Tonight’s dinner and … Talk to me about book covers.

On By Rhys FordIn Rhys Ford

Tonight’s Dinner is Smoked ham hocks and collard greens [podgee cabbage] with a sourdough roll.

Before I leave you to it, I just wanted to check in with you all and if anybody has any interest in sharing their thoughts on book covers.

More importantly the art type and what attracts you these days?

The reason I’m asking is because we get a lot of noise from marketing teams from publishing houses telling us about the trends and art covers and sometimes I’m looking at everything and I’m like; Is this really what people want? Because it’s really bad.

So talk to me about what catches your eye when you are scrolling through a website filled with books or even in the bookstore.

And now, time for tonight’s dinner photo.

18 thoughts on “Tonight’s dinner and … Talk to me about book covers.”

  1. steelergrrl43's avatar steelergrrl43

    Honestly I love your book covers, the slightly art feel to the whole thing. I really don’t like the cartoony type covers that have been popping up lately.

    1. There have been a lot of cartoon covers and it’s not necessarily a style that I care for but I understand that it’s kind of a signifier of comedy? A rom-com? I don’t know.

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  2. sticekatherinem88's avatar sticekatherinem88

    I absolutely hate the current trend for drawn covers. Half the time the caricatures are ugly and have dopey looks on their faces. Give me the “good ol’ days” of photos of sexy men.!

    1. Yeah there is a lot of call for that sort of drawn characters. Or rather like the simplistic cartoon characters. I’m not a fan. I don’t always know what you’re getting.

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  3. wastelandcoolde9c43997c's avatar wastelandcoolde9c43997c

    Hi, Rhys, as for book covers- I am pretty old-fashioned when it comes to covers- for contemporary literature I prefer photographs showing either a person with an attribute that alludes to the story content ( a music-related story would have a musician on the cover ) or maybe a landscape or scene that carries the atmosphere of the story (the lit-up stage with mabye the musicians silhouette against the lights). When I just browse book-sellerssites I stop for covers that promise to contain a story of one of my preferred subjects. But, it all depends on the preferences of the target group, so maybe I am not”up to date” in my tastes, because I already qualify as a “senior” (62). With authors I know and specifically look up I don´t care for the cover, just the name and the name of the book series. Keep up your wonderful writing, never mind the marketing guys, what pleases your eye is most probably pleasing your readers`eyes, too. Wishing you a happy spring, good health, Yours Tina

    1. Thank you for the best wishes. We had a bad thunderstorm rock through here but it is now gone and my car is quite dirty.  Sometimes I don’t think people actually like a cover as much as I think it’s something that’s pushed on us as a community. Or least a style. I was wondering you know

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  4. I tend to buy for the author, not the cover. But even though I think naked people are beautiful, I hate them on covers. Hate them so hard.

    so maybe I’m not the target demographic? I would rather a moody photo of wet asphalt or sepia sad buildings.

    and no cartoon characters please.

    so maybe I’m not the ideal person to ask?

    1. I think everyone’s the ideal person to ask because I think we all have opinions and so far it doesn’t seem anybody you really likes the cartoon ones. But yet here we are with them just plastered all over. So I don’t know where that like is driving the book cover trend.

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  5. El's avatar El

    Hi Rhys

    I actually quite like your covers, and I particulary love the covers of Cops and Comix (Murder and Mayhem), Bound: Chinatown Demons, Book One, Kai Gacen.

    Hope you are doing well and feelblike writing again soon. I just reread and relisened the Kai Gracen series for the fifth time (:)), and I luke forward to the next story in this series.

    Live El

    1. I tend to like Moody covers so I think they go better with my books. There’s some series and I’m kind of like I don’t know if the covers are hitting right but it takes a lot to recover an entire series.  Covers are a weird science.

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  6. Dawn Roberto's avatar Dawn Roberto

    Hi Rhys, frankly I am so tired of half dressed couples, people on book covers. I am enjoying the items or little things that might convey what’s in the book on it in ways that keep my eye riveted to it.

    1. DaisyCat68's avatar DaisyCat68

      Love the Kai Grayson covers! I’m really over the “super-buff naked man” covers. I am dismayed at all of the cartoon / anime style covers, too.

      Hope you are doing well!

    2. The half-naked couples grinding against each other also is really hard to do in mm because… Well there aren’t a lot of gay couples photos in stock photography.  Yeah I mean it was a traditionally a trend and I get it. Totally get it. But with all the books that are out there right now it’s very interesting to see what styles there are and what we are being told is the trend

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  7. Valerie Barden's avatar Valerie Barden

    Book covers Color preference with real life drawings like on Kai covers or photo like on Cole covers

    No cartoony stuff. Manga is of bit not prefered.

    1. I would say so far no one really likes the cartoon covers. And I have to echo that sentiment because most of the time it just seems stiff and weird. So yeah I don’t know.

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  8. Dawn Schuldenfrei's avatar Dawn Schuldenfrei

    I’m not that knowledgeable about marketing stuff, but a lot of the time I’m not a fan of whatever the “in” style is. Sometimes I just don’t like it, and sometimes it’s just so overused that I’m tired of seeing it. For a while there were lots of black covers with wispy smoke on them, another time there were abstract blotches of color; it makes all the books look the same. Not in a I-liked-the-other-one-so-I-should-read-this-one way, but in a way where my eye just passes over all of them.

    Dawn

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    1. Rhys's avatar Rhys

      I think that’s the biggest problem with covers is that there comes waves and waves of the same thing and that everything looks alike. And it’s just pretty much grounds you. But then how do you stand out from that?

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