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coraaI confess: a big part of why I went to this presentation (which is about book covers, and how they function as advertisement, as hints to the tone and content of the book, and as genre indicators) was that the title was awesome. :D It was listed as a presentation in order that Faye could show slides, but it was held really as more of a roundtable, with lots of discussion.
Since so much audience discussion happened, by people whose names I didn't know or have forgotten, and since it went so fast, I'm just describing the content in prose rather than as a dialogue. Also, I apologize for the lack of images; finding and linking them all would have been so time-consuming that I wouldn't have probably ever gotten around to posting, so you get my descriptions instead.
Moderator: Faye Bi
Notes behind the cut. As always, transcribed fast and edited only glancingly, misattributions and errors are my own, assume everything outside of quote marks is a paraphrase.
NOTE: Faye made a good point that I will reiterate, that in this panel we're discussing what we liked and did not like about book covers. Someone hating a book cover doesn't mean that they hate the book, nor does loving a book cover mean they love the book. Additionally, there was pretty much no cover that was universally liked or disliked, so this is clearly a very subjective topic!
Faye began by noting that covers are designed to sell books. What matters most as regards the purpose of the cover is that the cover connects the book to its audience. Thus, effectiveness in connecting a book to the audience that will appreciate it is as important as, or more important than, artistic merit of the cover.
She provided three example covers and discussed briefly the way they advertise the genre and style of the books. By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey had a very colorful illustrated cover, and was 80s adult fantasy; Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine had a more subdued illustrated cover featuring a teenage girl, and was a middle grade fantasy; and Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz had a cover of a woman's throat with a city skyline in silhouette beneath it, and was urban fantasy. Each of those covers gave a pretty clear idea of what the contents were likely to be.
Her next example was the many (many, many) covers to Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. We discussed the way that the variety of covers was designed to attract different audiences. The first cover featured an elaborate but largely abstract border with swirly bits and stylized leaves; we compared and contrasted to traditional fairy tale imagery and hypothesized that it was designed to appeal to those who might like its fairy tale-like story. Another with pastel trees was very like a Nicholas Sparks novel—perhaps targeting a romance audience. Another featured a starfield, shooting star, and futuristic typeface, like a science fiction novel. Another featured a flying ship, like a “Treasure Island”-esque swashbuckling historical. One featured Gaiman's name most prominently (it took up one-third of the cover) with the title of the book itself smaller than his name: the “celebrity author” cover. Two movie tie-in covers: one YA, with characters on it, and another adult, with basically nothing but the title and a stylized shooting star—the “read on the subway” title. In addition, now that Gaiman is very popular/famous and a “brand,” his covers all have very similar aesthetics and designs, so you can see the connection between them. In effect, the covers mark his novels as being part of the Gaiman "brand."
We followed this up by playing a game, where Faye showed us covers whose target audiences she hadn't been able to figure out and we discussed what we thought those covers were designed to accomplish.
The next thing we looked at was covers as "branding" for a series, specifically with the case of Robert Jordan. Jordan's covers have had a consistent style—high fantasy depictions usually of scenes from the books, with the same illustration style and same font—over twenty years of publishing. They're a fairly standard type of cover for high or epic fantasy, which lets people know that the book will scratch the high fantasy itch if that's what they want. The cover of The Eye of the World (1990) and the cover of Towers of Midnight (2010) have very similar styles, indicating that in this case maintaining the consistent image and "brand" for the series was more important than riding on cover trends.
We then moved on to a type of cover that was a bit more contentious: urban fantasy covers. Specifically, the trend toward "body part books" as a visual indicator that a book is urban fantasy: close-ups on part of a face (an eye, half a face, face from the nose down, etc.); body parts (hands, shoulders, throats), people from the neck down, torsos. Usually of women.
A lot of people in the audience Did Not Care for "body part" book covers. We had some discussion as to whether these books are objectifying. Some people noted that their issue was that the covers are often creepy: either people without visible eyes or just a very dramatic close-up of an eye (often an inhuman-looking eye, oddly shaped or colored), and also often chalk-pale. (Again, often because the protagonists or major characters are vampires or otherwise undead.) On the flip side, we discussed the ways that these covers are effective advertising: someone picking one up has a pretty good idea, in broad terms, of what kind of book they'd get.
