Author's consumers, do bad erotic e-book covers bother you?

[lovecraft68]

Okay, so this is a pet peeve of mine and curious if others share it, or its just a type of ocd quirk I have.

Erotic e-book covers, and their quality or lack thereof. I don't have a kindle, but browse the store to look at e-books along the lines of what I'm selling. Look at pricing descriptions, sales ranking and cover.

There are a lot of really cheesy covers on there and there's a few things that drove me crazy

First off there is a slew of step mom stories because amazon does not allow real incest. Now first off I can defend the cliche of the woman who is supposed to be fortyish still have a killer body and being hot.

Its erotica, no man has a beer gut and no woamn has stretch marks. I can live with that.

But the age. I have seen a ton of covers portraying "Mom" as a girl is is obviously in her early 20's.

Another thing that pisses me off, is I have read a lot of short e-books on my sister's kindle and several times they mention hair and eye color and I go back to the cover and.... It's a brunette in the story and a blonde on the cover. Or they mention the girl having smallish tits, but there's a d-cup on the cover.

Another detail that catches me, is lets face it in most of these short ones there's usually one sexual encounter. So why is your cover girl(or guy) wearing one thing and in the story another?

Titles get to me as well. "Taking Mommy's ass?" "Step Mother-fucker" and they wonder why amazon has practiced censorship there? Have some common sense.

But back to the covers. I know it can be tedious to find the right cover. I have spent hours pouring through the stock sites. But I have the story written and won't stop until I find a match.

When I see a bad cover(and don;t get me started on placeholders the true sign of laziness) I see shoddy work. I see an author who wants to make money, but won't take an extra little bit of time to do it. It makes me question how good the interior work will be.

Talent is subjective, some bad writers to e are your good writers vice.versa but effort or lack of is telling. Why do you think business's spend a ton on advertising?

If e-books are your business shouldn't you try? Like I said, I don;t judge talent, but half ass efforts annoy me.

I don't consider myself anything special, just another amateur trying to make a few bucks, but I try.

I will give an example. I wrote a story Sweet Reluctance. In it the girl was pretty much having sex with a guy for money, in the end she got into it, but beginning she was reluctant.

I also wrote her as more girl next door cute than hot, brunette, dark eyes. In the story she was wearing a white blouse and he had her remove it, she was very nervous. The below cover was the product of about 45 minutes of searching. Nothing flashy, but dead on, look at her face and actions.

As I said, no award winner, but suits the piece, is that too much to ask, or am I one of the few who notice. I mean I know its smut and a lot of amazon's are .99 strokers, but come on

Just seeing if its only me.

 

[PennLady]

I pay very little attention to covers aside from reading the title and author's name. It's rare that I will see a cover and say hey, I want to check that out.

It's partly, I suppose, b/c so many covers are all the same. I prefer covers without people, for one thing. I'm tired of half-dressed or half-undressed people in hazy bedrooms or on hazy beaches and things like that. And it's not just covers -- in paintings, if I was going to get something for my house, for example, I'd pick something without people, or with somewhat undefined people.

I'm not saying there aren't good covers with pictures of people, just that I rarely see them.

For your "Sweet Reluctance," LC, if I'd come across it I would have skipped right to the summary to see if I wanted it. The picture would have made little impression on me. Nothing personal, like I said -- I feel this way about most covers, regardless of genre.

 

[RodenAddison]

,,,,,

 

[lovecraft68]

It's not the cover per se, its the eye roll I get when I see it doesn't match the story at all.

Scenery would be pretty impartial.

However, if it was a forest and the story took place in the desert, that's what would piss me off.

 

[lovecraft68]

I pay very little attention to covers aside from reading the title and author's name. It's rare that I will see a cover and say hey, I want to check that out.

It's partly, I suppose, b/c so many covers are all the same. I prefer covers without people, for one thing. I'm tired of half-dressed or half-undressed people in hazy bedrooms or on hazy beaches and things like that. And it's not just covers -- in paintings, if I was going to get something for my house, for example, I'd pick something without people, or with somewhat undefined people.

