I can drive past a property, and wince. "Absolutely not."
"Why not? It's pretty, has a big yard, is in our price range, and we haven't even looked inside yet!"
"You see how the roofline's sagging? That's major structural repair. And see the caulked lines on the downhill side of the house? That's a cracking foundation, as it's settling. I don't care how pretty the kitchen and bathrooms are, that's a money pit that'll be less expensive to demolish and rebuild. What's your next address?"
So, here's my attempt to point out what I'm looking for when it comes to signals, so you can do it consciously. PS - you may have to turn off adblocker or noscript to get these to show, because it's infinitely easier for me to link to an amazon-hosted image than to try to download all the images, upload all of them to picasa, and then link them all. Like you guys, but you're not paying me to work that hard for your convenience.
Space Opera and Military SF have a fairly broad overlap; their Venn diagram has most of the the books in the center of both ranges. General rule #1: No photographs other than NASA images. Rendered and painted art is perfectly normal.
Classic ship + planet. "Exploding ship in space - you can tell it's space because of the planet! Epic space battles! It's Military Science Fiction - or Space Opera! (Check the blurb.)"
Classic planet. "Hi! It's set in space! It's science fiction with planetary scope! It's Space opera!"
It's an exploding ship in space - it's military scifi! And hey, if you're not on a mobile browser, look at the sidebar for some non-exploding ships in space, or with alien moons to signify it's not earth! They're space opera!
The number of sarcastic exclamation points is only partly because I'm still on my first cuppa for the day. It's also because covers scream. They have to - as you're skimming a bookstore shelf or a web page of search returns, there's no time for a slow, gentle, subtle introduction. Nobody notices the wallflower - so the good ones tend to be jumping up and down screaming "Pick me! Pick me! Over here!"
It's a space scene... and a person! It's Space Opera! Okay, if the person is holding a gun or wearing military uniform/body armor, there's still a good chance it's military scifi.
For a note on typography - this could be a military thriller, or even a book on a historical battle, by cover art. Nothing really says military scifi... except that typography. That's pure Baen, which screams from six feet away in a bookstore "I'm Baen scifi! My characters kick ass and take names with an awesome plot!"
On to post-apocalyptic fiction. Again, no photographs.
The nuclear explosion, biohazard and radiation symbols have been so overdone you'll need a truly outstanding treatment to look attractive, but they can always be snuck in as an element of the covert art.
Epic paintings/rendering of ruins of modern civilization are pretty standard.
Also, there's usually a a human against the ruins, walking toward or walking away. And, you'll notice that most of these covers are fairly dark, or grungy.
Epic fantasy! Photographs are right out, and so are renderings. This needs to look like an oil painting. Yes, specifically oil.
You have three choices: landscape with guy with sword,
guy with sword,
or magnificent architecture (epic landscape.)
Why didn't I mention the two biggest-selling epic fantasies? Because they're the two biggest epic-selling fantasies, with multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and lots and lots of push.
This isn't a very visible image in thumbnail, but with a TV show and lots of coop space (the tables at the front of the store), millions of occasional readers to non-readers know Game of Thrones. This very, very strong iconic branding means that you can spot it easily, and someone who doesn't read SF&F but can't wait for the next season of the tv show can walk in and instantly spot the book they want.
If you don't have the push, I don't recommend going for the indecipherable icon. Why not? Well, an unexplained little swoosh is instantly recognizable as a Nike product - but another unexplained little squiggle is just some knock-off no-name cheap Chinese athletic gear. So, too, an indecipherable cover icon "It's a...helmet? maybe?" requires the background treatment and typography alone to carry genre, subgenre, and promises to the reader - and has to overcome "Oh, it's a game of thrones knockoff."
Now for two oft-confused subgenres with almost as much overlap as space opera and milscifi: urban fantasy and paranormal romance. The difference is that one is about kick-ass people in variants of modern-day with magic/fantasy tropes, while the other is a romance in an urban fantasy setting, with a "strong female lead" (sadly, usually the romances confuse bitchy, self-centered, and abusive with "strong." Feminism, you have a LOT of damage to the culture to answer for.)
Guy who is not half-naked, wearing a noir-film remeniscent trenchcoat, firing gun while holding mystical-symbol staff: urban fantasy.
Woman facing the viewer, head visible, holding weapon (bonus points for it being primitive weapon.) Urban fantasy. Though it's Mercedes Thompson, which like several other series started off as great urban fantasy, and has slid firmly into paranormal romance. A common feature / bug in the genre, and part of why it's so hard to tell one from the other.
Woman facing away from the viewer / face not visible. Paranormal Romance! Bonus points for skin-tight clubbing gear, any hints of black leather, black latex. Points deducted for lack of weapon.
