If a book is decorated with daisies and smiley faces, guess what? It's probably a light-hearted read. Or if it's grey and dreary looking and makes you feel weepy, it's likely going to be a drama. Is there a shirtless beefcake wrapping his arms around a doe-eyed damsel with flowing blonde hair? Romance. Yep. It's just that easy. This isn't rocket science.
What rankles me more than my husband chewing gum with his mouth open is when a reader picks up a book and expects something different than the cover is promising. Why would someone do that? Do they pick up a box of Rice-a-Roni at the grocery store and freak out when, gasp, rice comes out?
Yet that's exactly what I often see when I read reviews on Amazon or Goodreads (about books, that is, not Rice-a-Roni), people grousing about a novel not being what they expected and raking the poor author over the coals until they're all charred and blistery. Those kinds of negative reviews make me want to read the story just to see what all the fuss was about.
So here's a little pep talk for all of us . . . let's be discriminating. Designers create these things so that the consumer has an inkling of what's going to be on the inside. Be a rebel and judge books by their covers before you read them.
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5 comments:
Urghh, I avoid books with shirtless men like the plague. Covers do indeed say a lot about the book. I recall writing that the new cover of one fantasy novel looked like someone had let one of Mick Jagger's offspring loose in the British Museum with a sledgehammer. I mean the supposed Medieval chap on the cover had a Mohican for goodness sake-well not a proper one but a hairdo edging towards it....
That must be the challenge for self-pubbers though- not having access to the professional services of the mainstream publishers for cover design
HAHAHA! Great visual.
And self-pubbers do have access to professional designers, it just costs a truckload of money that most selfies don't have.
This. All of it. Love it!! I have the same gripes about those reviews also.
Covers make ALL the difference....and if you think your hubby chewing gum with his mouth open is bad, try listening to him eating celery with peanut butter with his mouth open...yep, that be me hubby. :-/
Gotha. Not surprising. Really. That said, this crazy lady already has pictures in her head of cover images, and titles of novels she may never even write.......and they don't include the corny. Maybe I should get on the right side of a Medieval living history society in advance....
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