Book Covers

What's going on here...?

I read 'Flu last year:



and looking for new Kindle books, I just stumbled on 33 AD:



It's not even the same author or publisher! How can they both be using the same basic image?

ETA: It was the cover image that attracted me to Flu... I feel so cheated! :-/

Many publishers subscribe to image libraries and select their cover art from banks of existing graphics. They don't get any exclusive claim to the images they use, and they may only license them for a certain number of books printed or period of printing. That's probably what happened here.

There was a great chart about recycled cover art images in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of The Believer. It showed, for example the same painting (Caspar David Friedrich's 1818 Wanderer above the Sea of Fog) used variously for covers of The Art of the Infinite, Dr. Haggard's Disease, Jurisdiction and the Internet and Lord Byron's Novel.

Also used on Sean Schubert's Infection. The top portion of the peering girl is from an image library (#2); saw it on istock. I guess it's spooky enough to make the rounds.

The top portion of the peering girl is... spooky enough to make the rounds.

Both of the books mentioned in #1 pique my interest and all I know about them so far is the cover. So yeah, that is a pretty good image.

Here's touchstones to the books: Flu, 33 AD. Infection doesn't seem to have a touchstone yet.

I forget what blog or thread I read, but the Germans are supposed to be notorious cover recyclers. There were lots and lots of famous sci-fi books with covers re-purposed from other famous sci-fi books. Sometimes the re-purposed image didn't even really fit the story.

Arghhh.....!



Gutted :o( It's like finding out there's no Santa!

Of the three, I like the 33AD cover the most. Maybe this is the future as we head into self published ebooks?

Lots of ebook supporters question what value a publisher provides. Well, aside from editing and at least in theory a reasonable assumption that the book was good enough to be published, they will make sure something like this doesn't happen.

All three books came out last year. Flu and 33AD were published a month apart and Flu and Infection sound similar.

Following on paradoxosalpha's comments, freelance artists will also draw on free--monetarily and licensewise--stock photos as a "core" for book covers they're developing. This is what the artist who designed my novel's cover did, though that core image isn't quite so independently memorable!

#1 Have you read Wayne Dimmons' Drop Dead Gorgeous?

He's a guest at The Phoenix Convention in two weeks time.

#8 No, Flu is the only Simmons book I've read. Is it good? Worth a read? Can't get the Phoenix link to work, but I'm loving Simmons re-worked pic...



Now that's what you call a horror writer! :o)

Simmons' 'before' (being reworked by Lee Goatboy Hartnup) pic...

Sorry you couldn't get the link to work. The URL is www.pcon.ie

I've only received my copy of Drop Dead Gorgeous, so haven't had a chance to read it.

Yea, Wayne is very dedicated to his writing and his tattoos.

Thanks for that pg! I thought it was an American Convention (Phoenix and all that!). Shame I can't get there, it sounds really interesting - have you been? Perhaps it will coincide with half-term one year. Just looked at DDG on Amazon - great reviews so I've added it to my books-to-buy-list-that-only-gets-longer. Shame it's not available on Kindle I seem to be much more impulsive with it... books arriving in seconds is very difficult to resist :o)

#12 sounds really interesting - have you been?

It is interesting; but then I would say that; I'm the chairperson for this year. This is my last year as such, having been chair/co-chair for five years.

Hopefully you'll make it over some year. Then I can tell you the genesis of "The Phoenix" over a pint.