Genre Cover of the Month - Vote Feb '07, Noms open Mar '07

Filed by: Darren on March 1, 2007 at 8:37
Filed In: Art, Books, Marketing, Publishing

Okay then, here we go with the first selection of nominated covers for the inaugural Genre Files Genre Cover of the Month accolade...

A quick note before we start: Nominations are now open for the March '07 Genre Cover of the Month, so please do head on over to the GCoTM page of the site for details of how to nominate your favourite covers during the coming month.

The Nominees

This month I've selected six book covers for the shortlist, based on the nominations sent in by various people (many thanks to everyone who participated) plus one that I've included myself.

[Clicking on a cover will take you to the relevant Amazon info page, where you'll be able to see a slightly larger cover image...]

The Voting

Please remember, I'm asking you to vote for the strongest book cover, not the best book itself.

It doesn't matter whether you've read the book or not, or whether you liked it or not if you have. What I'm interested in is, in your opinion, which of the six covers is the most effective. Not necessarily the most eye-catching or the most aesthetically pleasing, although both of these factors are important.

In essence though, I'd like to know which of the six covers above would be most likely to persuade you to pick up the book in a bookstore, or to click on a link online, and either buy the book there and then, or at least want to find out more.

In short: which book cover does the job of selling that book the best?

Please use the Feb '07 Poll to register your vote, or send me an email instead and I'll register the vote on your behalf.

If you'd like to discuss the covers, or add a comment as to why you registered your vote for a particular title, then please do feel free to use the comments for this post.

The Winner...

Will be announced when voting closes on March 31st. I'll email the author, publisher, artist / designer to let them know, and ask for any comment they might have on the design of the cover, then post whatever responses I'm able to elicit.

Unnecessary Footnote

Please, don't bother voting dozens of times for your favourite cover. Ballot-stuffing isn't big, or clever, and it's not like we're deciding the fate of the world here or anything, y'know..?

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12 Responses to 'Genre Cover of the Month - Vote Feb '07, Noms open Mar '07'

Ed on March 1st, 2007 11:42 pm

The chances of me having read any of the nominated titles each month are usually zero so my vote will always be based purely on the artwork.
However, the artists might take offence. Surely they would be interested to know how well the reader thought their artwork fitted the book?
Often they go a general feel of the overall content but quite a few seem to pick up on a particular event from within the narrative.
Ariel on March 2nd, 2007 7:19 am

Good point Ed, and something I'm hoping to address in one of my (still forthcoming) articles on the subject.

But from a publishing perspective I think it tends to be the other way around. The publisher has to assume that at initial point of contact and place of sale, the reader won't have read the book, so will have no way of knowing whether the cover art accurately reflects any aspects of the contents. So the cover has to be strong enough to attract potential readers with very little prior knowledge of the book.

Maybe that's open to interpretation and / or correction, but that was pretty much my usual assumption, as a bookseller at least...
gabe chouinard on March 3rd, 2007 4:14 am

I had to toss and turn over which to nominate.

For pure coolness, I would have voted immediately for Already Dead. I love the stark, graphic nature of it, reminiscent (deliberately, I'm sure) of Frank Miller's SIN CITY work, and I dig the typography. However, I didn't nominate it because it's too scattershot in its placement of elements, and there's no flow to it. Had the red figure been placed farther to the right, it would have won.

Likewise, I came close to voting for the Mythago Wood cover. It's certainly evocative, and there's a perfect juxtaposition between cover art and title; one looks at the title, sees the art, and has an idea of what the book will be about. But it didn't win because it isn't a STRONG cover. The title doesn't stand out; instead, the eyes are drawn to the foregrounding of the author's name, which may be a draw for those in the know, but for the uninitiated? Also, while I get the point of the thorns (and no, that was not a deliberate pun!), I don't think it was handled very effectively here. The random shoot off the "g"? Wrong.

Which brings me to my vote: Black Juice. Simple. A diagonal flow. Plenty of negative space. The mysterious figure, which produces a feeling of "what's that all about?". Good font choice. Overall, the best designed/illustrated cover, lacking cliche and good enough to make me think about picking the book up.
Yatterings » Genre Covers of the Month - on March 4th, 2007 8:17 am

[...] Just saw this posting for voting on the genre cover of the month a on Ariel's blog, Genrephiles . So go on vote… [...]
Iain on March 4th, 2007 8:37 am

I don't think that's unfair at all Ariel. Each book/author will have its fans but the jacket needs to shout across the bookshop. Its the thing that I noticed as a bookseller. I think thats one of the reasons why the Arabesk covers (the original ones) were so strong. However you then get a cover like MJ Harrison's Nova Swing which is equally as interesting as a riot of colour. Just my £0.02
Links Are Not A Violent Subject « Torque Control on March 4th, 2007 10:44 am

[...] Vote for the genre cover of the month [...]
Ariel on March 5th, 2007 9:16 am

Thank you all for the comments so far, v. much appreciated. Great to have a graphic designer's eye for the detail from Gabe, and a fellow bookseller's perspective from Iain as well.

And interesting to see from the early voting (only 15 in so far, so it's early days yet) that nobody has yet gone for the 'classic' city-scape fantasy art of the French edition of Lies of Locke Lamora, seeming to prefer the more modern abstract covers...
Niall on March 9th, 2007 12:31 am

"Likewise, I came close to voting for the Mythago Wood cover. It's certainly evocative, and there's a perfect juxtaposition between cover art and title; one looks at the title, sees the art, and has an idea of what the book will be about. But it didn't win because it isn't a STRONG cover. The title doesn't stand out"

It's only today that I saw an actual physical copy of this edition of Mythago Wood. Trust me: the cover is *stunning*. The silhouetted tree is black gloss, and the lettering on the title is bronze, not orange/brown as it appears in the picture -- it stands out fine. So it gets my vote.
Ariel on March 9th, 2007 7:01 am

Hi Niall - Ah, yes, a very good point indeed. It's sometimes difficult, working off either whatever dodgy scan Amazon has made available, or my own in-house replication efforts, to convey the full physicality of a book, to get across the full impact of its object-value.

Covers with metallic and/or embossed sections are particularly prone to this as the scanned cover never looks as good as it does in real life.

Perhaps I might have to experiment with photography, or some form of more detailed description, in future months...
brian ruckley on March 9th, 2007 10:15 am

Wow - can't help but notice a late swing in the voting there. Does Scott Lynch have a secret cabal of French fans prowling the web in packs or something? (Lucky man, if so!)
Ariel on March 9th, 2007 10:27 am

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself... unfortunately the poll applet I'm using isn't designed or built to be sophisticated enough to detect or prevent ballot-stuffing, so the whole exercise is rather dependent on everyone's sense of fair-play and sensibility.

Which means that if someone did - purely for argument's sake - decide to stuff the ballot with about 30 votes on Wednesday (I'm not saying that happened, but that's how many votes the cover got that day) and thereby rather render the exercise somewhat less than meaningful, then at the moment there's no way to tell.

Of course, they could all be entirely genuine votes as well. Again, no way to tell... hmmm.

If it looks like this could be a useful exercise to move forward with then I reckon I'll have to get a better poll thingy sorted out, sharpish.

If anyone knows of one, please do let me know...
Ariel on March 9th, 2007 3:36 pm

Update: Well, I've received an email communique explaining the mystery of the vote-surge, and I'm satisfied that it wasn't a case of ballot-stuffing by any one individual (Brian, your guess actually wasn't far off the mark...) so I won't be taking any action to alter the voting at this stage.

Might be time for anyone who feels that any of the other five covers are stronger than the Bragelonne Lynch to spread the word and get a few more people voting...