ELIZABEH UNCOVERS COVERS
Last year, I talked about INNOCENT AS SIN and covers. Well, interesting cover juju has hung in with the book. Here's the paperback cover:
Feel free to comment.
posted at 10:18 AM
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Last year, I talked about INNOCENT AS SIN and covers. Well, interesting cover juju has hung in with the book. Here's the paperback cover:
Feel free to comment.
34 Comments:
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karibear said...
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Am I missing something? Isn’t that the book that deals with banking and money laundering, with a side trip to humming birds? What on earth do missiles have to do with it? Or am I just not remembering the right book... or maybe they were trying to emphasize the illegal arms dealing aspect.
Color me confused. -
said...
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covers have always been a topic of sometimes scorn, the difference of what the author sees as a good cover and what they get can be too totally different things.
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elizabeth said...
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karibear--I believe those are meant to be jail bars that someone sawed through.
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karibear said...
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Good grief. That's even worse! Unless the Powers That Be are imprisoning hummingbirds?
Even more confused. On my screen, they could be missiles, and that's a reach, but jail bars? Phooey! -
said...
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Jail bars?
Well if you say so.
Still would read any book by you, Ms Elizabeth.
Louis -
DFender said...
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Huh. Jail bars. Desert. Painting. Money laundering. Banking. Good God. I don't get it. Must be odd cover karma.
Loved the book, don't much love the PB cover...LOL
Deb -
JackieToo said...
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This comment has been removed by the author.
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JackieToo said...
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I'm gonna be the dissenting voice. I like the paperback cover better than the hardback one. Weren't the characters each trapped in their own differnt ways? Hence the bars?
My question is why do they have to change the covers from HD to PB anyway? -
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Hmmm... Count me in the confused category. Humming birds and money, or guns and painting, or anything remotely related to the book - maybe it was The Wrong Hostage that got stuck in someone's head.
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said...
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I liked the new cover, the old cover is like a bad case of word art.
At least the new one looks more like a crime novel!
Besides, its prettier hands down =) -
Lori Foster said...
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Oh hey, I LOVE the cover! I think it has great impact! I don't think the cover always has to depict an actual scene in the book. The overall image of danger - and anyone breaking out of prison screams danger to me! - is perfect for that book.
I like it oodles.
EL - what do you think!?
Lori -
said...
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LOL, glad to see I'm not the only one confused.
If I saw that cover in the store I'd figure there was a jailbreak involved. -
JackieToo said...
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This comment has been removed by the author.
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JackieToo said...
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To be honest, if the author is one of my favorites - and that would inlcude the Quills ;-)- I don't pay too much attention to the cover.
Although as authors trying to attract new readers, I can see where you might feel differently. :D
My only peeve with covers is when, for example, the heroine has red hair and the girl on the cover is blonde. Doesn't the art department get some kind of outline to go by? -
elizabeth said...
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jackietoo-it's the publisher's choice to change or not to change.
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rmbg1018 said...
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I'm with jackietoo. The most important thing on the cover is the author's name. There are a number of author's I automatically buy with only a glance at the synopsis to make sure it's not a reissue. Second thing I check is if it's from a line I've bought and enjoyed before. Then I read the synopsis. For me it's all about the words and what they cause me to imagine, not what someone else pictures in relation to the book.
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JackieToo said...
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elizabeth said...
jackietoo-it's the publisher's choice to change or not to change.
Thanks! -
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After already having read the book, my first though was wtf? What ectoplasmic place did they pull that out of? Has the art dept never read the book? Have no clue what it is about?
Actually, without Ms. Lowell's name on the book, I would never have looked twice at the book. I don't like dreary, depressing jail stories and that would've been my first thought about the subject matter in the book, with that cover!
That publisher needs an art department with a clue.
KathyLynn -
Ranurgis said...
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What do jail bars have to do with the story? I'm trying to remember what the heroine had to crash through to get to the bad guys.
However, I'm with those who say that they look for the author's name and the coverart is definitely secondary. But it's always great to have a nice cover, too, and new readers might wonder at first what's with the missiles/bars and be put off. This is certainly a weird choice. Is this what you get for not having another deadline until..., Elizabeth? -
said...
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Having read many, many books, all with unconnected cover art, I have long since come to the conclusion that the art dept. never reads the book. Perhaps they think reading the book will inhibit their artistic ability. Unfortunately, the cover art reflects the hubris of the art dept. and the publisher far more than it reflects the book content or the creativity of the author. If publishers only knew the jokes we readers make about them...
always laughing,
Lynne Thomas -
elizabeth said...
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Lori--I'm dead neutral about the cover. I've had worse, I've had better.
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karibear said...
