YABookgate

Fortunato Brown said:
Oh yeah I imagine for sure. Since there's only like twelve or so books on those tables, people may actually read the back of every book which is more time than they'd give most.

There was a book I was interested in that released from a smaller publisher and Barnes and Noble just slid it in the ordinary shelves where old releases go. I was thinking how nobody would ever find that book and now it's already got it's sales strangled in the cradle.

Oh also, do the authors have any control over the cover art of books? I'm frequently baffled by them. So many look so samey and generic and probably actively repel sales.
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No, authors do not get a say in cover art and will often not think it's very good. It's entirely at the whim of the publisher and they're often going to go with the cheapest option available. I'd say good cover art draws sales, too. Personally, I picked up aforementioned Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth based purely on the cover art and while I didn't like the book much it was still a sale.
 
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JJLiautaud said:
What im talking about is having your own table/display like my B&N has a special booktok shelf and i bet you $100 that help drives sales
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You'd be surprised - good placement at the bookstore helps, of course, but only so much. The difference between a good eye level front facing book in the genre section and a stack on a table might not be as big as you think.

Fortunato Brown said:
Oh yeah I imagine for sure. Since there's only like twelve or so books on those tables, people may actually read the back of every book which is more time than they'd give most.

There was a book I was interested in that released from a smaller publisher and Barnes and Noble just slid it in the ordinary shelves where old releases go. I was thinking how nobody would ever find that book and now it's already got it's sales strangled in the cradle.

Oh also, do the authors have any control over the cover art of books? I'm frequently baffled by them. So many look so samey and generic and probably actively repel sales.
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Regarding covers, depends on the author or the publisher, and of course, if the publisher hasn't gone whole hog on the "just have some graphic designer draw up something generic for $200".

Case in point: Look how they massacred my boy:
Screenshot_20220707-043940_Twitter.jpg

For those that do still do ACTUAL book covers, depends mostly on the status of the author - the bigger the author, the bigger the say they get. Tor can whine all they like, Brandon Sanderson will get his Michael Whelan cover art.

And Eric Flint aside, Baen usually does take some notes from authors regarding cover design, even smaller authors - you can tell because they actually share some of the earlier/unmodified covers. You can tell Baen's core readers are military scifi nuts because usually what gets adjusted is trigger discipline and weapon/vehicle/uniform details.
 
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Boston Brand said:
And Eric Flint aside, Baen usually does take some notes from authors regarding cover design, even smaller authors - you can tell because they actually share some of the earlier/unmodified covers. You can tell Baen's core readers are military scifi nuts because usually what gets adjusted is trigger discipline and weapon/vehicle/uniform details.
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Don’t forget the exploding spaceships. Gotta have 200% more explosions on the cover.
 
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Boston Brand said:
And Eric Flint aside, Baen usually does take some notes from authors regarding cover design, even smaller authors - you can tell because they actually share some of the earlier/unmodified covers. You can tell Baen's core readers are military scifi nuts because usually what gets adjusted is trigger discipline and weapon/vehicle/uniform details.
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That was from when Baen Covers were almost a punchline in """respectable""" sf circles back when Jim Baen was still with us, and Eric Flint had some fun with it he wrote a book where for completely justifiable story reasons a woman was fighting a dragon with a sword in lingerie just so he could get that on the cover; the artist went with a completely different scene altogether.
 
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As silly and over the top as first cover looks, it got my attention and I bought the book. (It was even more arresting on a full size trade paperback, when I saw it at a used bookstore.) I doubt I'd look twice at the new covers. Especially given that the author is a complete Putin butt boy. Or, maybe I just have weird taste, dunno.

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Boston Brand said:
I believe I said something to the effect of "Show me one page each from several of these fanfic tier cat ladies with bad dye jobs and ask me to tell them apart or you shoot me, and I'd be a dead man."

I stand by that statement. Muir and Maguire are both below average on a good day, and painfully bad on a bad one.

Why choke down a dog turd dipped in glitter and blue hair dye? There's good, primo stuff elsewhere on the shelf.

