Comments on: Book Covers: Poll results – your preference

By: Glenda Larke

Glenda Larke — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:51:20 +0000

Thanks for the interesting comments, everyone! I guess in the end, it's all about individual choice, and the publisher has to go for what they think has the widest appeal.

The irony of that is that once again it boils down to a couple of people making a decision about that they think has the widest appeal!!

By: Melissa (My World...in words and pages)

Melissa (My World...in words and pages) — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:35:39 +0000

Those are the ones I picked. 🙂 They are all great covers though, I do have to say. Always interesting to see how a cover influences the eye to pick up a book.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Tue, 25 May 2010 08:01:40 +0000

I haven't read the book but I did like the Australian cover(I suppose Voyager know their audience). The first German cover I also liked both for its good use of red-just enough to stand out from the background, but not too bright-and the idividually styled font really attracted me.

The French cover was too yellow, and the second German cover made me think of 70s pulps-it might be retro and then again it may have just been on the shelves for a really long time. The US cover, well, pastels, pink and prominant uncovered thigh-yuck! How do US fantasy covers always manage to be so awful? The Russian cover I found to be just too busy-don't forget the KISS principle!

By: Jo

Jo — Tue, 25 May 2010 07:15:44 +0000

That's very true, if that is the only cover you ever saw other than online, it does give you a bias towards it. It appears that Australian covers seem to reflect the essence of a story more than anywhere else. I cannot imagine anyone who fights with a sword running around half naked, no protection from your adversary.

By: thirdmonkey

thirdmonkey — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:29:01 +0000

Another aspect of the voting – I did pick it up initially because of the cover (I bought it for other reasons). But I only had one to choose from when I was buying it, and I have no idea whether I was looking at other books at the time. So I'm already familiar with the cover, so I'm biased to vote for it.

By: Satima Flavell

Satima Flavell — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:25:16 +0000

Ilove that Aussie cover, yet normally I don't go for covers that don't at least attept to depict a character. Nevertheless, this one really grabs me. The porthole effect is very clever.

One reservation about the depiction of characters: there's nothing worse than seeing a blue-eyed blonde in what's supposed to be battle dress but which actually leaves her almost completely exposed. It puts me off a book, yet so often the description of the character and her accoutrements within the book are quite different from the cover!