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I’m still confused. Didn’t paperbacks used to have the same basic cover as the hardback? It certainly makes it easier to tell if one has already read the book. And for those writers not as well-known as the Quills, a cover change, along with the author’s name in much smaller print, makes it harder to find a specific book - or maybe I should say, easier to overlook one. It’s supposed to be a milestone when the author’s name is in larger print/above the title, but what about those who are still up and coming? There ought to be something that identifies a writer/series, whether it’s a cover that reflects the story inside, or an abstract design. I can think of several writers who write under several names, with each name/series having it’s own unique cover design. They are successful and consistent, but not splashy mega successful. Back when I still could read them, I’d pick up anything with the right cover, knowing there would be a good story inside. Now there seem to be so many new one-book-wonders, it’s a chore to find anything at all unless it’s on line. What’s even worse is when an old title by a mega writer is reissued with a new cover, and just looking at it, one thinks ‘Aha! A new book!’ but it’s not, it’s an old one in new packaging, and - possibly - updated just enough so that there’s more of an emphasis on religion or puts more emphasis on safe sex. But that doesn’t change the basic story, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a cheat.
Just my opinion. -
elizabeth said...
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karibear--always check the copyright information printed in the front of the book. That way you'll never be disappointed. ;-)
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Stella said...
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EL: Do you think it's becoming standard for covers to telegraph the genre of the book rather than the individual story?
The pb cover for INNOCENT AS SIN tells me to expect exactly what the book delivers--high stakes suspense.
Best thing about this one is that it will show well on any rack because you just about have to look at it. Then your name does the rest--or vice versa:)
Cheers, Stella -
talpianna said...
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Very often books in a series have the same typeface and type size for the author and title on each book, making it easily recognizable. Usually have a similar style for the illustration, too. Consider the J.D. Robb books.
As for the INNOCENT AS SIN cover, I think it works in two ways: the heroine is in a trap constructed by the villains, which is likely to result in her going to prison. -
Elizabeth Guest said...
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Hey, I hear that aubergine is THE color for 2008. :-) It's also one of my personal favorites. So I really like the pb cover of IAS.
~EG -
Linda said...
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I agree with Stella- covers nowdays are typed by genre rather than specific storyline. When you walk into a bookstore, you can tell a chick-lit from 100 feet away. Usually the gumball pink cover gives it away.
The cover usually does not sell me on a book. I do prefer to have more neutral covers, especially cause I like steamy romances. When I travel (and that is often), I prefer not to have my seatmates know what I am reading. Also, I have young children at home. My 5 year old was just fascinated by Eloisa James'recent book where the cover showed a topless woman- seen from the back, but nevertheless... And I am pretty liberal, I'd rather have them exposed to sex than to violence. But, I see it as my responsibility to raise my two young boys to respect women, not to objectify them.
-Linda -
Ranurgis said...
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I've got another theory on covers (and on titles to some extent): make sure all of an author's covers and titles are so similar that readers will buy multiple copies of the same book and be stuck with them. Series are great but not when only one word is different from the other titles.
I run into this problem constantly. I think I'm buying the newest title and eventually, when I can't exchange the book any more, I discover that I have two copies that I can't afford.
Mind you, my TBR pile is huge and I should probably limit myself to buying only what I can read immediately. But in that case I'd miss many good books. It's a real conundrum for me. -
Ranurgis said...
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EG, is that what the color is called...aubergine? It looks nothing like eggplant (the translation of the French word) to me, more like pure violet or purple, unless my monitor is off color.
Naming trendy colors in English is another weird thing. Often the color has no relation to the foreign word that is chosen as the name. -
elizabeth said...
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Stella--yes, I believe the cover is meant to place the book in a genre. Which is why the covers for the Donovan books were such a disaster--covers screamed sisterhood, family, romance on the side. People who didn't know my name, and bought by cover, weren't suspense readers at all!
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said...
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Saw your book today 1st March, the cover was a desert scene with your name in big type then in small type NY bestseller Romantic Suspense then after the desert scene Innocent as Sin.
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elizabeth said...
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Sounds good! Sooner or later my pub will send the Oz editions to me.
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Ranurgis said...
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After seeing that Jayne's "White Lies" has been released in that "horrible" taller format, I'm just hoping that "Innocent as Sin" will come out in the normal paperback edition.
I frankly hate that format: the size is too big to fit on my bookshelves because they have been built for the usual size books with not quite enough room to spare for the added inch in height. In addition, I don't know what is really supposed to make them easier to read. They are certainly not easier to hold. I get enough cramps in my hands without any added weight or tension to keep these books open. I've already had to give up buying some of my other favorite writers because of this.
These considerations are bad enough, never mind that the price is beyond my means.
Do you know anything about the paperback's format, Elizabeth? -
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Elizabeth, I would never have started reading your books if I had not picked up Amber Beach with it's pale cover with a beach scene on the front, but now I'm a convert. My real issue is when the publisher changes the covers halfway through a series and yu then end up with say Amber Beach and Jade Island in pretty covers and Pearl Cove and Midnight with black covers and on the shelf they don't look like a series! I love how all my Judith McNaught historical romances are all in the same white cover with a small pic on the front. I think the cover of IAS is quite cool... it looks like sawed off jail bars to me. I would have liked to see the title bigger though....
