If you read my blog once in a while then you know I’m a writer. An author. I try to give a well-rounded, if somewhat… not gory. No, not gruesome… What’s the word– preternatural. Ooh, that works! I have a female, she’s strong and usually a little wild and crazy, and so is the male, and you know, something evil is attracted to whatever it is they have or they’re doing. They save the good, kill the evil, and everyone is happy. Sort of. I mean, at least our heroes are always happy. So there might be a castration here, a decapitation there-
Wait! That brings me today’s subject, children.
I was browsing through Kindle recently and noticed a line of paranormal books across the bottom. It looked as though someone had taken a guillotine and chopped off the heads of all these insanely hot male bodies. Huh. I looked over some more. Yeah, all these books had covers with males on them, but only their torsos. No heads. Very weird.
When I read one of those books, it’s like I’m having an encounter with the Headless Horseman. The author can describe the male protagonist till the cows come home. I want to see a picture. Of both, if there are two, and there usually are. I want to see his handsome/OK face and her beautiful/cute face. His scars, if he has any, or hers! His gorgeous eyes and full lips. Or whatever. And I really want to see her too. That’s why I don’t understand the sudden onslaught of torsos on books online. I assume they’re on paperbacks too, although I haven’t been in a library or a bookstore in quite a while. And if you order a print version, yep–Guillotine Was Here. Why??
When I work with my cover artist, I want everyone to know what my characters look like, as closely as she and I (me is NM, her in Brazil) can work it. All the way to the eye color and earrings, if there are any, his or hers. I want the reader to be able to look at the cover whenever they want and imagine who is doing what to whom. It helps bring the tale to life in my head. I can use up my imagination or other things that don’t necessarily need to have a picture drawn!
I’ve included the cover for my current Work-in-Progress. Now that is a couple. Two bodies, two heads. Thanks so much to my artist, Adriana Musetti Davila. She’s a treasure. Please, authors, include an entire person on your cover so I won’t have to put a pumpkin there.
One response to “Am I Reliving the French Revolution?”
You’re right Debi, there are some weird covers out there. Most of the (male) torsos are naked as well. Sometimes I begin to think that there is an obsession running wild among authors and cover artists. The obsession — as I see it — is with six-packs and pectorals. In other words, people don’t care about faces, if the body isn’t pumped up, sometimes out of all proportion. Why is that? I wonder
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