Pet peeve about book covers?

Booklover199

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 1, 2015
Messages
182
Reaction score
8
Location
Toronto, Canada
Do any of you guys have a pet peeve when looking at book covers? Mine is when the designer uses a full out photo of a person, because I think it's insulting to the writer and the reader. I think the writer should be capable of describing the characters well enough. It should be up to the reader to visualize the characters themselves, not the designer. It isn't a movie poster!

I've also just gotten into the habit of not using eyes. My teacher said that eyes are to distracting and the viewer immediately look at them and not the title. I just think they're also just overdone.
 

Orianna2000

Freelance Writer
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 15, 2011
Messages
3,434
Reaction score
234
Location
USA
My pet peeve is any book cover that's designed so poorly, it's clearly a self-published book. Examples include bad layouts, hard-to-read fonts, crazy color schemes, a stock image that's been used to death already, etc.

Conversely, I love trilogies where each book cover stands alone, yet is clearly part of the series. Bonus points if the covers link together somehow when you have all the books. For example, the Torchwood novels put photos of the characters on the spines, arranged so that if you put all the books in a row on your bookshelf, you get a posed shot of all the characters standing together. I also love the old Lord of the Rings novels (from the 1970s, I believe) where the covers, when lined up in the right order, form a map of Middle Earth. It's quite clever!
 

Blinkk

Searching for dragons
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 23, 2012
Messages
4,528
Reaction score
591
Location
CA
I really can't think of any. I can tell you things I love on a book cover, but as for pet peeves? I'm pretty open.

I agree with Orianna. Anything that's badly made is a turn off (side note: badly made doesn't automatically mean it's self-published, but I understand the stereotype). Doesn't matter what the subject is. If the visual is poor then I'm probably going to walk away.
 

KateH

[insert witty title here]
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Messages
444
Reaction score
57
Location
New Zealand
My pet peeve is any book cover that's designed so poorly, it's clearly a self-published book. Examples include bad layouts, hard-to-read fonts, crazy color schemes, a stock image that's been used to death already, etc.

This. I know there are lots of good self-published books out there, but when I scroll through Goodreads, I can pretty much always tell if a book self-published or not by the cover alone. And if an author hasn't put in the effort to get a professional-looking cover, there's a good chance the writing isn't of a high standard either.

A pet peeve of mine is when the cover doesn't make it obvious a book is part of a series. At the very least put the series title or the book number on the spine.
 

NateSean

Vulcan/Time Lord Hybrid
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
803
Reaction score
78
Location
Bennington, VT
Mine is when the designer uses a full out photo of a person, because I think it's insulting to the writer and the reader.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that it's insulting. Nothing is stopping the reader from imagining the character however they see them. Sometimes, even with the description of a character, I'll imagine them completely differently because it's just how my mind works. The graphic designer can only work with what is available, and what they are being paid to do. If they only have a bunch of photos of a particular model who was available that day, then that is what they have to work with.

It isn't a movie poster!

Sometimes it kind of is though. Books are being released now with "author's cuts" and "deleted chapters". They have trailers, complete with action scenes and professional actors. They have websites with interactive games.

Unfortunately, people can and do judge books by their cover, as KateH has demonstrated, so if my cover can give someone as much eye candy as needed just to get them to read the sample pages, then I'm content to just hand my graphic designer the sugar and stand back.
 

oceansoul

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 18, 2014
Messages
743
Reaction score
91
Age
34
Location
Seattle, WA
Really poor typography is my biggest pet-peeve. I especially hate it when a scraggly red font gets used -- it just doesn't work!
 

Tazlima

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
3,042
Reaction score
1,494
The only thing that bothers me is when the cover image conflicts with the actual story. My go-to example is a copy of "Old Yeller" I owned as a kid. The story repeatedly mentions that the title character only has one ear, yet the cover showed a dog with both ears intact.

I also remember reading a fantasy novel in middle school (don't remember the title), the cover of which featured two heroic-looking people and an awesome dragon. I was sorely disappointed to discover that there was no dragon anywhere in the story.
 

Ravioli

Crazy Cat Lady
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 4, 2015
Messages
2,699
Reaction score
423
Location
Germany, native Israeli
Website
annagiladi.wixsite.com
1. Unrelated content. If there's a picture of a dog, I expect a story about a dog, not about dumb teenagers being dumb.

