Perils of an attractive cover...

[seawasp]

Reading some of the Amazon reviews on Boundary, it's struck me that at least a couple of people may have felt particularly disappointed because the cover is very eyecatching, but can be interpreted to imply a somewhat different kind of book. I found it a very good cover, but it shows an event in the deep past. Some of the readers have sounded disappointed partly because their expectations from the cover involved more action and more dinosaurs.

I'm not sure, myself, what I would have used for the cover. I like the one I got, and it's definitely a cover that gets people to look at it -- which is the primary point of the cover. OTOH, I'd hate to have the cover mislead people into thinking, oh, they're getting Jurassic Park VS the Space Force or something.

Here's an interesting question: if you (reading this) have read any of my books, what would YOU choose as a cover for those books? Would it be a scene from inside the book (and which one), would it be something more conceptual that captured what you saw as the "spirit" of the book (and what would that be), etc.?

[EDIT] I wish I was at liberty to show the concept sketches Kurt made for Boundary -- he did quite a few. And many of the suggestions made here are reflected in those concept sketches. He'd clearly read the book.

(I was actually surprised that Jim didn't select a scene involving Maddie, the Hot Blonde; there were a couple I think would have worked)

Comments

[baronger.livejournal.com]

I try not to judge a book by a cover, but yet that is often the thing that attracts me to a book. The cover does seem to imply lots of dino action though, which is sure to lure people in. Then again there is advertising and then there is bait and switch. However I don't think very many covers accurately reflect a book, and authors don't have much control in any case. Still chuckle over Watt Evans cover mix up, where he got a cover that was meant for a different book and author.

[sidhekin.livejournal.com]

I think I'll just butt in with a quote:

Where is this place? Why emus?
And what is the thing in the
foreground with pink bulbs?
-- JRR Tolkien

(According to the artist, the "thing in the foreground with pink bulbs" was supposed to be a Christmas tree. The artist had, of course, not read the book.)

[howardtayler.livejournal.com]

There is an art (obviously, but bear with me) to coming up with good cover art. In my mind there are only three "honest" choices for your cover:

1) Depict a scene from the book as accurately as possible.
2) Depict one or more of the characters in the book (yes, their space-ship can be a character) and give us a nice portrait.
3) Take one or more of the key conflicts in the story and represent it iconically, using accurate depictions of characters. Events, however, may not have actually occurred that way. Treat this as a symbolic representation of the conflict, not a summary.

If you want DISHONEST choices, hell, put whatever you want on the cover as long as it grabs eyeballs.

For the first Schlock Mercenary book (link) I went with option #2: we had a portrait of the characters arguing with one another, weapons drawn. It tells no story, but it does show the characters' relationships with one another, at least in a small way.

For the second book I went with option 3 (link). At no point in the story do we have Tagon and Breya shaking hands while Schlock sneaks up on Breya from behind and Kerchak places a grenade at Tagon's heel. But in the iconic imagery here we DO see two characters being two-faced, shaking hands on some sort of a deal while preparing to break the deal at the earliest opportunity.

Most comic-book covers seem to go with option 3, because they already have artists and writers working together, and they have gotten it down to a science.

Most SF covers seem to go with option 2 -- unless they're dishonest, and the cover is done independently of the story.

It sounds like Boundary (which I have on my shelf RIGHT HERE!) got option #1: a depiction of a scene in the book. This is FINE, in my opinion, but I can see how the selection of this particular scene may appear dishonest -- especially if people think the cover is doing option #3.

--Howard

If I had to pick a different cover...

[howardtayler.livejournal.com]

If I had to pick a different cover for Boundary, I'd go with option #3.

For a setting, I'd have a space-ship/space-station interior with a window or view-screen showing Mars. In the foreground I'd have the female agent squaring off in heated argument with the nano-machine programmer, who would have a halo of the machines about him.

In the background I'd have a Bemmie on display (maybe on a screen) and some of the other characters looking on in earnest at the outcome of the shouting match.

No weapons drawn, though one of the background characters might be holding the Bemmie "shotgun" curiously, as if studying it.

When you decide to contract this picture with an actual ARTIST for the next edition, I get 10% of whatever you're paying her. :-)

[k-kinnison.livejournal.com]

The cover of boundary made me first think of a "Dinosaur planet" type of book. but only by reading the inside cover did I realize it was more about a manned mission to mars.

Personally I think a shot of the Spaceship with Mars in the background. Or a shot of the Alien time capsule.

Or heck even the crashed lander on Mars.

If you look at some of the other covers of Eric Flint, or David weber, you see a scene that occurs IN the book. You get to a point of the book and realize the image on the book, is exactly the same as the one described in the book itself.

[meril.livejournal.com]

I don't know about me (I really don't pay attention to the front cover of books much, unless I'm interested in the design as the design) but my mom completely got the wrong idea about Digital Knight from the cover. She thought it was some sort of techie sf novel, when I tried to tell her that it was an urban fantasy. She's been looking for creature-fightin' novels that don't have the sex taking over the other fantasy bits. (I don't think she believed me that your stuff doesn't have that, either.)

