Yet more cover art changes

[alex_beecroft]

Did I say I’m sprucing up my backlist? I feel sure you must have noticed that by now 🙂

This week I’ve been improving the books’ description pages on Amazon and flexing what I’ve learned about writing better blurbs.

But one of the other things I’ve learned since really getting into the self-publishing mindset is that when people want a book of one genre and they see a book with a cover that looks like it belongs to a different genre, they don’t go “oh, how unique and interesting!” They go, “That doesn’t look like the type of book I want. I’ll give it a pass.”

Which means that if your cover is too ‘unique and interesting’ you’re actually putting readers off. What you need is cover art that looks similar to all the other covers in your genre, so that readers are reassured that they are indeed buying something that they want.

It really grieved me to have to replace these two covers, because I was so pleased with them both when I first made them. And I still look at them with pleasure. They are nice book covers – for a Fantasy and for some kind of literary fiction about the surfer lifestyle.

 

But goddammit, I am trying to make a living here, so I’m going to take the hit and hammer that genre button for all I’m worth. Which means that these books now look like this:

 

On the plus side, sometimes you can spend days trawling through stock-photo sites looking for the perfect picture, but that picture of Kjartan, which genuinely looks like him fell into my hands in less than an hour. How often is it that you can go looking for a white-haired elf prince and actually find a good photo? Vanishingly rare. It must be an omen.

I think I’m going to keep a cover-art graveyard on this site. I surely can’t be the only one who finds the constant evolution of images interesting.

Also I think some of them might make good posters.

Mirrored from Alex Beecroft - Author of Gay Romance.

Comments

[green_knight]

Before it goes live: the left cover reads 'Faery Too Many Princes' and if I hadn't seen the title on the picture above, I would not have been able to parse it - the colours are just too strong.

[alex_beecroft]

*g* Thanks! Yes, I was trying to be designer-y with the text and hoping that people would still be able to read it as 'too many faery princes' nevertheless. But you're the second person to say that it reads wrong to them, so I've moved it around, and I've also taken down the colours a little. Thank you!

[duskpeterson]

I wonder (from a personal point of view, as someone who creates a lot of PG stories these days) whether you have any thoughts on creating a gay romance cover that doesn't mislead the reader into thinking they're buying erotic romance. Het romance seems to have a much wider range of cover styles to work from than the current gay romance market works from.

Fantasy romance is an especially tough cover-art challenge; my sympathies. As for the surfer cover, I agree that the first version doesn't convey the genre.

I can't help but wonder, though, whether you might able to find covers that are genre-appropriate yet are of high aesthetic quality.

[alex_beecroft]

I think that the majority of m/m romance stories now have one bloke on the cover, and he's taking up most of the cover. But he doesn't need to have his shirt off, and he can have a nice background behind him. It could also be a close-up on his face, for example, as I have in my Trowchester novels. And I have seen *a few* 'two fully clothed men in a nice scene' covers. Just not on the bestsellers page.

But yeah. I blinked for about six months and suddenly the cover art in the m/m genre is very different from what it was the last time I looked. That's part of why I felt the need to update.

I don't feel too bad about these because (a) he looks just like Kjartan!!! and (b) being a surfer is actually a perfectly good reason for not wearing a shirt :) (Also SitS is on the hotter end of my spectrum of writing, so it can probably live up to it.)

[duskpeterson]

Oh, yes, I wasn't trying to imply that shirtless was wrong for your covers. It was just my own dilemma that was worrying me.

How interesting that single-guy covers are becoming more common! That certainly makes cover-art purchases easier.

Now I just have to figure out where to find photos of POC in 19th-century clothing. . . .

[alex_beecroft]

I've always thought that single guy covers make for a better composition - much easier and cleaner to get a decent background and room for text in there. I'm glad it's gone that way :)

Anyone in period clothing is really hard, but PoC even more so. I tend to search on re-enactors, or failing that go for a close-up headshot that does away with the need for clothes at all.

[duskpeterson]

The number of hours I have spent in my life on cover-art searches . . .

[alex_beecroft]

LOL! Same :)

[watervole]

Looks promising. I've read 'Faery Princes' and the first cover would make me think generic fantasy novel and the second 'romance with a fairy in it'.

The original cover would not make me buy it if I was scrolling through books looking for a romance novel.

(I got it because I was in the mood for an Alex Beecroft book)

The second one is even more true. I'd never have guessed romance from the cover - I'd have assumed it was in the wrong section.

Incidentally, I haven't read 'Shining in the Sun' but the cover image would make me assume it was more porn than romance. It's the background colour that does it.

I find when I'm looking round in charity shops, I can spot romance novels just by the colour of the cover.

[alex_beecroft]

Hurray! Yes, I might keep the original Faery Princes cover art and write a generic fantasy novel to go with it :) But if the second is saying "romance with a fairy in it," then it's doing exactly the right thing :)

Hm, SitS isn't porn, but it does have at least a couple of sex scenes in it - it's from before the point where I went all fade-to-black. I'll keep an eye on the reviews to see if I'm disappointing anyone, and if I am, I'll change it then. It was just the most dramatic picture of a surfer that I found, and really easy in terms of where to put the text on :)

[julesjones]

"Too Many Faery Princes" strikes me as a good example of the principle that if the primary market is online bookshops then the cover art needs to work in thumbnail size. In full size the first one is gorgeous but it reads as fantasy, not fantasy romance, and even more so in thumbnail. The second one is also lovely, in a different way, and instantly reads as paranormal romance.

[alex_beecroft]

Hurray! It's great news that you think it's genuinely speaking to the right audience now. This has all been a salutary lesson to me, not only that I ought to pay attention to the genre from the get-go, but also that I need to check back often to make sure that the genre as a whole hasn't had a sudden shift of cover art. I hadn't realized before that cover art follows fashion just like everything else does.

So much to keep track of! How are you doing these days?

[julesjones]

I'm not the best person to say whether or not it speaks to the genre *now*, rather than as it was a year ago, but speaking to the genre is what you need to do. Many years ago watervole and I demonstrated this to a self-published writer whom she was editing by dragging him to Smiths and Waterstones, standing several feet back from the shelves, and pointing to each bay and telling him what the genre was just from the covers. :-) We then dissected what buttons the publishers were pushing with their choices in colour palettes, composition, etc. He listened to us after that on the subject of cover art. Just wish I could do it for myself as well as I manage to tell other people how to do it...

Not been in great shape for a while -- I've had severe chronic migraine for the last year, bad enough to have been off work for three months and even now having to ration my not-work time on the computer. I'm using my Christmas break to catch up on various not quite as urgent jobs. Alas, self-publishing my Loose Id books is still well down the To Do list. And it turns out treeware still has its uses - "no, I think I will not get rid of the paperback Georgette Heyers I now also have in ebook after all". :-)

[alex_beecroft]

Oh, I'm sorry to hear about the migraines. That's awful! I used to get them a lot, but one of the unexpected bonuses of a hysterectomy has been that I don't seem to get them any more - mine were obviously hormone-linked. I presume that by now you've tried everything, but on the offchance that this would help, do you know about https://justgetflux.com/ for your PC and Blue Light Filter for your phone? I've found them quite useful - sorry if you've already tried them and they did nothing.

I hope 2019 is better for you!