Cindy Pon, in the audience, discussed the repackaging of her book: Silver Phoenix originally had a very colorful cover of the main character in a pink outfit against a blue background with a glowing stone around her neck. The book was repackaged (I missed part of this, but I think partly to indicate that it's appealing to an older audience?) as something closer to a "body part" cover: a girl visible from nose to throat, with the emphasis on the glowing stone, much darker and less vividly colorful. Her understanding was that the general buying audience seems to be using the urban fantasy-esque cover to seek out a certain kind of book (particularly a book aimed a certain maturity level?), and that it's therefore effective as advertisement for the book.
An audience member noted that a lot of the close-up face books are similar to art that was on DeviantArt five+ years ago, and that, accordingly, it does match her idea of a 'cool' image. Perhaps for a certain audience/age group, it really is hitting a particular target.
Another audience member noted that Laurel K Hamilton books are technically "body part books," but rather than being part of a face or a throat or a badass woman's torso, they're very sensual, displaying the curves of the (again, generally female) body: hip, waist, etc.
A librarian noted that Charlaine Harris’ books have changed covers dramatically: they used to have almost cartoony covers, like chick-lit or cozy mystery used to have VERY different covers, more chick-lit cozy-mystery. Post-True Blood they have more urban fantasy-like "body part" covers. Having not read the books, she asked which covers were more appropriate, and the general impression was that the earlier, chick-lit/cozy mystery covers fit the books better (although perhaps do not advertise them as well).
We looked at Holly Black’s Tithe and Aprilynne Pike’s Wings, which have very similar covers despite a different color palette. An audience member noted that, despite the similarities, Wings has a curly pink title and Tithe a scratchy, edgy title—a difference which matches a difference in the books.
Then we looked at the very iconic Twilight cover (a pair of hands holding a red apple against a black background) and compared with other covers of people holding objects in both hands: Toads and Diamonds: a flower, Jane Eyre: a rose, The Thief: a stone, Let It Snow: a gift. We discussed the role of imitation in covers, and talked about whether the books were mimicking Twilight's (very successful) cover or simply going back to the same powerful iconography (hands displaying or offering something) that Twilight used.
In the same vein, we looked at the new repackaging of Pride & Prejudice, Romeo & Juliet, Wuthering Heights; all of these have covers reminiscent of the Twilight series, featuring bright flowers (usually red or white) against a black background. The cover to "Wuthering Heights," in fact, has an inset declaring it to be Bella and Edward's favorite books. These books lead to a lot of spirited debate, and were very contentious. A number of people in the audience hated the covers, felt that they misrepresented the books, and felt that—in giving young women the impression that Pride & Prejudice, Romeo & Juliet, and Wuthering Heights would be like Twilight—were setting the girls up to hate books they'd otherwise like because they resented it for not being what they expected. On the other hand, some people liked the covers (which were very striking) from a purely aesthetic point of view, and others thought that it might very well bring some people to read the books who otherwise wouldn't, and those people might very well wind up loving them. We discussed the question of whether "this might be like Twilight" is a fair or valid entry point into the classics. We also discussed how much the dislike of the covers was due to a "ew, I don't want Edward on my Wuthering Heights!" response, and whether the covers were more likely to get an "ick, get the peanut butter out of my chocolate" response or a "yay, peanut butter and chocolate" response, and why, and from who.