[aardy.livejournal.com]

I actually just finished reading Boundary (it's now on order at my library; I checked out a copy from another library in our system), and while I generally don't care much about covers, to do tend to notice them.

A good cover makes a good book that much better, and may help people to not rate bad stories as poorly as they might otherwise (due to starting out friendly rather than neutral or unfriendly). A bad or mis-matched cover may put up a barrier that the story must then overcome--a good story will usually be able to overcome a bad cover, but it then may not get rated as highly as a not-quite-as-good story with a good cover.

In this case, I noticed that there seemed to be a particular disconnect between what the cover was selling and what the book delivered; it did feel like it was the cover for a very different book, one more like Jurassic Park vs. the Space Force. I wouldn't've minded actually seeing the scene on the cover, even if just in a prologue that told of dinos overrunning a strange thing with hard angles, then getting gunned down, and then the scene fades to black before we're told who/what's doing the gunning or get anything but a whetted appetite. (Without taking the time for a full review/critique, I thought that what the book did deliver was good, it just didn't include anywhere near the living dinosaur content I expected it to from the cover.)

Possibilities for what might work better instead as cover art, off the top of my head:

• A shot of a T.Rex surrounded by alien artifacts (keeps the attraction of a dinosaur, shows the alien tie-in, and is a scene that does appear in the book. On the downside, the artist would have to take pains to not use the Batcave as a photoreference...)
  
• A shot of the K-T layer dig, with one or two 'raptor skeletons and the bemmie skeleton (if there's also an obvious iridium layer depicted, so much the better for browsers in a bookstore/library)
  
• A shot from the rear of one of the Faeries shining a light through an alien doorway, with a dino (or bemmie) eye revealed in the beam
  
• A spaceship in Phobos orbit, with both a nice Mars-scape and a view of a smaller ship or spacesuited astronauts entering a cave on Phobos
  
• A.J. with a halo of tiny (but still somewhat visible) flying machines
  
• An artist's rendition of a bemmie skeleton (a la the original Jurassic Park cover)

[mhacdebhandia.livejournal.com]

It's hard to say. I'm fully aware of what kind of covers it apparently takes to sell books in the market, but at the same time I'm simply embarrassed to own some of the books with amateurish cover art that I do.

Take Digital Knight, for instance. The monster looks more like a winged monkey with big teeth than anything resembling a werewolf, except a very slight similarity to the classic Lon Chaney Wolf-Man in the face. It also doesn't strike me as particularly clever to have the heroine's back to the viewer - oh, but she's not even the heroine!

I would prefer either a stylised cover which, to me, is more appealing than any cheapo hackwork action scene or, failing that, something that at least loosely depicts characters or events from the novel in a less awkward and more thematic fashion.

For instance, this is the edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince I own:



Covers like this aren't just less-embarrassing to be seen with, though they are that, they're also hard to mislead people with. That's because they don't say very much, of course, but in some ways I think it's better to say less than to say more in a lame fashion.

But then, sales figures apparently don't bear me out. *shrug* I can't account for the taste of the buying public, though I do wonder how much of "fans only buy books with cool or sexy covers" is down to the choice being usually between "a tasteless cover that's got explosions and/or chicks" versus "a tasteless cover that doesn't have anything interesting on it", as opposed to being between an artless cover and a tasteful cover.

[shana.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer earlier, because what I pay most attention to on the cover is the author's name.

I am not a particularly visual person.

For Diamonds are Forever, you wrote the perfect cover scene -- Jodi vs the Monster.

For Digital Knight, I don't know... my personal favorite would be the scene from Lawyers, Ghouls and Mummies where 'Verne Domingo had come calling'. But that might mislead people into thinking it was a vampire book. Maybe the Maelkodan levitating the police car during the chase in Mirror Image.

For Boundary, maybe the scene where they opened the Vault and discover the dinosaurs?

Covers must be catchy, unfortunately or fortunately.

[seawasp]

It's hard to say. I'm fully aware of what kind of covers it apparently takes to sell books in the market, but at the same time I'm simply embarrassed to own some of the books with amateurish cover art that I do.

This latter issue is just... alien to me. If the cover doesn't violate actual legal restrictions, I don't care at all what's on it. Embarrassment is not an issue.

Take Digital Knight, for instance. The monster looks more like a winged monkey with big teeth than anything resembling a werewolf, except a very slight similarity to the classic Lon Chaney Wolf-Man in the face. It also doesn't strike me as particularly clever to have the heroine's back to the viewer - oh, but she's not even the heroine!

Well, I'm the last person to argue that it's an accurate depiction of any scene in the book; I *can* imagine a scene that COULD have happened that would roughly fit: Meta fighting one of the General's monsters in the library. If I assume she'd decided to dye her hair blonde, such a scene could have happened, and the various monsters they made could easily include such a creature.

