Comments on: Adult ladies and the non-cartoon strawberry shortcake

by: reallygonecat

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:41:36 +0100

Um, it’s cheesecake not shortcake.

by: cantabridgian poet

Fri, 02 May 2008 13:02:40 +0100

Cisslepants, please don’t let the cover stop you from reading Time Traveler’s Wife. It was absolutely brilliant and is totally worth reading.

by: Betsy

Fri, 02 May 2008 12:14:04 +0100

Knowing nothing about the book, and certainly having never read it, my first thought when I saw the cover was, “uh oh! That’s a precarious place for a piece of cake!” I don’t know about y’all, but the last place I would leave a plate of cake is on the mattress, directly below my legs and out of my line of sight. I mean, unless I *wanted* frosting-covered thighs and sheets…which, now that I think of it, might be the point…

by: vitaminC

Fri, 02 May 2008 11:57:10 +0100

Both the article and this posting seem specious to me: So, let’s hear what WOULD be a good cover. That would also sell books.

Perhaps Komar & Melamid can help us...

by: deep6

Fri, 02 May 2008 09:09:45 +0100

I wish I could style myself someone too good to care about the cover of a book…

Wow, so if people actually still pick a book up off a shelf, even if they don’t like the cover, and look inside for recommendations, or buy it anyway because they like the author and try to do this for everything they read, because the cover art rarely has anything to do with the quality of the writing… they’re haughty and posturing? Nice, Amanda. You sound more haughty than the people you fallaciously criticize.

I don’t think anyone would accept the argument that you don’t care about the cover of a book if they know about the mini-controversy surrounding your previous cover design. And now with the latest issues with more “scary negro” art in your published book, I have no doubt you take the visual side of publishing quite seriously.

Not everyone can see the pictures on your site. Most days I read from work and can’t see pics or video. Maybe if I saw the pics at work my visits to your site would increase (though they’re pretty high already) but crazy me, I come for the writing….

by: Rebel L

Fri, 02 May 2008 02:10:50 +0100

These covers really irritate me because they always seem to be saying to women “We know what you are interested in - shoes, handbags, cake and champagne” The disembodied shots don’t bother me as much, because i get the whole projection thing, but you never see a cover with, say, some vinyl records spilling out, or an ipod or something that can’t be pegged as specifically “girly”. I think these covers often undermine the quality of the writing too, I’m thinking in particular of Marian Keyes, actually a great comic writer with a real flair for understanding the lack of confidence that affects so many women, she has dealt with alcoholism, death and domestic violence yet what is on the covers of her books? Bags, shoes, cake and champagne!

by: witless chum

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:23:01 +0100

“Witless chum, it’s testament to the horror of those covers that I KNEW you were talking about SM Stirling’s series before I even realized you had posted a link too. Hah.”

Hilarity. His previous “Island in the Sea of Time” and sequels had pretty bad covers, too, but of a more conventional scifi type.

It seems like it would be easy to make a much more eye catching cover using the concept of ‘look medievelness is marching through Portland.’

I like the theme, too. I guess the setting of a destroyed U.S. really works for me because it makes the swords and very little sorcery stuff more real. I haven’t really read very much fantasy previously, so I think the setting serves as fantasy training wheels. Plus I grew up 20 miles from where Mike Havel is written as from. Stirling gets the place somewhat wrong.

To climb a bit back on topic, I think people on this thread have convinced me to read “Good in Bed” or at least suggest it to my wife and read it if she says it’s good.

by: FashionablyEvil

Thu, 01 May 2008 22:57:14 +0100

I was going to say that I don't think Good in Bed was the best choice to illustrate this point (the books been out in paperback for 6 years (although now it has a new cover now). But as others have pointed out, the heroine is pretty non-traditional as far as chick lit heroines go (overweight, Jewish, unapologetic for her sexuality, etc.), and so this cover really underscores how the disembodied female bodies get used--to represent books that go against stereotype.

by: Angelia Sparrow

Thu, 01 May 2008 19:17:22 +0100

I write romance.
Cover Snark is an artform all its own and Heller fails.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Karen Knows Best are the pros.

As for body parts and objectification:
http://angelsparrow.blogspot.com/2008/02/sexiest-cover-ever.html
total objectification,

I submit it happens in all genres and to both sexes. I have a publisher that very seldom puts a face on their covers. And when they do, one wishes they hadn’t. Case in point:
http://www.ellorascave.com/Series.asp?Category=Tricks%20and%20Treats

by: pixelfish

Thu, 01 May 2008 18:45:21 +0100

Shah8 @11: I have to mention that the hardcover for Old Man’s War featured an Old Man, but it still supports your point, because when Tor released the paper back, they did so with the more generic John Harris space-scape. I myself preferred the Donato Giancola painting with the old guy and the black guy and the woman OMG! all on the cover, but apparently SF always sells better with a space ship on the cover, and Tor made the decision to remove the people for the paperback.

Curse of Chalion did have a landscape, but it’s sequel, Paladin of Souls, featuring the 40 something Ista did feature a woman who could be in her 40s. At least the cover I have does. Still, it’s by and large true that cover art still gets terribly normalised.