Red Hot Covers for Red Hot Lovers - of romance?

If it's Sunday, it's Edith!

So, here's this cover for my new book, FOR THE LOVE OF A PIRATE, coming from Avon in November.

We were talking about explicit last Sunday, right? Only then I was yakking about how to describe "the" scene - the act of love.

Now, here comes this cover, which kinda sorta more than hints at it. Let's say, it sorta kinda puts it right out there. Except everyone's clothed, sorta.

And they might just be talking, or debating poitics, or he's trying to pin her down to the rock so the waves don't get her wet. And she's so carried away by his kind gesture that she's..... in raptures.

(Hey, but we know what's happening, and that's not just those of us with dirty minds. Right?)

Forget that the couple are precariously perched on a crag whilst the sea churns around them, and that in all probability, whatever they're doing, they'll be shark bait whilst doing it in a moment, as they are swept out to sea.

Which brings up a point. Has a shark ever eaten a couple while they were making love? Or are sharks shyer than that? Or more discreet?

I see a whole feature documentary on that on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel!

Meanwhile, what do you think of this cover? Too much or too little? They sure are handsome folks. But is what they are doing something that turns you on or off, buyer wise?

Mind, though I am often asked by readers, I will say it again: I have little to nothing to do with the covers on my books.

So, do you like it? Or would you, like a discreet shark, shy away from it?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Comments

[Kathy Kremer]

Personally, if I wasn't already a fan I'd run screaming from a cover like that. It represents what people who don't read romance are so scornful about. I like a discreet cover without a clinch. If a clinch picture is required, it should be in a step-back. Besides, most of time the poeple in the picture bear absolutely no resemblence to the characters in the text.

[AgTigress]

Goodness, his poor knees!

The cover would not stop me buying and reading the book, because covers are just wrapping-paper, and I realised long ago that judging a book by the cover was stupid, because the author does not normally even select, let alone design, the cover.

But I am sorry to say that from the purely aesthetic point of view, this cover is one of the many that would look best with good, thick brown paper over it. Sorry!

[Laura Vivanco]

I have to agree with the others. This looks so painful. The rocks are going to be cutting into so many parts of their anatomies, and they look as though they're about to be swamped by the wave, and yes, I can see how that could be a metaphor (waves of pleasure and all that) but on a cover it looks scary. The colour-scheme looks a bit gloomy too, and then there's the strange romance-cover phenomenon of the protagonists' hair flying in opposite directions, despite the fact that this would only be possible in real life if there were a very tiny cyclone in the vicinity of their heads (or invisible fans positioned somewhere between them).

That sounds so negative. On the positive side it has your name in huge letters, a very nice quote from Publishers Weekly, the title is easy to read and the couple both look like attractive people.

[web]

I would rather be caught voting Republican than reading a book with a cover like that. Yowch! Unfair to what I'm sure is a lovely book.

[Cathy]

Covers like this make it hard to take them on an airplane and travel with people you work with, but I've learned to not sit by them :o)

[Christy]

I don't like picking up books with clinch covers, either. In fact, if it's not an author who I already like, I will normally pass over the clinch covers. I feel silly being at work on break or out somewhere and pulling out a book with two people on the cover, obviously about to get together.

[Nina P]

Edith, you know I love ya, right?

But, this wenchling has to side with Cathy and Christy. I wouldn't even feel right reading this book at home for fear my 11 year old would come waltzing up to me with giant question marks in her eyes. I am so sorry they put this cover on your work. I really do want to read it. I love pirate stories.

[AgTigress]

I should have added, like Laura, that the typography is perfectly acceptable - clear and easy to read.

Maybe the artist should have chosen a slightly later moment in the scene that is unfolding. No, no, not that: I was thinking of that huge wave breaking over the crag...
:-)

[AgTigress]

Very seriously, Ms. Layton, one of the arguments that publishers' marketing people use about the tacky covers is that they actually attract readers. I doubt if any proper research has ever been carried out to reveal how many readers buy romance novels in spite of the covers rather than because of them.
I think the response you have had here, tiny sample though it be, is significant.

[SAL]

I LOVE your books, but I rarely buy a book with a cover like this. Like Nina P., I'd prefer not to have them lying for my kids to find. Love in Disguise is one of my all-time favorites, but I didn't keep it because of the cover. Can't you get your publisher to give you more tasteful covers like Devil's Bargain? How do publishers know they're not losing thousands of potential buyers because of these hideous covers?

[Edith]

Oh my! Such resistance to the book because of the cover! But it's a good book, honest. And it has funny bits along with a strong love story and interesting characters.

What is a writer to do?

Any suggestions?

I can't send out plain paper jackets to everyone, y'know...

[Kalen Hughes]

I will never in a billion years understand WHY covers like this are chosen by publishers. They insist that these sell. That the readers love them. That they can't resist them . . . but I don't know who these readers are. Without exception my friends and I loathe clench covers. I’d love to see some BIG authors (NY Times Best-Seller BIG) be allowed to run prepublication contests with two (or more) cover options and have the fans SPEAK. That would at least give us all an indication of what readers actually like.

It’s kind of like those grande MM books. Publishers SAY readers like them. But since they’re only printing NYT BS in that format, and there’s no choice to buy a regular MM instead, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that this format is selling.

