As promised, here's the picture of Nathan Kamp from the TO LOVE A SCOUNDREL cover--this is on the spine, showing his whole face--whereas on the front, his face is mostly cropped out. Nice, huh?!
It's a little grainy, but you get the picture! What I *really* love about this cover art--besides Nathan, of course--is that the bracelet that he's holding plays a *big* part in the story. I'm so glad that the cover artists were able to incorporate a piece of the plot into the cover art. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen.
And to answer that age-old question, nope, us authors have no say whatsoever in our book's covers. Some publishing houses do ask the author to brainstorm ideas, or have authors fill out cover art questionnaires, but there's no guarantee that our ideas will be used, and generally we have no 'say' in the final artwork.
It is interesting, though, that trends in cover art seem to go in cycles. When I was first published, 'cartoon' covers were all the rage. Then there was a period where headless women were in vogue, then headless men. For a while there, couples in a sexy clinch were back in vogue. I'm not even sure what the current trend is--actually, I think it might still be the couple in a clinch (which I, personally, love--as long as it's not that cheesy old 80's style with the hero with a mullet and heroine with her dress falling off, climbing up the hero).
Now it's time to 'fess up: Are there any particular cover styles that particularly catch your eye? Or that you really hate?
4 comments:
I am tired of seeing covers where the woman is being undressed or seduced by the hunky guy. I would like to see a role reversal here. Let's see guy getting stripped or being ravished for once!
For the covers I like, nice abs.
This sounds silly, but I find the covers with men staring out are a little too much and I end up hiding the cover. Silly, I know.
Interesting about the guy looking out Christina;) One of my favorite covers is Angel Eyes by Suzanne Forester not sure what it is but I love a mans eyes and his hands.
you bring up an interesting thought with the guy undressing the woman instead of it being the other way around.
there have been covers where clearly the woman is the aggressor, but they are portrayed in a different light than when it is the man--never really noticed that before ...interesting study.
I was surprised with the cover art of my upcoming Dark Ages novel(Tortured-see sidebar) it reminds me alsomt of the Kathleen Woodiwiss(sp??) covers...
Personally I love it, but I love all the Spice covers LOL
Amanda
Phew! I love Nathan! What a body, and the face is nice, too!
What covers do I like...hmmm. Well, I must admit I like sensual covers. Anything with too much nudity makes me want to hide it from my kidlet, and others. I mean, something with three naked people on the cover is not going to fly sitting out in full at the nursing station, if you know what I mean.
But secretly, I do like the ones with buff men and naked chests...and tattoos...yeah, tattoos are good! lol!
I like the whole Nathan! Very nice.
I don't like cartoon covers -
*ducking flying pots and pans - I feel it cheapens our splendid and distinguished romance genre.
:)
G.
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