I'm not saying there aren't good covers with pictures of people, just that I rarely see them.

For your "Sweet Reluctance," LC, if I'd come across it I would have skipped right to the summary to see if I wanted it. The picture would have made little impression on me. Nothing personal, like I said -- I feel this way about most covers, regardless of genre.

I'm kind of with you, I prefer art without people. But in erotica you're going to see mostly undressed attractive people.

And I go by description as well. I usually find out the cover is a mismatch when reading the book, although as I said. a step mom book with a nineteen year old in pigtails on the cover is sort of what I'm calling out here.

In case you're wondering, for mine, I either find a woman who at least looks thirty+ or I go with a shot of a woman from behind, posing or undressing.

 

[ILmonamour]

I tend to go straight for the synopsis after glancing at the title first. The picture doesn't hold much importance, however I too prefer to either only show a portion of a person or not at all. And oddly, I prefer covers that do not reveal the entire face of the models if they are being used. Thinking back to the majority of the books I have read, there has been a single object on the cover along with the title. It's simple, clean and doesn't make me think about potentially 'judging' the book by its cover.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Okay. Let me ask you this. If it was a romance novel would a cover that is simply scenery stop you from looking further. Is the picture of people obligatory?

I think an obviously hacked up cover would make me more likely to pass by if I didn't know the author.

Same. There's a certain cover style that reeks of poor-quality self-pub, and that usually means the content isn't worth looking at. If the author can't be bothered going to a little trouble for the cover, they probably have other bad habits too.

OTOH, it doesn't need to be the traditional Romantic Clinch On The Cover - like or dislike it, 50SoG is proof that you can sell books without that.

(On a side note, most professional authors have little or no control over their covers and are often unhappy with the results - I've seen a few who were LIVID because the publishers had changed black characters to white.)

 

[oggbashan]

Some 1940s and 1950s paperbacks had very bad art.

I have seen a half-naked bodice-ripping woman as the cover for a Jane Austen novel.

As for some of the pulp fiction of the 1890s? The cover rarely had any relevance to the contents.

I have an original art-work for a paperback edition of an autobiography of an ER doctor. The book is fairly interesting because the author was one of the first women to be a specialist ER consultants in the UK, but the blurb and the cover would have suited a Hank Jansen shocker.

 

[PennLady]

Okay. Let me ask you this. If it was a romance novel would a cover that is simply scenery stop you from looking further. Is the picture of people obligatory?

I think an obviously hacked up cover would make me more likely to pass by if I didn't know the author.

A bad cover might turn me off, or a bad cover might actually intrigue me more than a "good" one. I'd wonder what poor book deserved such a horrible cover.

A simple scenery cover would not turn me off -- it just wouldn't have any effect at all, or very little. I might even be more inclined to it, since I don't like people on the covers, like I said.

Now I have published a few novellas with a little outfit, Yellow Silk Dreams, and the guy who runs it said he'd read that books w/people on cover sell best. That may be but I still don't like it. Also, check out some of the more popular romance writers like Nora Roberts and Luann Rice and Fern Michaels -- no people there, and they do just fine. Maybe there were on older titles, or whatever, but if it sells so well, why wouldn't they keep using it?

I tend to go straight for the synopsis after glancing at the title first. The picture doesn't hold much importance, however I too prefer to either only show a portion of a person or not at all. And oddly, I prefer covers that do not reveal the entire face of the models if they are being used. Thinking back to the majority of the books I have read, there has been a single object on the cover along with the title. It's simple, clean and doesn't make me think about potentially 'judging' the book by its cover.

Yes, this is what I do. If I want to know what a book's about, I go to the synopsis, b/c the picture won't tell me enough (even if I look at it). I guess I find that non-people images can convey a lot of neat stuff.

