You can judge a book by its cover

At least according to this article about cover design artists.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/book-by-its-cover-1.6636776

He makes the totally unfound assumption that the cover artist and the rest of the team have actually read the book.

>2 MarthaJeanne: It irritates me when you can tell the cover artist has not read the book. I can't think of a specific example right now, but, I don't know, showing a blonde woman when the character is over & over again said to be a brunette, something like that. I just read a book that had a collage on the front & I was charmed to see the tiny details all related to the text: a fish (the protagonist gifted to someone), a key (she had to someone's house), an airplane (that was a party theme). I really appreciate that.

>3 susanbooks: Like here: https://www.librarything.com/work/18118511/details/217194739 (see the last paragraph of the review). It is annoying...

Argh! Exactly! How hard is it to make the cover match the text? It's the visual equivalent of poor proof-reading.

>5 susanbooks: That one was built from stock images and either they could not find one that matches better or more likely they found this one to be more visually appealing than getting one which actually matches the text. Still annoying. At least it was a bicycle and not a horse or a car I guess... :)

>5 susanbooks: Because sometimes the book isn't done when the cover artist is given the commission, or the publisher decides at the last minute that the cover is not what they want (often because one of the major retailers says they won't stock the book in-store because they don't like the cover) so they scramble for a new one. It's a complicated issue.

It's not that complicated. My partner is a book editor at a major publisher. I know how it works. It's just shoddy & shows a complete lack of respect for the text. Publishers are business people rather than book people & covers of books often demonstrate this.

>3 susanbooks: showing a blonde woman when the character is over & over again said to be a brunette



The main character is described as a dark-haired Greek.

and there's this cover of The Bell Jar

https://www.amazon.in/Bell-Jar-50th-Anniversary/dp/0571268862

And, yes, the book is about enforced femininity, but the cover looks more like chick lit.

>10 susanbooks: Is this the one you mean?

Several years ago at a conference I attended, Mary Downing Hahn told a story about a proposed cover for one of her novels. The setting was a farm, with the main character's father a farmer. The proposed cover showed the father leaving the house headed for a tractor . . . while he was wearing a three-piece suit.

Fortunately the author had cover approval in her contract and nixed it.

A woman I know is an author. When her first book was published she got a copy of the proposed cover and the two little girls were brunettes. There is much made in the book about the sisters being one blonde and one redhead. She complained. The publisher said they thought this stock image was perfect. She replied, "But X is a redhead and that's important in the plot!" They said it was the best cover they could come up with (showed two little girls holding hands and running). She answered, "Well, I'm just in Milwaukee, not in New York and I don't know about cover art, but here we have a thing called PhotoShop where you can change the image ...." She got the cover image she wanted / needed.

>13 BookConcierge: Brava for your friend! And for yours, >12 Hope_H:

>11 2wonderY: that's exactly the one! Just what you think of when you think of Plath, right?

>9 aspirit:

So is that a major novel, or is Kedros a major?

The minor Ariane Kedros novels feature her exploits at the Army dispensary, acquiring tanktops and hair dye.

>16 MrAndrew: haha. I kind of want to see that.

>15 AndreasJ: Her rank is Major.

>18 aspirit:

Thanks.

I have heard of cases where an author has been presented with the cover art, and told to write the story. The case I'm thinking of is science fiction, and I think written a long time ago for a magazine. I can see the cover, but not the title or author.

>20 MarthaJeanne: Perhaps this: https://www.blackgate.com/2016/04/08/a-tale-of-two-covers-ellen-kushner-on-basil...

>20 MarthaJeanne:

Lord Dunsany’s works were regularly illustrated by Sidney Sime, but for The Book of Wonder, Sime made the illustrations first, and Dunsany wrote the stories based on them.

While we are at it, the short story "Not by its cover" by Philip K. Dick is quite funny.

Drat! Now I want to read the story again, and I can't find it. It would have been written at the latest in the early 70s. It took place on a water world - W something, at least three syllables. It had a good female main character, which rather limits the possible authors, as many of the male authors of that era didn't manage to create female characters well. Whale-like animals were being 'milked' of a potent medical liquid. I hope my husband will know what I mean when he gets home.

>23 bnielsen: Not by its cover

When I worked for a company that published roleplaying games and fantasy novels (in translation) -- Drakar & Demoner -- I had access to a library of covers from an agency, but rarely to the rights for the covers of the original, so part of my job was to go through the binders with slides and find an image that at least matched the contents of the novel approximately, that we could use for the translation.

Ha!

>27 Kuiperdolin: Wow, I'm impressed. Works on multiple levels. ;)

Hint: The author name is wrong

>30 bnielsen: Good one!