After reviewing more than 130 recent book covers from adult historical
fiction works set in medieval times, I was able to come up with a list of
common characteristics of the best
book covers. Here is the list, shown as a set of seven recommendations:
(1) Make the image large enough
that it is clear at the small size potential readers will see when browsing at
online bookstores.
Images with small figures and lots of detail may work well for print
books. Some readers will enjoy examining the fine details on a print copy, but
electronic books are usually viewed first as small images at online bookstores
such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Readers might not want to click to see if
an image is interesting.
(2) Keep in mind that some
visual motifs are very frequently used.
When I see a book cover with a picture of the Sutton Hoo helmet, I can
rest assured that it is most likely set in Anglo-Saxon times and will include
scenes with shield walls in action. While it is useful to clearly mark what
kind of book it is, using very common motifs may make it difficult for the
reader to distinguish one book from another. My review suggests that images of helmets,
swords, axes, longships, silhouetted
horsemen, and hooded or cloaked figures are common enough to merit a close look
before using them in a cover. If you do choose to use such images, try to
present them in a fresh way that will stand out from the rest of the books
using similar artwork.
(3) Depict the time period
accurately.
Anachronism is anathema to writers of historical fiction. Many writers work
very hard to keep anachronisms out of the text, only to present a cover with
something that does not fit the time of the novel. This can be a particular
problem when stock images are used. Flagrant violations would be the use of
modern clothing styles, hair styles, or make-up on models. Less obvious
violations include the use of images that are old, but not from the correct
time period. The Middle Ages span many centuries and fashions did not remain
the same throughout that whole time. A knight from the 1300s would look out of
place in sixth-century Kent.
(4) Choose an art style that
provides an accurate clue to the genre and target audience.
Some artwork has a distinct look associated with a particular genre. If
you use the “wrong” style of art, your traditional historical fiction may be
confused with historical romance or fantasy and may thereby miss a segment of
the audience that is looking for historical fiction. Also, fantasy fans may be
disappointed if they buy a book expecting sword and sorcery and instead find a
traditional historical fiction novel.
(5) Place the cover text on its
own plain background or on a non-central portion of the image.
Many book covers place the front cover text within designated spaces
with a plain background. Some amount of writing on less critical portions of
the cover artwork is acceptable, but readers may be annoyed if the artwork is
so covered with words that they cannot see the details of the image.
(6) Choose attractive and
legible fonts and nicely balanced color schemes.
The fonts that look the best tend to be something different from what
we ordinarily see on business documents, yet still clear and legible. The font
should also be reasonable for the place and time period. You would not want to
use a font resembling runes on a novel set in the19th-century American west,
and it would also be best to avoid an Art Deco style font on a novel set in
ancient Rome. Color schemes should be visually pleasing. Sometimes it may be
necessary to use colors that are not traditionally beautiful, but there should
always be good contract between font colors and their background so that the
text is easy to read.
(7) Learn the proper ways to
edit and manipulate images and combine them with text, or engage a skilled
graphic artist to do it.
Covers might still work well with violations of one of the
recommendations in #1-6 above, but there is really no way to recover from poor
image editing and manipulation.
More of the best covers
My previous posting (Covers,
part 2) presented some of the best recent book covers in historical fiction
for adults. Those book covers generally comply very well with the recommendations
above; any violations are so small as to be barely noticeable. In this post, I
will not present the worst offenders. Bad covers are easy enough to find.
Instead, I will show covers that disregard one or more of the "rules" and yet are
still excellent covers. Thus, these seven recommendations should be regarded as
general guidelines for which there may be some flexibility.
Of the ten books with great covers listed in this post, I have only
read Hild as of right now. My review
for Hild is on this blog.
Some covers have relatively small figures in the images yet nonetheless
tantalize you to click and see what is there. The two covers below are examples
for which I was eager to click to a larger image to see what was happening in
the scene:
Sinful
Folk by Ned Hayes (2014)
Grundesburh
by C.P Burrage (2014)
Longships and silhouetted horses are examples of images very common on
historical fiction set in the Middle Ages. The following books have covers on
which these well-used motifs remain fresh:
Offa:
Rise of the Englisc Warrior by S. A. Swaffington (2013)
The
Last Runemaster by Maurice Price (2013)
Woad is capable of producing a variety of shades of blue, but the woman
on the cover of The Song of Heledd
has a bright blue dress in a shade that I do not believe would have been
achievable at the time of the novel. The novel also has about the upper limit
of an acceptable amount of writing on the figure. The cover remains good
because the overall look is believable as a seventh-century scene.
The
Song of Heledd by Judith Arnopp (2012)
The US edition of Hild has a
strikingly beautiful image of the main character on the cover, but she is
clothed in chainmail that would not have been known in seventh-century
Northumbria:
Hild
by Nicola Griffith (2013)
Despite the anachronism, the cover remains appealing due to the high
quality of the portrait created by Anna and Elena Balbusso. For some reason,
the publishers decided to print the UK cover with a similar background but
without the image of Hild. I’m not sure why they thought that UK readers would
prefer the background without the human figure – does anyone have any insight
into that?
Hild
by Nicola Griffith (2014) – UK edition
With such a young protagonist, the cover of Hild sometimes leads a potential reader into thinking that the book
is for young adults, but it is actually written for adults. This may not have
been much of an issue since the book appears to have been reviewed many times,
so potential readers may generally be aware of its target audience.
Many historical works in other genres have amazing covers. For example,
see the covers of the young adult work Mark
of The Mercians and the graphic novel Vinland
Saga 1:
Mark
Of The Mercians by Andy Winfield (2012)
Vinland
Saga 1 by Makoto Yukimura (2013)
It is possible to borrow a style of another genre and still create an
impressive cover for adult historical fiction. The cover of The Norseman has a fantasy vibe, but the
beautiful art by Michael Calandra nonetheless feels at home on this work of
historical fiction.
The
Norseman by Jason Born (2012)
I am not sure at this point how far you can go with using artwork that
appears to be targeted for a different audience. The manga style drawing shown
above on Vinland Saga 1 looks great,
but could you get away with using something like that for traditional
historical fiction for adults?
The yellow font on light green background does not provide the best
contrast on the cover of The Field of
Crows, but the attractive artwork makes up for the deficiency and it is
still a good cover.
The
Field of Crows by Robert Garrod (2013)
This post has shown several covers that don’t play by all the rules,
but that are still great covers to my eyes. In the final installment of my book
covers series of postings, I will ask your help in identifying the best artwork for my
novel cover. Do I need to follow all the rules, or is there room for some
creative license?
No comments:
Post a Comment