We went on from there to other discussions of repackaging: Sorcery and Cecelia (IIRC, originally packaged for adults) originally had a colorful, illustrated 80s fantasy cover, and now has a more subdued blue-tone YA cover. Tamora Pierce's "Squire" was originally(?) published with a colorful, illustrated cover of a girl and her injured gryphon, repackaged as a girl/woman's torso in armor in subdued shades of green. Opinions were divided: some people preferred the more colorful cover and thought it reflected the book better (specifically, several people parsed the girl-in-armor cover as historical fiction or nonfiction), whereas others thought that the illustrated cover looked more young than the book was (ie, they thought it marked the book as middle grade) and preferred the more subdued armor cover as appearing more properly YA (and therefore more potentially appealing to her). One librarian corroborated this by noting that, at her library, the version with the illustrated cover is shelved in juveniles, while the armor cover is shelved in YA. We also briefly digressed into the newness of the trend: in the 80s and to some extent the 90s, colorful illustrated covers (like the Mercedes Lackey covers or the Whelan Dragonriders of Pern books) were present in the adult section, and therefore had fewer associations of youth; now adult and YA books tend to be more subdued, so colorful illustrated covers connote childishness. (In a similar vein, "Trickster's Choice," marketed as YA in the US, has a cover in sepia with half of the main character's face, and is marketed as YA; in the UK it has an illustrated cover with a girl and a bird, and is marketed as middle grade.)
Malinda Lo's “Ash” also had a difference between the US and UK covers: the US cover features a girl in white curled up against a black background, and the US cover is, again, illustrated, with a girl wandering through the forest. There was a very varied response to them: some people thought that the US cover was more striking, but others felt that it looked like litfic or historical fiction; some people found the UK cover beautiful while others thought it made the book look younger than it was. Malinda Lo, in the audience, noted that the girl-on-black-background was aimed as a literary-crossover YA cover, whereas the girl-walking-through-forest was indeed aimed at a younger fantasy audience.
Two more repackagings: the Harry Potter repackaging: again, illustrated for a younger audience, stylized/photographic for an older audience. The latter is sometimes referred to as the "read on the subway" version. Similarly, lots of disagreement about the new Pamela Dean "Tam Lin" cover: it features a girl on a horse against a misty background (reminiscent of the ballad Tam Lin), whereas the book "Tam Lin" takes place in an American college, and doesn't so much feature wandering around on misty hillsides with a horse. This is sort of at the heart of the debate: is it okay that the book has a cover that's not representative if the cover works to sell the book? And if it sells the book, does it succeed in intriguing the reader, or does it just put them off when they realize that it's not indicative of the content?
Since so much audience discussion happened, by people whose names I didn't know or have forgotten, and since it went so fast, I'm just describing the content in prose rather than as a dialogue. Also, I apologize for the lack of images; finding and linking them all would have been so time-consuming that I wouldn't have probably ever gotten around to posting, so you get my descriptions instead.
Moderator: Faye Bi
Notes behind the cut. As always, transcribed fast and edited only glancingly, misattributions and errors are my own, assume everything outside of quote marks is a paraphrase.
NOTE: Faye made a good point that I will reiterate, that in this panel we're discussing what we liked and did not like about book covers. Someone hating a book cover doesn't mean that they hate the book, nor does loving a book cover mean they love the book. Additionally, there was pretty much no cover that was universally liked or disliked, so this is clearly a very subjective topic!
Faye began by noting that covers are designed to sell books. What matters most as regards the purpose of the cover is that the cover connects the book to its audience. Thus, effectiveness in connecting a book to the audience that will appreciate it is as important as, or more important than, artistic merit of the cover.
She provided three example covers and discussed briefly the way they advertise the genre and style of the books. By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey had a very colorful illustrated cover, and was 80s adult fantasy; Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine had a more subdued illustrated cover featuring a teenage girl, and was a middle grade fantasy; and Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz had a cover of a woman's throat with a city skyline in silhouette beneath it, and was urban fantasy. Each of those covers gave a pretty clear idea of what the contents were likely to be.
