Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I do not disagree with you. But as has been seen on the forum before now, I am not an entirely reasonable person (not sure I've met anyone who is). I want to like the cover too! (I don't mean that in the sense of "it's pretty", but in the sense that I think it looks good and suits the book.) It's not that the two (clickbait and like) are mutually exclusive, but it does mean a level of difficulty beyond simple clickbait.
|
I don't disagree with you, but putting ugly, repellent people on the cover is IMHO not the way to go about it. I mean...let's be realistic. Approximately 1% of the population--at most--is actually beautiful. I don't mean pretty or attractive, etc., I mean, inarguably beautiful. That symmetry, etc., that creates that sort of "stops traffic" beauty (Charlize Theron, Liz Taylor...that level of stunning physical perfection). So, covers don't need to have that sort of beauty on them (although cover designers and deluded authors insist on trying to foist "perfect" people on us for romances. I'd have thought that the average romance reader would find it more satisfying if the average girl gets the Billionaire, but, then, whadda I know?
However, there's a large-enough swath of "attractive" people. Attractive people routinely out-earn unattractive or plain people, by 15% or so. Teachers call on cute kids. It's just
The Way It Is. Any idiot can google the realities of how being attractive gives people an advantage in life, right? So...you're
deliberately turning your back on that advantage, for your cover,
why?
So why the hell, with all kinds of scientifically-proven biases, toward attractive people, do you want to put repellent people on your cover?
Seriously, Gregg--I'm not interested in what so-and-so told you, or some family member said about how they "liked" this cover. What is going through your head, to put these people on the cover? What's your thought process, given that you can EASILY find attractive replacements? I know it's not because they look like your existing characters; you expressly said at the KDP that you'd described the characters, in the book, to look like these models (or whatever they are). You're obviously very invested in these two, but...why? Why in hell are you? I am seriously boggled by this.
Don't know why I care, but I guess it's because it's so bizarre.
Lastly:
of course there are cover tropes. Just like anything else--people want an instant visual cue so that they know that the cover they're looking at is in the genre that they want. It's not merely a trope;
it's an important visual cue, for the buyer. One of the first things a cover designer learns is to
use that trope to their advantage--not to disregard it.
Man, it's like you are deliberately trying to swim uphill, isn't it?
Hitch