Hell, Timothy Zahn just launched a new series this week. The Icarus Plot, go grab a copy, and stop giving money for bad products made by people who hate you.
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Well the reason I got interested because I saw Muir has a cover blurb by Charles Stross and the Americana by Mcguire seems interesting; just wondering how good she portrays it.
 
Fromtheblackdepths said:
Well the reason I got interested because I saw Muir has a cover blurb by Charles Stross and the Americana by Mcguire seems interesting; just wondering how good she portrays it.
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Charles Stross is a cheap date when it comes to cover blurbs.

I can't let you sink money into bad authors. What are you interested in, I will find you some good ones.
 
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JJLiautaud said:
No they dont and authors frequently complain about this and i know one author (Eric Flint) who vetoed a cover that he found really bad and got it replaced with a "good" cover his sales were awful for that book so he threw up his hands and now doesnt even look at the things
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Boston Brand said:
Regarding covers, depends on the author or the publisher, and of course, if the publisher hasn't gone whole hog on the "just have some graphic designer draw up something generic for $200".

Case in point: Look how they massacred my boy:
View attachment 3465677
For those that do still do ACTUAL book covers, depends mostly on the status of the author - the bigger the author, the bigger the say they get. Tor can whine all they like, Brandon Sanderson will get his Michael Whelan cover art.

And Eric Flint aside, Baen usually does take some notes from authors regarding cover design, even smaller authors - you can tell because they actually share some of the earlier/unmodified covers. You can tell Baen's core readers are military scifi nuts because usually what gets adjusted is trigger discipline and weapon/vehicle/uniform details.
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All the more reason to do independent publishing and just commission your art friends to draw you a cover if you can't draw yourself. Thank God I'm an artist, because I'm sure as hell not letting some rando nobody draw for my books without my permission and without my final approval.
 
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Fromtheblackdepths said:
Kinda off-topic but do Tamsyn Muir and Seanan Mcguire actually write good books? They seem to cover interesting ideas.
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I enjoyed the two books Tamsyn has written so far. The first book, “Gideon the Ninth,” is definitely worse in the “Tumblr quirky” aspect; the second book, “Harrow the Ninth” has none of that because Gideon is dead. Muir actually started by writing Homestuck fanfiction, fun fact. The books can get confusing due to the sheer amount of characters you’re introduced to all at once, there’s about 18 in the first book, then to 25 or so. Honestly I didn’t find anything woke/SJW in them, the main characters are lesbians but it’s not the “ZOMG GAY NECROMANCERS” push the reviews like to say. I liked them, but YMMV.
 
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Boston Brand said:
You'd be surprised - good placement at the bookstore helps, of course, but only so much. The difference between a good eye level front facing book in the genre section and a stack on a table might not be as big as you think.



Regarding covers, depends on the author or the publisher, and of course, if the publisher hasn't gone whole hog on the "just have some graphic designer draw up something generic for $200".

Case in point: Look how they massacred my boy:
View attachment 3465677
For those that do still do ACTUAL book covers, depends mostly on the status of the author - the bigger the author, the bigger the say they get. Tor can whine all they like, Brandon Sanderson will get his Michael Whelan cover art.

And Eric Flint aside, Baen usually does take some notes from authors regarding cover design, even smaller authors - you can tell because they actually share some of the earlier/unmodified covers. You can tell Baen's core readers are military scifi nuts because usually what gets adjusted is trigger discipline and weapon/vehicle/uniform details.
Click to expand...
Regarding Hyperion cover, I always thought the Hyperion covers were terrible. There's gotta be a balance between a respectable looking cover but also grabbing attention.

If I ever publish a book, I may on my own commission some cover art and give it to the publisher and hope they take it. Anything to prevent one of those "dudes walking in the background" or "stock image of city or garden or empty country road" covers.
 
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Fortunato Brown said:
Regarding Hyperion cover, I always thought the Hyperion covers were terrible. There's gotta be a balance between a respectable looking cover but also grabbing attention.