Of course, in this case what happened was that Jim said "Can we get a blonde on the cover?"

The scene *I* always wanted on the cover was Virigar in the hospital, giving the roar that shattered glass while towering over Jason.

I would prefer either a stylised cover which, to me, is more appealing than any cheapo hackwork action scene or, failing that, something that at least loosely depicts characters or events from the novel in a less awkward and more thematic fashion.

For instance, this is the edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince I own:
(snip)
Covers like this aren't just less-embarrassing to be seen with, though they are that, they're also hard to mislead people with. That's because they don't say very much, of course, but in some ways I think it's better to say less than to say more in a lame fashion.

The problem with these is... put bluntly... they're BORING. They say nothing. They not only say nothing, they aren't VISIBLE.

Oh, they may prevent sensitive readers from feeling embarrassed to pick them up, but they don't do anything to actually cause anyone to select that book over any others.

Wizards of the Coast's first product, "The Primal Order", used a tasteful cover (as much as they could afford at the time), a scene of gods working on the creation of a world. It was a fairly well executed painting... with lovely pastel colors. Nothing embarrassing, crude, or tasteless on it.

And it vanished into the background at a distance of 5 feet. I *KNEW* what to look for, and I consistently still missed it on shelves when I was LOOKING. It was a stealth cover; nothing to draw the eye, nothing to really tell you what you were looking at.


But then, sales figures apparently don't bear me out. *shrug* I can't account for the taste of the buying public, though I do wonder how much of "fans only buy books with cool or sexy covers" is down to the choice being usually between "a tasteless cover that's got explosions and/or chicks" versus "a tasteless cover that doesn't have anything interesting on it", as opposed to being between an artless cover and a tasteful cover.

"Tasteless" is, alas, a matter of taste. Most "tasteful" covers I've seen are, to my eye, dull as ditchwater.

[howardbrazee.livejournal.com]

Covers don't have to be accurate in detail - as long as they are accurate in flavor.

An example is the Steven Brust covers showing Vlad as clean shaven with a pretty large dragon on his shoulder.

People who are attracted to that cover enough to buy the book, aren't likely to be disappointed.

On a different tact - the Showtime TV show _Deadwood_ is noted for having quite a bit of swearing. The setting really had quite a bit of swearing - but not with modern swear words. The script writers didn't want us to chuckle at their obsolete swear words, so they updated their language. This really isn't much different from having people from Old England speaking modern English. But by using *wrong* words, they got the *right* flavor.

Moving to Seawasp - I loved the title _Digital Knight_, but found that title a bit misleading. Computers seemed to be quickly forgotten, as the stories went in a different direction. If that had been in a direction I didn't enjoy, I probably would have objected to the title.

My favorite cover...

[seawasp]

... remains the original paperback cover for Hambly's "The Time of the Dark". I picked up the book because I was absolutely certain that THAT COVER could not POSSIBLY be correct, or even close. And found that it was essentially picture-perfect accurate.

Thanks, Howard...

[seawasp]

... Boundary didn't actually GET #1. The scene depicted is a scene IMPLIED in the book -- i.e., we know that there was a crashed vessel or a lost bemmie, somewhere, who got cornered by dinosaurs -- but it's at best just an "artist's impression" of the reconstructed scene. That's the problem, I think.

Re: If I had to pick a different cover...

[seawasp]

I hope you're not implying that the current cover wasn't done by an actual ARTIST; I think it's a beautiful cover, just possibly misleading (and that's not the artist's fault, in this case).

And, alas, I have minimal say in picking artists OR cover scenes.

Has she...

[seawasp]

TRIED DK yet? You can assure her that there is essentially ZERO sex in DK. Nothing that couldn't be gotten away with in a Saturday Morning cartoon, I think, and certainly nothing more racy than was in RAH's juveniles (NOT his later production, mind).

And there won't BE much sex in the sequels, either. I write sex scenes if, and ONLY if, they have an absolutely necessary place in the plot. About the only way I could envision that happening is if I had Jason up against a Succubus or something similar (which I don't currently anticipate doing), and even there I'd probably be fairly R-rated, not X.

I agree...

[seawasp]

Digital Knight was the best compromise title we could come up with.

The one I really WANTED, Jim vetoed: Paradigms Lost.

I've read it!

[meril.livejournal.com]

I've told her all that, but I think her fear is that it's too "techie" or something. Ah, well.

I know the way you write, so I'm not worried that your series is going to turn into the next Anita Blake or something. Thanks for making sure of that. ^_^;

(I've learnt to ignore covers; I read romance, and let me tell you, practically every romance cover is inaccurate.)

well

[axolotl9.livejournal.com]

recent Weber covers, anyway. The first few paperback covers didn't really have a lot to do with anything actually happening in the book.