2. Those 3D/Poser covers with way too much going on. Often found in self-published fantasy and sci-fi.

3. 3D, shaded, highlighted, super-special-font lettering. It works with Harry Potter because high level pros did it. It's not something you should trust yourself or your best friend with. Or any lettering that makes it hard to read.

4. Author name 13405ß845u9839873% bigger than book title. Tuck the ego.

5. I distrust best-seller announcements. The book is newly out, and they already have it confirmed a best-seller? Do they, like, hope to make it a best-seller, print that line on the book, and then promote it like crazy to succeed?

6. Clichés like a woman's overly closed-up face, or part thereof, or when it's erotica, two (half-)naked bodies pressing against each other. When gay, I'm tired of the white six-packs in blue jeans.

7. Lettering and image so over-detailed and too much going on that you have to search for the letters to try and make sense of them.
 

NateSean

Vulcan/Time Lord Hybrid
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
803
Reaction score
78
Location
Bennington, VT
I got lucky with a premade cover. It was the only one I could afford, but there were enough elements that I felt it worked with the story. Necessity being the mother of invention, I hope to raise some more money so that I can pay the artist for an original piece that has even more of those elements.
 

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 16, 2010
Messages
16,441
Reaction score
1,529
Location
between rising apes and falling angels
Website
www.cranehanabooks.com
I'll add to Ravioli's 3D/Poser aversion: My eyeballs want to bleed when I see Poser figures that have not been properly rendered, so they still have that blank-eyed, plastic-skinned old Poser look. I hate it when actual *publishers* do that, and would never bother querying a publisher who still did. It's a dead giveaway for self-published work, too. In all the covers I've seen of self-pub novels and stories, only one author's writing was good enough to make me try to ignore the awful CG-figures-mixed-with-travel-landscape-photos and unbalanced text.

Another peeve is publishers allowing their authors to contribute substandard artwork on covers. Yeah, it's great when you are a skilled enough author/artist to pull that off convincingly. Usually, it's a disaster. Author artwork should generally be a starting concept point for the art department, not final copy. The one commercial publisher I know for a fact did this has now gone out of business for a host of other reasons, but that was the moment I stopped considering them. Vanity publishers often encourage their authors to sub artwork for covers - after all, it's not like they actually need to sell books to make a profit.
 

Ravioli

Crazy Cat Lady
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 4, 2015
Messages
2,699
Reaction score
423
Location
Germany, native Israeli
Website
annagiladi.wixsite.com
I'll add to Ravioli's 3D/Poser aversion: My eyeballs want to bleed when I see Poser figures that have not been properly rendered, so they still have that blank-eyed, plastic-skinned old Poser look. I hate it when actual *publishers* do that, and would never bother querying a publisher who still did. It's a dead giveaway for self-published work, too. In all the covers I've seen of self-pub novels and stories, only one author's writing was good enough to make me try to ignore the awful CG-figures-mixed-with-travel-landscape-photos and unbalanced text.
Sharp, cut-into joints and limbs. Oh my god, and yes, the plastic look. Sex dolls with shoulder armor!

Look yall, I admire artistic endeavors, what with being a graphic artist myself and wanting to cover-design my own books. I have tremendous respect for artists, and I can't do 3D for the life of me. But... when you're not quite there yet, don't put it on something you wanna sell. Be proud of your progress, but leave it at boasting on deviantART.
 

danatcsimpson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 13, 2015
Messages
137
Reaction score
33
Location
Chi-town
I come at this as a writer with an illustration degree, so lazy edits of stock photography just make me sad. I know it's cheap and illustrators are expensive, but the Julie Dillons and Dan Dos Santos's and Donato Giancolas of the world are wonderful and make books even more wonderful.
 

JetFueledCar

tiny hedgehog
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 17, 2015
Messages
1,125
Reaction score
159
Location
Internet native
There was a while where there were so many books with circular logos on the covers in YA that I automatically discarded any book I saw with that. It was fine when THG did it, because that was a powerful image. It was annoying when it got copied to death.

In YA, I also hate any images of shattered reflections or shattered glass, which are also overdone. I also hate portraits that don't show the eyes and bodies seen from the back. Those four tropes made up about 90% of YA covers at one point. I got sick of them.
 