[Liz]

You know I'll buy it on release day and read it by that evening. You KNOW that.

And it's so obvious that this sort of pseudo pron cover is needed to sell novels. That's why kay Hooper uses them. What? Oh, I mean Stephanie Laurens. Hm? What's that? Nora Roberts? Julia Quinn? Iris Johansen? Heck, what about Jayne Krentz?

Seriously, nobody? ALL those NYT bestsellers don't use these covers? Well how are they selling any books then? Good writing? Well, wait a minute, I have to take issue with that because of ... oh, not the point? You mean in general?

Then the only thing standing between you and NYT stardom is a decent cover? Obviously, someone at the publishers needs a beating and that dude on the cover needs to, um, rezip his trousers. It's so early eighties.

Which makes my mind wander yet again, being as I am unruly. can you imagine 150 years from now the cover art for a hisotrical set duing the oh so glamorous ninties? Some dude in with his pants hanging halfway off and his boxers sticking out? And this SAME discussion going on between the buyers and the people who know what buyers want?

[Laura Vivanco]

Maybe the people with children of an impressionable age could tell them that the man's rescuing the woman, they're near the sea, and he's lifting her up because she can't run as she's lost her shoes.

Not knowing the story, I don't know how far from the truth that explanation is, but maybe that would allay their curiosity?

[susannac]

This type of cover isn't my favorite either. Last Saturday while in the local Barnes & Noble, I was browsing the romance aisle thinking, "I'd like to read this and this and this... but I don't want to check out with it. Not that it's anyone's business, but "To Pleasure a Duke" or "Hot Sex With A Peer", whatever, is just a bit more graphic info on my reading habits than I want to share with the goth teenager sprouting piercings at the checkout counter. And I'd rather imagine a clinch than see it..." I didn't buy any romances. Two mysteries, a bunch of quilting and history and reference books... over $100 spent, no romances. Those I'll think about buying from Amazon. And that's unfortunate, because I didn't jot down the names of the ones I considered buying at B&N, so it's unlikely I'll remember them when I get to Amazon, unless it's a fav author anyway.

I'll buy your book, Edith, because it's you - I know I'll like it. But I might suggest to your publisher that they do actual market research on what sells. That doesn't mean comparing whether book A with a clinch outsells book B without a clinch. It means using 2 different covers on the same book - Book A with clinch, Book A without clinch - and seeing which one sells better. Either the publisher or the readers on this site are going to be surprised by the result.

[Susan Wilbanks]

Chiming in with all the others to say that covers don't have a lot to do with my reading/buying decisions. I mostly go by my previous experience with an author or recommendations from friends or trusted reviewers for new-to-me authors.

But I don't like reading books with graphic clinch covers in public, and if I enjoy such a book and recommend it on my blog, I always say something like, "Ignore the tacky cover. This book is much better than its packaging."

And like everyone else, I wonder whether these covers are really as effective as publishers seem to think. *I'm* certainly not the target market, and neither are any of my reading friends.

[SAL]

Edith- I have no doubt whatsoever that it's a "good book" with "funny bits," a "strong love story," and "interesting characters," since those are things I've loved about so many of your books. But Avon is doing you a disservice. At best, a cover like this is false advertising. It would be appropriate for a book where the characters are so overcome by the heat of the moment that they tear off their clothes and have at it in uncomfortable outdoor locations. But that isn't the kind of book you write.

[Edith]

mmmmm, but SAL - there is actually an outdoor love scene. Not on a wet crag overlooking a boiling sea, true. And no one tears off their clothes. But they do remove them. And it is outdoors. And near water. I did write that. Very idyllic, very bucolic.

And the lovers are carried away, if not by water. Still, what good is a love scene if they're not? If you like how I write, you will like the scene, I think.

So pulease, Gentle Readers, don't let the cover dissuade you from purchasing the book.

[AgTigress]

No, we would not let the cover put us off the book. Any more than we would refuse the gift of a beautiful, valuable piece of jewellery just because it was wrapped in really tacky gift-wrap. We know what really matters, and that is the story and the writing, not the cover (nor the title, another frequent cringe-factor in romances).
You say, 'what is a writer to do?' One thing might be to show the comments on this blog to your publishers' marketing people. Make the point that the comments come from people who enjoy and respect your work, but that they are saying that they will buy this book IN SPITE of the cover, not because of it.
Surely that might, at least, give them pause?

[SAL]

LOL! Actually what I meant to say was not that your books don't have outdoor love scenes (which can be quite lovely!), but rather that your books are so much MORE than the kind of cheap, trashy, acrobatic semi-p*rn suggested by the cover, which to me doesn't indicate the kind of genuinely moving romance that you write.

[Dee]

looks like any other cover for historicals, after a while they seem to all blend together

[talpianna]

I have only one response:

http://www.mileskimball.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=10002&itemType=PRODUCT&AS=1&keyword=book%20cover

[talpianna]

I have only one response:

http://www.mileskimball.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=10002&itemType=PRODUCT&AS=1&keyword=book%20cover

[Nina P]

Tal... great suggestion! :-)

Nina, who already has Edith's book on order.