Her next example was the many (many, many) covers to Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. We discussed the way that the variety of covers was designed to attract different audiences. The first cover featured an elaborate but largely abstract border with swirly bits and stylized leaves; we compared and contrasted to traditional fairy tale imagery and hypothesized that it was designed to appeal to those who might like its fairy tale-like story. Another with pastel trees was very like a Nicholas Sparks novel—perhaps targeting a romance audience. Another featured a starfield, shooting star, and futuristic typeface, like a science fiction novel. Another featured a flying ship, like a “Treasure Island”-esque swashbuckling historical. One featured Gaiman's name most prominently (it took up one-third of the cover) with the title of the book itself smaller than his name: the “celebrity author” cover. Two movie tie-in covers: one YA, with characters on it, and another adult, with basically nothing but the title and a stylized shooting star—the “read on the subway” title. In addition, now that Gaiman is very popular/famous and a “brand,” his covers all have very similar aesthetics and designs, so you can see the connection between them. In effect, the covers mark his novels as being part of the Gaiman "brand."
We followed this up by playing a game, where Faye showed us covers whose target audiences she hadn't been able to figure out and we discussed what we thought those covers were designed to accomplish.
The next thing we looked at was covers as "branding" for a series, specifically with the case of Robert Jordan. Jordan's covers have had a consistent style—high fantasy depictions usually of scenes from the books, with the same illustration style and same font—over twenty years of publishing. They're a fairly standard type of cover for high or epic fantasy, which lets people know that the book will scratch the high fantasy itch if that's what they want. The cover of The Eye of the World (1990) and the cover of Towers of Midnight (2010) have very similar styles, indicating that in this case maintaining the consistent image and "brand" for the series was more important than riding on cover trends.
We then moved on to a type of cover that was a bit more contentious: urban fantasy covers. Specifically, the trend toward "body part books" as a visual indicator that a book is urban fantasy: close-ups on part of a face (an eye, half a face, face from the nose down, etc.); body parts (hands, shoulders, throats), people from the neck down, torsos. Usually of women.
A lot of people in the audience Did Not Care for "body part" book covers. We had some discussion as to whether these books are objectifying. Some people noted that their issue was that the covers are often creepy: either people without visible eyes or just a very dramatic close-up of an eye (often an inhuman-looking eye, oddly shaped or colored), and also often chalk-pale. (Again, often because the protagonists or major characters are vampires or otherwise undead.) On the flip side, we discussed the ways that these covers are effective advertising: someone picking one up has a pretty good idea, in broad terms, of what kind of book they'd get.
Cindy Pon, in the audience, discussed the repackaging of her book: Silver Phoenix originally had a very colorful cover of the main character in a pink outfit against a blue background with a glowing stone around her neck. The book was repackaged (I missed part of this, but I think partly to indicate that it's appealing to an older audience?) as something closer to a "body part" cover: a girl visible from nose to throat, with the emphasis on the glowing stone, much darker and less vividly colorful. Her understanding was that the general buying audience seems to be using the urban fantasy-esque cover to seek out a certain kind of book (particularly a book aimed a certain maturity level?), and that it's therefore effective as advertisement for the book.
An audience member noted that a lot of the close-up face books are similar to art that was on DeviantArt five+ years ago, and that, accordingly, it does match her idea of a 'cool' image. Perhaps for a certain audience/age group, it really is hitting a particular target.
Another audience member noted that Laurel K Hamilton books are technically "body part books," but rather than being part of a face or a throat or a badass woman's torso, they're very sensual, displaying the curves of the (again, generally female) body: hip, waist, etc.
A librarian noted that Charlaine Harris’ books have changed covers dramatically: they used to have almost cartoony covers, like chick-lit or cozy mystery used to have VERY different covers, more chick-lit cozy-mystery. Post-True Blood they have more urban fantasy-like "body part" covers. Having not read the books, she asked which covers were more appropriate, and the general impression was that the earlier, chick-lit/cozy mystery covers fit the books better (although perhaps do not advertise them as well).
We looked at Holly Black’s Tithe and Aprilynne Pike’s Wings, which have very similar covers despite a different color palette. An audience member noted that, despite the similarities, Wings has a curly pink title and Tithe a scratchy, edgy title—a difference which matches a difference in the books.
Then we looked at the very iconic Twilight cover (a pair of hands holding a red apple against a black background) and compared with other covers of people holding objects in both hands: Toads and Diamonds: a flower, Jane Eyre: a rose, The Thief: a stone, Let It Snow: a gift. We discussed the role of imitation in covers, and talked about whether the books were mimicking Twilight's (very successful) cover or simply going back to the same powerful iconography (hands displaying or offering something) that Twilight used.
