Can you tell I’m a little OCD? Well, I spent the spare moments of my day surveying the world of historical romance fiction in order to try and construct my last argument for why romance authors should consider breaking out of the ‘typical’ romance cover mold.
I think a huge hurdle with trying to persuade them is that authors don’t see what consumers see. Once they’ve got a cover, they associate it with the contents. They know the book is unique because they’ve bloody read the thing. But a consumer has not.
And to consumers, let me show you what they see. I have identified four distinct cover types:
and finally, and most puzzling of all, to me
The point I’d like to make in all of this is – these are what the shelves look like, ladies. Do you want to conform, or do you want to stand out?
Some notable exceptions were Georgette Heyer, whose covers are always either paintings of the period, or very skilled reproductions
Here are a number of best selling exceptions
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