Covers

Interesting post today – several foreign editions of books – Dutch versions of A Sicilian Husband and The Duke’s Secret Wife. And a Korean edition of The Twelve Month Mistress. The covers are interesting – A Sicilian Husband reproduces the USA cover, The Dukes Secret Wife is in a ‘duet’ with Carole Mortimer and has an idyllic countryside view on the front. And the Korean editions are deep pink, with a fuchsia edge to the spine – no picture, just stylised flowers all over it.




Which sent me back to look at the covers this book has had before –

Here’s the UK version -






And here’s the American one – this one tends to be the image that appears on most of the foreign editions. It’s on the Japanese edition, for example.






The photographic covers seem to divide opinion – some love them, some hate them. But I understand that a lot of the artwork for the USA covers is gong to be used over again on the UK covers Anne McAllister has had the same cover on two very different books. Lessons from a Latin Lover USA and The Antonides Marriage Deal UK . It’s a lovely cover – and it looks wonderful on the UK edition – but it’s the same cover and they’re not the same book.

I remember going to a HMB author day where one author was particularly concerned about the covers – why did we have to have ‘clinch’ covers? she asked. Why couldn’t we just have flowers or some such image? Something nice. Tasteful.

And I know there are some readers who prefer not to be seen sitting on a bus, or the tube, reading a book with a ‘hot’ cover in public.

So here I have a cover with just flowers and, believe me, compared to some of the Korean covers I’ve had, this an elegant, attractive one – but to me it’s just that bit too bland – it’s not saying anything about the book – in fact it’s not saying anything at all. Of course, I don’t read Korean – so the title means nothing to me. I can only hope that the author’s name is enough to make the readers want to pick this book of the shelf and see what inside it. I’m not sure if all the Korean books this month look like this – or if it’s a special cover that’s been assigned to the 3 books in The Alcolar Family trilogy – of which The Twelve-Month Mistress is the first part. I’ll wait and see if the others turn up and find out.

But it does make me wonder – once again – about covers and how much of a part they play in selling the book I’ve written. My editor tells me that the cover for my next UK book – At The Sheikh’s Command – is fabulous – gorgeous – and I can’t wait to see it. But I think it has been used before, in America, for some other book – and so I’m assuming that this is only the UK edition and not the artwork that will be on Harlequin Presents edition. So even if love it – it probably won’t appear anywhere else. Which means I'll still be wonderign what will be on the American cover.

It’s all about personal preferences I know but I was wondering – what’s your preference?