This one again works on the typography. Guy with sword: quest fantasy or urban fantasy? Grunge font - urban fantasy.
I have now spent two and a half hours on this post. I'm going to wander off and find breakfast, more tea, and the daily chores. If you have a genre/subgenre you specifically want me to cue, put it in comments.
Hey, Dot, great post (sent you an email, BTW. The d...@gmail.com addr is still good, right?).
ReplyDeleteHere's a question: what sort of cover would you put on a book like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, or a Mike Z Williamson novel (i.e. libertarian / anarchist revolution with both commbat AND politics) ?
I think it might be far too narrow a nano-genre to command its own style, but I'm still curious as to your thoughts.
helps a lot, but the question begged, WHERE DO YOU GET SOMEONE TO DO THE ART CHEEP?
ReplyDeleteGreat insights. I'm stealing 'em.
ReplyDeleteM
TJIC - that's not a genre, that's a setting. So, the war is happening. Are you focused on two characters falling in love? Then it's a romance set in scifi. Are you focused on the training and combat and troop movements? Then it's military scifi. Are you describing everyday people who visit new places, discover new things in the context of the war? Then it's a scifi adventure. Is your protagonist desperately rushing to get some secret information to his superiors or stop an enemy superweapon? Then it's a thriller set in scifi.
ReplyDeleteWho is your protagonist(s)? What do they want? What stands in their way? That tells you what genre it is.
William - that's a whole post in and of itself. And depends on what your budget is - both in terms of money and of time. I shall try to find the energy to write that up.
ReplyDeleteMark - aw, that's the best compliment!
Sorry if this eventually double posts, but I had a comment, it asked me to sign into google, I did so, then said comment vanished.
ReplyDeleteSo, take two--a good way to find really cheap artists is on deviantart. There are usually folks who will do things at a steep discount in exchange for the exposure / a kind word. Also they may do things even cheaper if you can get them a photo / drawing that puts them in the ballpark. For instance, I took a screen shot of a mission I was flying in Pacific Fighters, then googled free Department of Defense / Navy pictures so that my cover artist for my alternate history short story knew what I was talking about.
Another way to do things is go to your nearest Comic con and peruse the booths. I got artists to do work for me fairly cheap (say, $125 vice $400) and they've all been very easy to work with. Moreover, depending on your sci-fi, you'll find specialists in your genre. To cite an example, because a comic artist had examples of his WW2 comic behind him, I knew I could tell him "I need an image of the HMS Hood almost on her beam ends..." and he'd know what I was talking about.
I think art is part of the cost of doing business, however. I'm not saying it sells the book, but as our able hostess points out it gets people in the door. I'm not saying you want to go into massive debt for it, but just a reminder that expenses such as cover art may be tax deductible when it comes time to pay "The Man." I think that the old saying about "You have to spend dough to make bread..." applies here.
Sorry so long-winded, Dot.
I write post apocalyptic stuff. Frankly, it's a pain in the butt finding well rendered art appropriate to my recently finished novel. (Located in the Appalachian Mountains)
ReplyDeleteAbout the only thing I've managed to figure out is to find a photograph and run it through Filter Forge so it doesn't look like a photo anymore. I'm experimenting with it right now.
FWIW, I did a mock up of a cover using a photo given a similar treatment. It looked kind of cool, but as the photograph wasn't remotely apocalyptic to start with, the end result looked kind of literary (possibly even chick lit).
Good stuff on cuing to genre though. These recent discussions have been a huge help. While I'm at the point right now where it seems impossible to get it right, at least I know enough to not crank out complete crap. :D
If memory serves, there's a couple of tutorials on line regarding how to create post-apocalyptic landscapes out of normal photographs. I'm blessed in that my wife can photoshop, and I had her whip up a quick cover for my post-apocalyptic short story consisting of a meteor impact across the KC Skyline. I may have her redo, but at the moment she's doing a cover for a friend and has to finish her own book...so that may wait until my novel actually gets done.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up on that. Now, I just need to find one for GIMP that I can use. :D
Dorothy, thank you for this post--the difference between heroines facing toward or away from the viewer had me bobbing my head violently in agreement.
ReplyDeletesince you asked--and this is several days later, so you've had enough coffee by now, what can I do with YA SF? It's a coming of age space opera with a 16-year-old girl.
When I look at other covers in the genre, they're all abstract or dreamy, or PNR lite. Of course, my story's non-dystopian SF adventure with a hint of romance, so it doesn't match those other stories that I can tell.
Any advice appreciated--
Kali, the LJ Cohen book Dorothy used in this post is YA SF. You will see that the female on the cover is rather young. You might also look at the Weber/Linskold Treecat series covers from Baen, they are YA SF.
ReplyDelete