One of my favorites of my own covers when I was with Republic Press was "Young Blood," in which a weretiger teams up with a vampire, and the cover image was a pawprint in blood. For another, All Too Human, where the main character was a weretiger but also a model, there was an image of tiger-striped high-heeled shoes.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

Knowing now that e-published books are likely to have stock art on the front cover, I wouldn't be too concerned. An erotic cover for an erotic novel would do it for me. Of course, if the book was about gay men, having a sultry girl on the front cover might not help.

I have some best-selling books in my bookshelf (real ones) where, once you read the book, you realize the front cover scene isn't actually in the book. They commissioned an artist, told him the rough plot, and he drew something. For all I know the author hated it.

Probably if you are going to have a girl she should be roughly the age described in the book. I mean if you are looking for a mature romance, and the cover has a teenager, you might not make it to the synopsis. Or vice-versa. And probably the hair colour should be right. Especially if the opening paragraph mentions it.

 

[RodenAddison]

Still debating. With romantic/erotic novels, I find the covers with a guy with a six pack and massive arms, holding a woman who is essential in a half removed dress with too much makeup is just kitschy to me.

 

[desertslave]

I honestly don't pay much attention to covers for e-books or dead-tree books. There's some cover art that I appreciate, but it's rarely what pulls me to a book.

 

[sr71plt]

It's an industry axiom that the cover is at least the second most important marketing element in selling a book (behind a famous author name, which only works for you if you are a famous author). I don't see any evidence that e-books are exempt from this. And, yes, the separate genres have cover requirements. Both erotica and Romance do, in the industry, require people on the cover--and ones that indicate both the protagonist relationships and the setting. (However, the mainstream isn't much better at matching the cover description/personality to the text description/personality than many in erotica production are--typically the cover designer has not read the manuscript and, at best, gets only a short description of the protagonist).

And, yes, if the cover looks amateurish, I will pass it by--and the industry will say, from experience, that most other buyers will too.

 

[lilmisscontrary]

Would be great, but will probably never happen...

I would love it if, in romance novels (which I will admit, is a guilty pleasure) that the people on the cover matched the description of the characters in the book. I know there are many issues with this, as the authors of the books have no control over the covers...but that doesn't stop me from wishing.

I rarely ever look at the covers of the books, now I turn to the back and read the description and maybe the first couple of pages to see if I would be interested. But I agree with the OP, the cover thing is a pet peeve.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I would love it if, in romance novels (which I will admit, is a guilty pleasure) that the people on the cover matched the description of the characters in the book. I know there are many issues with this, as the authors of the books have no control over the covers...but that doesn't stop me from wishing.

OTOH, there was one time when that worked out very well for a romance author: http://christinadodd.com/christina-dodd-and-the-infamous-three-armed-cover/

The cover artist accidentally drew her heroine with three arms, and nobody noticed before it went to print. Apparently it was the best thing that ever happened to her career.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

Wasn't maths the artist's strong suit? Or had he been drinking?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Wasn't maths the artist's strong suit? Or had he been drinking?

Story seems to be that he drew it in one spot, changed his mind, and redrew it elsewhere without remembering to erase the first one.

 

[mcguinness]

If I see a book with a crappy cover, to me it's usually a sign the author either doesn't care or doesn't know what he's doing. So generally I don't buy it. But it doesn't "bother" me -- I don't dwell on it, I just assume it's sub-par material and move on.

Stock art is kind of a minefield, too; I recently saw two entirely different books by different authors with the same exact model photo. And I'm sure they both paid money for the rights, too. Whoops.

 

[THROBBS]

I find it rather sad that expectations for cover art are so low.


Yeah, why bother?

 

[PennLady]

If I see a book with a crappy cover, to me it's usually a sign the author either doesn't care or doesn't know what he's doing. So generally I don't buy it. But it doesn't "bother" me -- I don't dwell on it, I just assume it's sub-par material and move on.

Stock art is kind of a minefield, too; I recently saw two entirely different books by different authors with the same exact model photo. And I'm sure they both paid money for the rights, too. Whoops.

