Book Cover Question

[Codoc24]

Do you really have to have a book cover with a beefcake, no shirt, and a partially dressed woman? Or two or three more people like that? I think those types of covers are so cheesy, cliché, tired, worn, and beat to death. I hate them. You can hardly tell one book from the other. Do erotica books not sell that well unless they have a cover like that? I would love to do something different with my books.

 

[KeithD]

The main purpose of a book cover is to sell the book from the shelf of other book covers. Most book buyers know the genre they're looking for. The separate genres have developed their own cover motif codes. If you are self-publishing, you can put whatever you want on the cover and often if you go distinctively counter to code, you'll have a one-off winner, but, yes, if you consistently want to sell a lot of erotica, you'll work with the standard erotica cover codes.

If you work through a publisher you'll likely be surprised to find that cover art, along with interior book design, is reserved to the publisher in the contract, and although you'll be consulted and they'll hate it if you hate their cover design and may have a little give, they will assert final control over the cover art. It usually comes down to whatever give is accorded the author depends on how many of their previous books sold with that publisher. They are in the business to sell the book.

 

[lovecraft68]

Do you really have to have a book cover with a beefcake, no shirt, and a partially dressed woman? Or two or three more people like that? I think those types of covers are so cheesy, cliché, tired, worn, and beat to death. I hate them. You can hardly tell one book from the other. Do erotica books not sell that well unless they have a cover like that? I would love to do something different with my books.

If its your book you can do whatever you want, but if you're selling erotica a cover image of a man in a suit on the phone isn't sell, nor would an elegantly dressed couple sitting at a table over a candlelit dinner.

People are looking for erotica, meaning sexy and something that tells them what's in the book. Gay male covers will have the beefcake as will bodice ripper romances(the bad boy beefcake more often) other erotica will have a passionate couple or woman partially dressed or sexy lingerie. A title in eye catching fonts and tells you what the book features over something pretentious and clever.

When someone is searching for e-books your title and cover have to be eye catching and gain attention out of a row of similar books, so artsy stuff isn't going to stand a chance.

Or would you suggest putting a masked serial killer with a bloody hatchet on the cover of a romance novel?

It has to give the readers of any genre what they have come to expect.

 

[Codoc24]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Willpkirk]

What's the thoughts then of having, for example a girl in a red dress on the cover but the girl in the book doesn't wear one? Or the man/woman in the book not matching the ones on the cover?

 

[KeithD]

It irritates me when the cover models don't come anywhere close to how the characters are depicted in the content. So much so that sometimes when I've been presented with a really good cover for my book using models who don't fit the content that I'll go back and change the characters to go with the cover.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Do you really have to have a book cover with a beefcake, no shirt, and a partially dressed woman? Or two or three more people like that? I think those types of covers are so cheesy, cliché, tired, worn, and beat to death. I hate them. You can hardly tell one book from the other. Do erotica books not sell that well unless they have a cover like that? I would love to do something different with my books.

Do you like my book cover? Care of @djrip

For The Coleoidphilia Trilogy.

Em

 

[Ian_Snow]

Different types of covers sell for different genres. Man-chests do great in erotic romance and general erotica. Boobs, boobs, and more boobs sell well in hotwife. The best recommendation I can give you is to look at the top 100 sales of any particular subgenre you're looking to publish in, and see what's topping the lists continually. Of course you can do it differently (I do, on occasion) but readers know what they want and can generally expect out of certain covers, and that's what will attract them.

As for the models not lining up, you work with what you have. Stock image sites aren't limitless, so authors will include a disclaimer either in the blurb or in the front matter that the models are only indicative of the book's tone.

 

[John_Vandermeer]

I am of the school the cover model has to match looks, garb, and even attitude of the MC. And being a fetish-heavy femdom writer that for me means the FMC depicted somewhere along the seductive yet unattainable line. I have no experience of working with publishers, but as a self publisher you can do anything you want. On LitE the series page is the place for covers, but they are awfully hard to reach for readers in my view. You basically always have to get to the story first, then click to the matching series. Yet another thing about LitE that could stand some improvement in my view...