Warning: this is a purely self-indulgent raving rant about pet peeves I have that have everything to do with book/cover design and editing but probably gets overlooked because the e-book romantica genre is deemed fluff.
I enjoy reading well-written romance novels. I especially enjoy historical and fantasy romances. I’m sure there are many reasons for this, none of which need be dealt with here, but there you have it: I enjoy reading soft smut.
What I don’t enjoy is cheesy cover art and inept editing or a serious lack of interior design.
Poser people are cheesy! None of them look real and most aren’t even decent renders. No, I don’t do Poser renders but I’ve got eyes and I can tell you when something looks awful or not. Poser people look like poorly made Barbie clones in various stages of undress or erotic poses.
This isn’t about one publisher either. This is across the board practice by all publishers of e-books that contain adult material. Just because it’s smutty doesn’t mean you shouldn’t present it beautifully, does it?
And let’s not rack it up to cost effectiveness because e-books are very closely aligned in pricing to paperbacks you can buy off the shelf. E-books are averaging $5 – $8 and off the shelf is running $6.99 – $8.99 currently. So, it doesn’t strike me that mediocre e-books, which have to either be read on a monitor of some sort or printed out are any particular cost savings for the consumer. It seems to me, as well, that the cost of producing an e-book is substantially less than it is to produce the off the shelf book, so why all the cheesy art and design?
Okay, I know the reason why. E-books don’t sell as well as off the shelf books because buyers aren’t able to pick them up, absorb the weight, feel, smell, and appearance of the book as a whole. As a long time book buyer I can assure you that part of buying a novel for myself is how the book impacts on my senses as well as the overview provided either on the back cover or first inside page. First, however, the cover has to get my attention and that will take more than a poorly rendered hunk or vacant-eyed, plastic handed beauty coughed up by Poser.
Now, before everyone thinks I have this thing against the program, Poser, let me state unequivocally that I have seen amazing Poser People who were rendered and then post-processed by artists. These are creative persons who can use Poser to get the basics in place and then use a program such as Photoshop or Painter to take away that poser stamp of artificiality. They use Photoshop or Painter to bring their characters to life. Those are not the artists I’m ranting about!
Interior design and editing fare no better either. Contrary to popular belief, book design is not the same as desktop publishing. Books are not bookmarkers or door hangers or even brochures. Word can come very close to being a good interior design application in the hands of an Expert but it’s obvious that most of the e-books being done aren’t being done by Word Experts. No attention to leading, spacing, margins, front matter, back matter, indexing, chapter headings, and the list goes on.
Most e-books aren’t even as long as their traditional off the shelf counterparts so I don’t see any reason/rationale for being so stingy in these services.
Appearances do matter. It sounds good to say that the cover isn’t as important as the content but the brutal truth is … it most certainly IS as important .. initially it may be even more important. If I can’t get past the cheesy cover to your content you’ve lost the sale. If, once I get to the content I am put off by the ho-hum layout design or I encounter sloppy or absent editing/proofreading, you lost the sale.
Only one publisher seems to be on the path to above average publishing of this nature: Ellora’s Cave. The covers are getting better, and even here at this premier publisher, you can see evidence of poorly done covers, such as this one.
End of rant.