If I ever publish a book, I may on my own commission some cover art and give it to the publisher and hope they take it. Anything to prevent one of those "dudes walking in the background" or "stock image of city or garden or empty country road" covers.
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It depends if you have a small kind of indie publisher, they’d probably go for it.

Original art - good if you own all the elements and have the rights. Commercial reproduction is stupidly expensive - check out the Shutterstock and Getty Images commercial repro price and that you need to have about 5 elements in a book, it’s pretty costly. Most pro cover artists re-use images or buy partial rights so you get this weird phenomenon of “five different books with the same snake element”
 
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Fromtheblackdepths said:
Kinda off-topic but do Tamsyn Muir and Seanan Mcguire actually write good books? They seem to cover interesting ideas.
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I read Mcguire's InCrytid urban fantasy series although I kinda lost touch with it before the COVID-19 lockdown festival. They had some good ideas, but eventually got bogged down by the formulaic "Sassy, feisty YAAASSS KWEEEN female protagonist SLAAAYYYY!" tropes.

Speaking of covers, I'm a romance reader, and it kills me inside to see the deevolution of the covers. Regardless what you'd think of the content, there used to be some artistry to the design. These days, though, it's just manipulation of stock images slapped together in a fug way.

The left is an example of a cover from 2018, the right is a book from the same author, same publisher (Avon) in 2020. The difference is staggering, not in a good way.

35068731.jpg 52621754._SX318_SY475_.png
 
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I'm an active SF/F reader and have done some freelance work in the industry before. Cover design by big publishers is 100% based on market research, which means they copy whatever is popular right now. Therefore, all covers look the same. The two main styles are:
1. Some sort of emblem, like the coat of arms of the kingdom the book takes place in.
2. The main character's face or half-body set against a nondescript background without details. The character is usually a cosplayer's photo, not a painting.

It's boring, it's generic, but it's "what the audience expects". All the books that sell have these covers, therefore these covers sell books. Typical circular logic of market research. If there are no alternative cover designs, then of course all the books that sell will use either of those two styles.

Personally, I find them bland and generic and they never manage to catch my eye. I miss the days when SF/F books had gorgeous hand-painted cover art that showed an actual scene from the book. 70s and 80s SF/F covers were amazing, and I hunt for those in second hand bookstores just because I want to have that beautiful cover displayed in my bookcase.

There's a pulp revival movement in the indie author scene, and publishers there go for more traditional artwork. Anything published by DMR books, for example, has great cover art.
Check out their cover of the Renegade Swords anthology:
renegadeswordscover.jpg


Good stuff. Makes you want to pick up the book and read its tales of riveting adventure right away.
 
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Vril-Dame vom Aldebaran said:
I'm an active SF/F reader and have done some freelance work in the industry before. Cover design by big publishers is 100% based on market research, which means they copy whatever is popular right now. Therefore, all covers look the same. The two main styles are:
1. Some sort of emblem, like the coat of arms of the kingdom the book takes place in.
2. The main character's face or half-body set against a nondescript background without details. The character is usually a cosplayer's photo, not a painting.

It's boring, it's generic, but it's "what the audience expects". All the books that sell have these covers, therefore these covers sell books. Typical circular logic of market research. If there are no alternative cover designs, then of course all the books that sell will use either of those two styles.

Personally, I find them bland and generic and they never manage to catch my eye. I miss the days when SF/F books had gorgeous hand-painted cover art that showed an actual scene from the book. 70s and 80s SF/F covers were amazing, and I hunt for those in second hand bookstores just because I want to have that beautiful cover displayed in my bookcase.

There's a pulp revival movement in the indie author scene, and publishers there go for more traditional artwork. Anything published by DMR books, for example, has great cover art.
Check out their cover of the Renegade Swords anthology:
View attachment 3471045

Good stuff. Makes you want to pick up the book and read its tales of riveting adventure right away.
Click to expand...
Wait, are those actually commissioned paintings or are they just reused from an artist?
 
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