rat" book with Conan on cover etc.

So if you like book you just can't look at the cover - if it is really bad you can hide it in the back of the bookcase afterwards

[Damiynn]

Ok the reason I started this post because this is the cover that is on my book currently and I am going to change it to this


So please let me know your opinion

[scalem X]

Can we have a larger picture or a link to those, it looks all very pixelated to me...

[dwndrgn]

Covers are very influential to me when browsing a store. Otherwise I just go by the synopsis and author and recommendations.

One scifi I read last year, it was an ARC so I had gotten it without expectations and it rotated to the bottom of the pile every time I chose a new book to read. The cover art was dull, cheesy and very uninteresting. Finally, I had no choice but to read it and was surprised by a fine story and decent writing. I wanted to yell at the publisher for snookering me like that! I dreaded picking it up and having to force myself to read it. If it had been on a bookshelf at a store or library, I would never have even picked it up.

I adore beautiful covers and even more love it when they are clearly influenced by the story and give the potential reader a taste of the delights to come...

Boring stock photos, randomly placed objects and poor craftmanship always turn me off. However, since many people purchase online these days, the covers are seemingly less important in that the customer is not visually scanning a shelf full of covers and titles looking for something of interest to grab their attention.

[Allegra]

Do bad book covers influence me? Absolutely. I don't usually pick up books with ugly covers by authors unknown to me and I'd swear when I see an ugly cover on a book by an author I like - will still pick it up though. Say if pTerry's UK versions run out of prints I won't hesitate to buy the US versions even though most of them have the stupidest cover design. However for new writers I think the cover design is vital important. You have to catch people's eyes instead of making them wince.

Originally Posted by pyan

There's been some really horrible ones, though...this is the cover of the unauthorised Ace edition.......

LOL!! That's a fantabulous cover to bring down the masterpiece to earth!

[AlexM]

Yeah It does influence me a lot. If there is nothing on it though I read the synopsis/blurb/summary on the back of the book. If there is a good front cover i'd read the back to but if it doesn't appeal I wouldn't bother.

[Simian]

No, bad covers don't really influence me too much. It's been a long time since I bought a book without reading up on it first, and I buy most of my books online.

[scifi_vision]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

This is hardly fair to cover artists, I'm afraid. The truth is that they are often given very little to go on by the publisher, are pressed for time, and are frequently bouncing between feast and famine, so they need whatever commissions they can get.

This is hardly new, as I recall tales of various pulp artists where they would sometimes get the contents for several magazines at a single go, and they were supposed to come up with the art for individual pieces as well as the cover in a matter of days; this meant they seldom had any time for doing more than scanning (at best) the stories, and usually were up 2-3 days straight simply trying to get the work out in time for the printer. I don't believe it's that bad (usually) today, but now and again I hear tales that indicate it's not always that much better....

I think this is very true. Especially the part I quoted in bold. I have been a freelance artist for about 6 years (though mostly in computer games biz, but I also do some SF/Fantasy covers too) and the part about "bouncing between feast and famine" is very true indeed. Despite my best efforts of promoting myself as a freelance artist I can have periods lasting months of no work at all, and then have periods of unusually high amounts of work offers.

As for the amount of information given to go by, this varies a great deal. Some clients barely give any instructions at all (few sentences only, no book synopsis) while others can send me a whole chapter and a great deal of extra info for the actual scene they want to have illustrated.

When I was younger, inexperienced and naive I often used to think that many SF/Fantasy covers look simplistic and I can do better than that. And yes I can - under ideal conditions (no deadlines, no stress, good health, secure financial situation, etc), Just like I'm sure most of those artists responsible for those simplistic covers could do. But once you throw in the reality of it all, aka life, you get a lot more respect for those simplistic looking covers.

[cheetosandmovies]

If the book I'm looking at is either by an author I've read or have heard of, I usually don't pay too much attention to the cover. But if I'm looking at a book by an author I've never heard of, the thing that usually makes me even pick it is the cover and the title. Probably mostly the title, because that's the most noticeable thing when the book is lined up on a book shelf.

[DeepThought]

Originally Posted by pyan

There's been some really horrible ones, though...this is the cover of the unauthorised Ace edition.......

ROFL! it looks like the one of the bad Nazgul is rinding on a unicorn with a toothpick for a sword! . I never thought it got this bad when people say horrible covers...

Cheers, DeepThought