Judging Books by their Covers
Last month, The Mischief of the Mistletoe won the Cover Cafe holiday cover contest. (Yay!) This month, the Cover Cafe folks kindly invited me over to their site to chat about books and covers. You can find the interview here.
Great interview, as always, Lauren! I’m with you on missing the fine art covers. I absolutely adored them and thought they made the books look like they belonged in a collection of fine literature. The colors on the cover of The Orchid Affair are very pretty, but having a model in costume just isn’t the same as one of those beautifully evocative period paintings.
It’s a bummer that Dutton decided to make this change. Do you think that sending a “Bring Back the Old Cover Format” petition signed by all of your fans would have any effect on The Powers That Be? Or maybe it would be better for each of us to send a letter/e-mail voicing our cover preference? I’m willing to do what I can for the cause and I know others who feel the same!
I absolutely agree with Tracie and would gladly voice my disappointment in the cover choice for the Orchid Affair to your agent or the art dept. at Dutton. I can’t believe that they chose to go with a different look for this book and stray from the fine art paintings that graced the previous novels. I am a firm believer that the cover art either “makes or breaks” the possible sale of the book. I am a very visual person and if the cover speaks to me…I will definately pick up the book and read the back cover to see if it sounds interesting. If the cover looks “cheesy” then I won’t even pick it up. Even favorite authors of mine will get a sad disappointed sigh from me if the cover is a typical bodice ripper that I’ve seen 100’s of times before. So, let’s get together and voice our opinions and bring back the classic fine art covers we know and love.
WHOOOOOOOOAAAAA! I knew it would win!
I love hearing all about the cover process, since I was definitely sucked in by the covers. I saw them at an airport bookstore on a trip in 2007, and on the return trip, I decided to pick up The Pink Carnation, and the rest is history.
There WAS anE- petition created, and signed by many of us, at the time if the original Orchid controversy. Does any know if the publisher ever responded? It is sad to me that Dutton wnet to such extreme lengths (props to them for trying, they must love the books), for a pretty mediocre result. Yes, it is pretty, but somewhat generic, i.e: mediocre. I still can’t wait to read it, and will drop the other 3 books I’ve got going, as soon as Amazon sends it to me !
I agree with you too Lauren – I absolutely love the fine art covers too. I sincerely hope that Dutton will rethink future covers and go back to the beautiful artwork they used before. I know it would make many of your fans ever so happy. And on a more personal and selfish note – I like all my books in a series to be similar yet unique and the new covers (particularly the new trade of Bloodlily) does not evoke the same feeling.