BradCarsten

practical experience, FTW
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 23, 2010
Messages
1,179
Reaction score
96
Location
Johannesburg South Africa
I'll add to Ravioli's 3D/Poser aversion: My eyeballs want to bleed when I see Poser figures that have not been properly rendered, so they still have that blank-eyed, plastic-skinned old Poser look. I hate it when actual *publishers* do that, and would never bother querying a publisher who still did. It's a dead giveaway for self-published work, too. In all the covers I've seen of self-pub novels and stories, only one author's writing was good enough to make me try to ignore the awful CG-figures-mixed-with-travel-landscape-photos and unbalanced text.
.

Yeah, 3d is one of those things that can look amazing if done right, but it's so easy to do it wrong as well.
 

Twick

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 16, 2014
Messages
3,291
Reaction score
715
Location
Canada
The thing about clichéd art is that in a sense its part of the advertising to identify the genre. Jagged blood-dripping text over murky dark objects? It's a horror-suspense. Perky cartoony stuff in pastels? ChickLit. Moody teenager staring off the cover? It's YA. Unfortunately, that means that coming up with a really original, unique look may hurt you. Readers looking for just your type of story may pass it by, because it doesn't look like the type of book they want.
 

Ravioli

Crazy Cat Lady
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 4, 2015
Messages
2,699
Reaction score
423
Location
Germany, native Israeli
Website
annagiladi.wixsite.com
The thing about clichéd art is that in a sense its part of the advertising to identify the genre. Jagged blood-dripping text over murky dark objects? It's a horror-suspense. Perky cartoony stuff in pastels? ChickLit. Moody teenager staring off the cover? It's YA. Unfortunately, that means that coming up with a really original, unique look may hurt you. Readers looking for just your type of story may pass it by, because it doesn't look like the type of book they want.
Whoever did the cover for William Sutcliffe's The Wall did good on the clichés. They took the silhouette of an olive tree surrounded by barbed wire. You immediately know it's about the Conflict, but the image isn't cringeworthily cliché yet.
 

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
17,864
Reaction score
4,639
Location
dunking doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts
Shirtless, oft times even headless, male torsos floating in the sky over a beach or city skyline. Almost every single* goddamned m/m romance coming out has this.

*hyperbole provided by the National Institute Of Pulling Random Statistics And Numbers Out Of My Butt To Back Up My Point
 
Last edited:

Ravioli

Crazy Cat Lady
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 4, 2015
Messages
2,699
Reaction score
423
Location
Germany, native Israeli
Website
annagiladi.wixsite.com
Shirtless, oft times even headless, male torsos floating in the sky over a beach or city skyline. Almost every single* goddamned m/m romance coming out has this.

*hyperbole provided by the National Institute Of Pulling Random Statistics And Numbers Out Of My Butt To Back Up My Point
It annoys me so bad. And of course those torsos are RIPPED. All gay men are HUNKS. Tall, hairless, ripped, mostly white obviously, and fothermucking chiseled. Except, in my highly LGBT-frequented college, I remember the vast majority of gay guys to be short, skinny, petite, dainty, foldable... Which was so reliable it was funny.
I want more body diversity, not just in gay novels though. But that's for another thread.
 

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
17,864
Reaction score
4,639
Location
dunking doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts
Then there are the "tribal" tattoos on all of the shifter romance covers, m/m and m/f. What, they make it easier to spot a werestoat in his human form?
 

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
12,975
Reaction score
4,508
Location
USA
Website
brightdreamersbookreviews.blogspot.com
1. Unrelated content. If there's a picture of a dog, I expect a story about a dog, not about dumb teenagers being dumb.

2. Those 3D/Poser covers with way too much going on. Often found in self-published fantasy and sci-fi.

3. 3D, shaded, highlighted, super-special-font lettering. It works with Harry Potter because high level pros did it. It's not something you should trust yourself or your best friend with. Or any lettering that makes it hard to read.

4. Author name 13405ß845u9839873% bigger than book title. Tuck the ego.

5. I distrust best-seller announcements. The book is newly out, and they already have it confirmed a best-seller? Do they, like, hope to make it a best-seller, print that line on the book, and then promote it like crazy to succeed?

6. Clichés like a woman's overly closed-up face, or part thereof, or when it's erotica, two (half-)naked bodies pressing against each other. When gay, I'm tired of the white six-packs in blue jeans.

7. Lettering and image so over-detailed and too much going on that you have to search for the letters to try and make sense of them.

+1 to pretty much all of this.

I'll add to Ravioli's 3D/Poser aversion: My eyeballs want to bleed when I see Poser figures that have not been properly rendered, so they still have that blank-eyed, plastic-skinned old Poser look. I hate it when actual *publishers* do that, and would never bother querying a publisher who still did.

