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I try not to judge books by their covers too much but I also do appreciate some genre-specific approaches that tell me instantly if the book is a genre I might like or not - like the above-mentioned half-naked male torsos, which I appreciate in the sense that I know I’m not the target group. (I don’t mind some romance in my books and I don’t judge people who like bodice-rippers or smutty romances or books where romance is the focus and the point of the story; I’ve read my share of M-rated shippy fanfic in my time, but romance-focused stories of that sort only have the possibility to appeal to me if I already feel invested in the characters.)
One big exception is the sort of covers Baen goes for - as I read a fair bit of SF & adventure, I always feel like some of their authors might be to my taste but then I see their covers and I’m just instantly put off. There’s something about their house style that is the very opposite of appealing to me. Maybe because I’m a woman, or because I obviously didn’t grow up with the 1950s sort of pulp fiction, so there’s no nostalgy factor, but it’s just .. repulsive, heh.
As for AI covers … I can’t necessarily tell immediately if a cover is made with the help of AI or not, unless there’s some obvious indicator like extra fingers or arms growing out of a torso etc, but I do in general dislike the idea of that (using AI instead of hiring a cover artist, no matter how formulaic the house style) happening at least for mainstream traditional publishers.
With self-published authors, especially those new to the scene, I understand that hiring a cover artist is an extra expense out of pocket that they may not even recoup, and with good prompts and thoroughly checking the result, AI can generate decent-looking images at this point after all. I still don’t like it but .. again, if it’s done well, I don’t usually spend time analysing book covers in detail and will likely not notice.
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