Covers Galore (This One's for Steph)

So my good friend Steph recently began reading my blog. My wit and wisdom inspired her to go out and get her very first romance novel. I suggested Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, as a good one to start with. I warned her, as a newbie, that the cover was pretty bad.

Cover in question:



So she emails me that she chickened out because of the cover. The world of romance covers is a strange and varied one. I, for one, will take an English manor house over a shirtless clinch any day. But I have discovered in my reading, that a lot of people do like characters on the cover b/c it helps them to envision the hero and heroine. They often do the opposite for me, ruining my vision of them.

It seems that authors have little control over their covers. It's the luck of the draw. Which is a shame, because although I try to preach "don't judge a book by it's cover" when recommending books to kids, I too, will not read a book based upon its cover. So I thought I'd help Steph get past her distaste for clinchy covers by showing her how bad they can be. Luckily, some hardworking bloggers have already done the work of posting some true howlers. Have fun Steph, and make sure no one's looking over your shoulder. Without further ado, get ready to cry laughing, and want to wash your eyes out with bleach:

Smart Bitches Cover Snark--so much awful goodness.

Some dude named Longmire does romance novels--The titles are obviously changed, but it's hysterical, and actually shows a wide range of cover archetypes.

Bam is hilarious, and she definitely writes better back cover blurbs than the real ones. Interesting job, by the way. How does one become a novel blurb writer?

So it could always be worse. Perhaps invest in some of the book covers that my mom had, as if we didn't know what was under them. I may invest myself, as I can be a cover phobe. I've come a long way, but old prejudices still persist for me. Ah well.