I don't even usually note if the cover art is "crappy" or not. I just hardly look at it. For the stock art, I have noticed on Amazon when I look for e-books that many books, and many of them seem to be published by Ellora's Cave, have the exact same photo. For many many books. Which strikes me as lazy.

I suppose one reason I don't care much is that I get so many free e-books from Amazon. Maybe the cover art would have clued me in, but they're free, so I'm not out any money and not usually much time.

I find it rather sad that expectations for cover art are so low.

Yeah, why bother?

I wonder if in part expectations are low because for so long the same type of art has been used -- speaking of romance/erotica here -- with so much success. So even though we here may be tired of the half-dressed pirates and such, it sells.

Maybe if e-publishers, and regular print publishers, start taking chances on different cover art, they'll find it sells as well. Someone pointed out 50 Shades and there is a definite example of an erotic novel without people on the cover. (Disclaimer: you may not think 50 Shades is erotic, and that's fine, but... just sayin'.)

 

[THROBBS]

I think the 50 shades covers are well done... and for such material, they are subtly evocative and yet not embarrassing to have out, which, to my understanding, was part of the e-book appeal.

They are similar in gross concept to the Twilight series covers... no sparkling vampires on those.

 

[SamScribble]

I think most stock-photo e-book covers – whether the words contained within are erotic or not – tend to be pretty unappealing. Sometimes this is because the photo itself is bad. But more often than not it is because the overall cover design is bad. In my opinion, a cover with a good title and good typography often doesn’t need a photo at all. Once upon a time, book covers were one of the highpoints of the typographer’s art. These days, good typography is not so common. Bypassing a proper designer, authors spend $25 on a stock photo and surround it with a bit of colour. But a pig with lipstick is still a pig.

 

[sr71plt]

The industry puts quite a bit of effort into figuring out what cover designs work for what types of books. Most putting out e-book covers, of course, aren't industry experts. That said, I've had erotica e-books put out with non-human figure designs and with provocative figure designs, and my pocketbook has no trouble discerning which of the two ways sells best. I don't have to theorize or talk personal preference on the matter.

It would always be preferable to have a profesisonal cover design and a custom cover design and photos, of course. For most e-books, though, that's a pie-in-the sky option for the production budget. Of course stock photo services sell the same photo over and over again--that's what makes selling them at all profitable. So, certainly you will see the same figure pop up on different covers. That's hardly arms and legs. If the figure suits the specific book and arrests the buyer's attention (and the thought, "I've seen this figure on another cover" arrests the attention), that's most of the battle right there.

 

[talismania]

Just to weigh in on the side of covers mattering. They do. If they didn't, there'd be no need to show a cover at all on Amazon or other sites. You could just put up a title and short blurb. A cover sets the tone and draws the eye. It's a pure sales tool.

Do bad erotic e-book covers bother me? No more than bad mainstream mystery book covers. Bad covers don't offend me the way they do some people. I just ignore them. Do I look at books with covers I find appealing? Yes. Totally. Grab me with an appealing cover and I might buy the book. I won't buy a book I never look at.

All sorts of design elements appeal to me. Some of my favorite covers have bodies on them, some don't. Color has a lot to do with it. My one requirement for a book cover is that my name be visible and legible. I had a cover where my name was invisible. It sold the book... didn't sell me. It was a great book cover only for the publisher.

 

[nicecthulhu]

I am finding this dialogue so illuminating!
In other genres, covers don't really matter a whole lot, unless it's the first time your buying a certain author's work. If you like the author you don't care about the cover. Oh sure, there are some nice Frazetta covers for Conan books, etc.
There appears to be more of an interest in covers in erotica and romance, from what I'm seeing in this thread. Some ignore the covers, but it looks to be a smaller portion than with other genres (SF, fantasy).
Never having read an actual ebook (yet) or an erotica or romance "dead tree" book (well, just one about thirty years ago), I'm glad lovecraft68 brought this up.
Of course, I'll probably stubbornly stick to whatever I think is aesthetically pleasing and matches the story.