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Hen81
Veteran Poster
Username: Hen81

Post Number: 131
Registered: 09-2007

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Posted on Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 01:04 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

A couple of threads on book covers had me thinking about what books covers say to a potential reader vs what the book is about. I thought it would be interesting for people to post a few {small) covers and comment on what the cover is telling them about the books, if anything. Has a cover ever deceived you?

http://aalbc.com/cgi/aalbcamazonproductsfeed.cgi?Operation=ItemLookup&ItemId=05954624



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Authorterralittle
Regular Poster
Username: Authorterralittle

Post Number: 37
Registered: 05-2008

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Posted on Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 04:30 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Was that a dig at my gargantuan book cover in the thread I started, Hen81?

LOL. I'll let it roll, because the cover did pop up larger than life, didn't it? Unintentionally, I swear.

Anywho, this book cover says to me that, first, I see I done started something up in here (LOL), and second, that I'm about to read about some corruption in the church. A greedy, whoremongering pastor, who gets what's coming to him in the end, perhaps? Or possibly a pastor who truly believes he's a man of the cloth, but is a little off the mark and, thus, a fool?

As to being fooled by a cover, I can honestly say that most times I've been fooled in reverse - where the cover makes me think the book will be boring or not quite my taste. Case in point, the cover of T. Due's "My Soul To Keep." I saw it in the library and kept walking back and forth past it. The back cover blurb intrigued me, but the cover had me thinking it was going to be a little too supernatural/otherworldly for my tastes. Something kept telling me to pick it up and I'm glad I did. It's, like, one of my favorite books of all time and I think I read it three times in the two week loan period, before I gave it to my sister and said, "You have to read this!" Then I bought my own copy.
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Hen81
Veteran Poster
Username: Hen81

Post Number: 134
Registered: 09-2007

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Posted on Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 01:30 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

You know a front cover can only do so much. It would be interesting to have one of those little talking chips in a book to give a short description to a potential reader.

The Fools' Heaven cover was designed to place three things in the viewer's mind - wealth, power and religion - and stop them so that they would take a closer look.

I'm posting three covers in this message. One is my cover for Rooftop Diva's print version, another is the cover my audio publisher selected for the same book and the third is the cover for The Road by Cormack McCarthy.

My cover closly follows my description of the character, a women with African American heritage that visually is assumed to be white. The audio book's cover shows a more obviously African American woman for the same story. The cover for The Road, to me, is a statemant of the strength of the author's name and the cover is secondary.

My thoughts is that my audio publisher aims more towards the target audience since this is part of an African American collection for libraries. My cover is closely tied to the description of the character and I sell to a general audience and have probably sold 65% of my books to non-black readers.

I think covers reflect a combination of author strength, character/story reflection and a large bit of target audience attraction.




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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden

Post Number: 7240
Registered: 03-2004

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Posted on Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 03:31 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Has a cover ever deceived you?


(Many times but that is the idea.

The cover is the grabber, the eye catcher that makes the reader pick up the book.

In the case of big time authors, notice that their names are in bigger type than the title and are on the top of the cover--this is the attraction. Brand name ID.

I recall a cover turning me off from a book. From the depiction on the original cover to Charles SAunder's "Imaro" one wouldn't have known that the hero was Black.

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