In the same vein, we looked at the new repackaging of Pride & Prejudice, Romeo & Juliet, Wuthering Heights; all of these have covers reminiscent of the Twilight series, featuring bright flowers (usually red or white) against a black background. The cover to "Wuthering Heights," in fact, has an inset declaring it to be Bella and Edward's favorite books. These books lead to a lot of spirited debate, and were very contentious. A number of people in the audience hated the covers, felt that they misrepresented the books, and felt that—in giving young women the impression that Pride & Prejudice, Romeo & Juliet, and Wuthering Heights would be like Twilight—were setting the girls up to hate books they'd otherwise like because they resented it for not being what they expected. On the other hand, some people liked the covers (which were very striking) from a purely aesthetic point of view, and others thought that it might very well bring some people to read the books who otherwise wouldn't, and those people might very well wind up loving them. We discussed the question of whether "this might be like Twilight" is a fair or valid entry point into the classics. We also discussed how much the dislike of the covers was due to a "ew, I don't want Edward on my Wuthering Heights!" response, and whether the covers were more likely to get an "ick, get the peanut butter out of my chocolate" response or a "yay, peanut butter and chocolate" response, and why, and from who.
We went on from there to other discussions of repackaging: Sorcery and Cecelia (IIRC, originally packaged for adults) originally had a colorful, illustrated 80s fantasy cover, and now has a more subdued blue-tone YA cover. Tamora Pierce's "Squire" was originally(?) published with a colorful, illustrated cover of a girl and her injured gryphon, repackaged as a girl/woman's torso in armor in subdued shades of green. Opinions were divided: some people preferred the more colorful cover and thought it reflected the book better (specifically, several people parsed the girl-in-armor cover as historical fiction or nonfiction), whereas others thought that the illustrated cover looked more young than the book was (ie, they thought it marked the book as middle grade) and preferred the more subdued armor cover as appearing more properly YA (and therefore more potentially appealing to her). One librarian corroborated this by noting that, at her library, the version with the illustrated cover is shelved in juveniles, while the armor cover is shelved in YA. We also briefly digressed into the newness of the trend: in the 80s and to some extent the 90s, colorful illustrated covers (like the Mercedes Lackey covers or the Whelan Dragonriders of Pern books) were present in the adult section, and therefore had fewer associations of youth; now adult and YA books tend to be more subdued, so colorful illustrated covers connote childishness. (In a similar vein, "Trickster's Choice," marketed as YA in the US, has a cover in sepia with half of the main character's face, and is marketed as YA; in the UK it has an illustrated cover with a girl and a bird, and is marketed as middle grade.)
Malinda Lo's “Ash” also had a difference between the US and UK covers: the US cover features a girl in white curled up against a black background, and the US cover is, again, illustrated, with a girl wandering through the forest. There was a very varied response to them: some people thought that the US cover was more striking, but others felt that it looked like litfic or historical fiction; some people found the UK cover beautiful while others thought it made the book look younger than it was. Malinda Lo, in the audience, noted that the girl-on-black-background was aimed as a literary-crossover YA cover, whereas the girl-walking-through-forest was indeed aimed at a younger fantasy audience.
Two more repackagings: the Harry Potter repackaging: again, illustrated for a younger audience, stylized/photographic for an older audience. The latter is sometimes referred to as the "read on the subway" version. Similarly, lots of disagreement about the new Pamela Dean "Tam Lin" cover: it features a girl on a horse against a misty background (reminiscent of the ballad Tam Lin), whereas the book "Tam Lin" takes place in an American college, and doesn't so much feature wandering around on misty hillsides with a horse. This is sort of at the heart of the debate: is it okay that the book has a cover that's not representative if the cover works to sell the book? And if it sells the book, does it succeed in intriguing the reader, or does it just put them off when they realize that it's not indicative of the content?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-14 02:19 am (UTC)