Why are the American romance covers so cheesy

jaime · Joined: 23 Sep 2011 Posts: 356

and old-fashioned in comparison to the UK and French covers?

Example:

American cover of Karina Bliss title -( very good romance by the way)

British cover:

The British covers are much more stylish and modern looking. It's the same with historical romance - check out the French covers for some of the authors. Like Joanna Bourne's for example.

Anyways, going by the American covers one would assume that American romance readers are all backwards virgins or grandmas still living in 1950.

JaneO · Joined: 17 Feb 2008 Posts: 754

Why do we get the lousy covers? The ones that are irrelevant to the story and set in the wrong period? The ones where the models bear no resemblance to the characters in the book?

Beats me.

jaime · Joined: 23 Sep 2011 Posts: 356

And Mills&Boon = Harlequin, the same publisher, yes? So, they give the cool covers to folks in Europe, while the American readership gets the cheesetastic covers.

Something does not compute. Rolling Eyes

stl_reader · Joined: 03 Aug 2011 Posts: 155 Location: Missouri

Yes, the American one does look cheesy. But I'm not too thrilled with the U.K. one either. Both of them are the types of covers that really put me off contemporary romances...

Natalie · Joined: 25 Mar 2007 Posts: 1566

Reading ebooks has cured me from caring about covers Laughing

xina · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 6627 Location: minneapolis

It's like the Before and After looks of the librarian! Makeover! (Stacie and Clinton are hiding in the background)
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Manda · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 519

Sounds like I'm in the minority here, but I prefer the American cover of WTLD. I like the bookshelves in the background and I like the tattooed hero. And the heroine is wearing vintage clothes, just like the character in the book. The British cover is...dull.

That isn't to say that I don't sometimes prefer the British covers. The publisher who does Eloisa James and Julia Quinn's books in England makes some gorgeous ones.
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Linda in sw va · Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 4707

KataO · Joined: 18 Mar 2011 Posts: 67 Location: Finland

goldberry · Joined: 26 Dec 2011 Posts: 30

I prefer the American cover for the relevance to the title in both the background (library) and the tag line (she's got a secret that's long overdue).

jaime · Joined: 23 Sep 2011 Posts: 356

It's true that the American cover is more accurate plotwise - the British cover has nothing to do with what happens in the story. However, I still prefer the UK cover because of the design. The American cover offends my artistic sensibilities - such as they are, hee.

Cora · Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 1088 Location: Bremen, Germany

The UK edition is a 2-in-1, i.e. two category romances collected in a single volume. Mills & Boon does a few of those 2-in-1s. So the UK cover could just as well refer to the other novel included in the collection, LA Cinderella by Amanda Berry.

In general I prefer Mills & Boon's UK covers to Harlequin's North American covers, because the Mills & Boon covers usually look classier. Doesn't mean they're necessary more accurate and the US cover of What the Librarian Did does illustrate the story, even if it is somewhat cliched.
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CharlotteJ · Joined: 30 Jul 2010 Posts: 75

I confess I miss those Harlequin covers from the 70s and 80s Smile

I don't know why, but I find that the more realistic the covers became, the less impressed I was with them.

I think at one point, Harlequin did covers with 'real' people and I disliked those a lot.

I wonder why Harlequin doesn't go the route of the mainstream publishers because I notice that big name authors like Nora Roberts and Karen Robards don't have people on the covers. It's usually just some kind of abstract background or at the most, it's just the body they show.

I like those types of covers better.

Minerva · Joined: 05 Jul 2007 Posts: 126

I was looking at covers on the Mills&Boon site, and I agree that they get much better covers. I don't love all of them, but I like the majority. They are so much better than the Presents covers. I really like the covers for the Modern line. The Riva line is a little cheesy.

Mills and Boon is doing a special on some Spice Briefs stories. They have changed the covers from the Harlequin covers. All their covers are reminiscent of 50 Shades of Grey. I wonder if this is going to be the new trend in covers for erotic books.

(I don't know how to add pictures, so I'm adding the link)

http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/books/12-Shades-of-Surrender.htm

JyLnC · Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 4:08 pm Post subject:

In this case, I prefer the American version, too. Everyone has different tastes but Harlequin will use cover styles that have proven successful based on their sales figures. It's all about the bottom line.

Here is one of my favorite US Series Covers from our 2009 Cover Cafe contest. I love it!

2009 - 4th Place

Entangled Publishing has launched several digital Series imprints this year. They have a more minimalist design and we'll have to see how they fare in the 2012 cover contest.

Linnae aka JyLnC
Cover Cafe Committee Chair
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