Judge a Book By Its Cover!This week at Weekly Geeks it's all about judging books by their covers! Pick a book--any book, really--and search out multiple book cover images for that book. They could span a decade or two (or more)...Or they could span several countries. Which cover is your favorite? Which one is your least favorite? Which one best 'captures' what the book is about?
When you add a book to Library Thing as I do with each review that I write, you usually get a range of covers to choose from, or you can upload an image of your own.
So when I posted my review of Peter Robinson's FRIEND OF THE DEVIL there this morning this was the choice on offer. The cover I chose was the one on the book that I read which was the one on the top left. The book has two murders to be solved, one that takes place in a seedy alley in the town, and the other in a wheelchair on the top of the cliff. It must have provided a real conundrum for the cover designer - which will attract the most readers? which will repel readers? I must admit that to me the one that seems to stand out is the one where you can clearly see the wheel chair.
I guess the other thing that the publisher takes into account is whether the cover fits in well with the look and feel of the covers of other books they have published by this author. You'll notice too that the recent trend is for the name of the author to be very prominent, in large letters, while the title is given less prominent space. Remember though that these are only thumbnails of the real covers, and the overall impact might be quite different when you can see the printing and the images a lot more clearly.
11 comments:
Kerrie, great covers, and I think you are right about publishers wanting covers that fit well with an authors other books. I also think some artist work well with certain authors. Somehow Robinson had drop off my radar. I read "In a Dry Season" several years ago. Oh well, just more to add to my TBR list.
Interesting selection of covers. Thanks for stopping by.
I like the first and the sixth.. the same cover but in different colour. :)
I too like the first one!
BTW Kerrie, you got me hooked to crime fiction as of now!
Covered!
I like the first one. I think the red ones lose the creepy atmosphere a bit. I also think of murders as happening in alleyways, so pictures of cliffs make me think of holidays etc. The cliff ones look more like spy books, than crime fiction.
I like the two ones with the open door.
My choice was too new, I think. Could only find 5 covers.
They all look quite similar. I thinks its the big writing. I like the second from left on the bottom.
The first one is my favorite also. Found your points about cover design for specific authors and author name larger than title very interesting. As if publishers are selling a brand rather than a book. Nice post!
I like the sixth one best. Good color combination. It seems that the author's name is always in the same font. It definitely fits the contemporary mystery genre.
I actually like the version that you have as well.
Why do they do that with the name and title? I know it's the thing to do now but I don't like it.
I like the yellow shirt girl one. I can see that it's about murder.
Post a Comment