The earlier editions of one Very Popular Author's somewhat-recent quartet (in an established fantasy universe) had terrible 3D dragons on the cover... which, frankly, should've been my warning sign, as the book itself wasn't nearly as engaging as the other books I'd read in that universe. (I see newer versions in the library with a different cover.)

Then there are the "tribal" tattoos on all of the shifter romance covers, m/m and m/f. What, they make it easier to spot a werestoat in his human form?

Someone really must write a novel where shifters have non-tribal tattoos - cartoon characters of their wereform, perhaps, or sappy life-sayings and rainbows. (Though I expect, somewhere deep in the bowels of fanfic, there are explicit tales of My Little Pony shifters with tattoos of their rump-designs on their posteriors in human form.)
 

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
22,617
Reaction score
7,296
Location
Wash., D.C. area
I really can't think of any. I can tell you things I love on a book cover, but as for pet peeves? I'm pretty open.

I agree with Orianna. Anything that's badly made is a turn off (side note: badly made doesn't automatically mean it's self-published, but I understand the stereotype). Doesn't matter what the subject is. If the visual is poor then I'm probably going to walk away.

This.

What just occurred to me is that I pay much less attention to covers than I used to. It started when I got a Kindle and stopped buying paper books. Perhaps that's coincidence or perhaps that with ebooks I never see the cover once I've decided to buy the book.
 

CynV

The Original Cyn
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 7, 2009
Messages
268
Reaction score
13
Website
www.CynthiaVespia.com
Overused ideas

I'm laughing and nodding my head "yes" on some of these posts because you guys are so right! The headless male torsos on M/M or the tribal tattoos on Shifter novels, so overused!

My pet peeve are the pre-made covers with "insert title" and "insert author." For me a book cover should be unique to the story inside. Mass produced templates just lead to everyone having the same cover.

I ran into something similar when my publisher put an image of a male model on my fantasy novel and he wound up on every romance novel cover that year.

So now I do my own covers and I design covers for other authors at an affordable price, because my other pet peeve is when designers rip off authors by overcharging them.
 

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 16, 2010
Messages
16,441
Reaction score
1,529
Location
between rising apes and falling angels
Website
www.cranehanabooks.com
Coming back to the thread with an admission: my publisher stuck my M/M romance space opera with pics of two guys who at least vaguely resemble mine (after some gentle pushback on my part). I'm okay with the cover because it sold to that readership, but the book is so much more. I amuse myself with planning covers for the year when I get the rights back.

On covers: Changeling Press has some of the worst bad examples of Plastic Poser People I have ever seen. Just eye-bleedingly bad. It may be because I am an artist, and this fantasy cover did start out as a Poser sketch (though I finished it in Painter).



I see all the digital art mistakes now, and I can't unsee them.
 
Last edited:

Ravioli

Crazy Cat Lady
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 4, 2015
Messages
2,699
Reaction score
423
Location
Germany, native Israeli
Website
annagiladi.wixsite.com
Coming back to the thread with an admission: my publisher stuck my M/M romance space opera with pics of two guys who at least vaguely resemble mine (after some gentle pushback on my part). I'm okay with the cover because it sold to that readership, but the book is so much more. I amuse myself with planning covers for the year when I get the rights back.

On covers: Changeling Press has some of the worst bad examples of Plastic Poser People I have ever seen. Just eye-bleedingly bad. It may be because I am an artist, and this fantasy cover did start out as a Poser sketch (though I finished it in Painter).



I see all the digital art mistakes now, and I can't unsee them.
Okay, would you like to pay the damages you have done to my psyche, by PayPal or check? That link needed a trigger warning. That is not okay. You do not do that. Go away.

Like your painting by the way, especially the snowy forest :) I believe if you cannot render or paint photo/hyperrealistic, you should indeed go for a painty look instead. At least it looks like a style of art and not a failed attempt at something else, like.. that link... good god MY EYES GOUGE THEM OUT!
 

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 16, 2010
Messages
16,441
Reaction score
1,529
Location
between rising apes and falling angels
Website
www.cranehanabooks.com
Sorry, Ravioli. I did say 'eye bleeding', yes?

I hold Changeling up as one of the worst small press offenders in the 'bad cover' arena. There are some self published authors as bad or worse. Here's my take on it: I would not sub to Changeling even if they had great sales numbers. I don't want to be associated with their covers, and I think the less of their authors (and readers) for accepting them.
 
Last edited: