Black Feathers new cover design poll. Comments wanted.

[ceciliatan]

Cover design poll!

So, I’m going to do an ebook edition of my old collection of erotic short stories that Harper Collins published back in the 90s, BLACK FEATHERS.

The original cover featured a gorgeous naked woman, upside down, and was almost entirely black and white except for the small, tasteful lettering of the subtitle “{erotic dreams}”. I really loved this cover. Also, she wrapped around from the front cover onto the back, which of course won’t work for ebook, where there is no back or spine.

When Harper did an ebook edition of the book, before they let the print edition go kaput and I got smart and took the rights back, they used the same image, but much larger, put her all on the front, and kept it monochrome.

So what I’d like is to do something in the new ebook edition that might echo the old cover, but might take a few things into account. Among other things… why does it have to be a woman on the cover when men are just as much the erotic focus in the book as women are? The days when a man on a cover automatically meant “gay” are over, and I agree with the arguments of Erotica Cover Watch who say that if women write erotic material about men for a female audience then a naked chick on the cover can be just plain wrong.

However, my work is nowhere near that easy to categorize, many of the stories have queer and bisexual themes, there are both female and male narrators, etc.

In other words, there’s no clear thematic or political reason to choose either a male or female image. I lean toward male just to avoid the “male gaze” connotation those images often carry, but only somewhat. I like women, too, and women are both the narrators AND the erotic focus/object of many of the stories. But then there are gay male stories, too. Yeah, I’m confusing like that.

So I did two versions. One with a male figure, one with a female figure. And then I did two versions of each of those, one with naturally bright color (red) and one with desaturated color.

So, have a look and give me your thoughts. Images below the cut:

The original HarperCollins cover:

(and no, the original art is not available as far as I know, and I probably couldn’t afford it if it was… and no, it’s not a photo of me. I used to joke that it was Elizabeth Wurtzel, which if you were in publishing in the late 90s you’ll appreciate.)

And here’s how they revamped it for ebook purposes, originally, below:

And now here are my four experiments for new cover:

Version 1a — male desaturated, below

Version 1b — male saturated, below

Version 2a — female desaturated, below

(ignore streakiness in her skin tone — I was erasing the watermark from the comp version of the image)

Version 2b — female saturated, below

(ignore streakiness in her skin tone — I was erasing the watermark from the comp version of the image)

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Comments

[rembrandtswife]

I like the desaturated male cover and the saturated female cover. I'd probably like something that actually featured, well, black feathers. (Note to self: Have I ever written avian-related erotica? if not, why not?)

I think it's my second copy, but I actually have Black Feathers in paper. And White Flames, too. *sits back to wait for a third collection*

:)

[ceciliatan]

Yeah, I tried to find an image where the feathers were actually black and there was NOTHING that looked decent at all. That did lead me to the one red feather, though.

Besides the fact that the black feathers of the title are entirely metaphorical.

[pomegranate02]

I like the saturated versions of both covers. I like how there's not a black feather on the cover.

Have you thought of making the person on the cover more androgynous? Or focusing more closesly on a body-part that makes it less obvious whether it's a male or female? That might make it less like you're focussing on a single gender...

I like both too, so I'm having a hard time choosing which one appeal to me too. I'd probable go with the male version, but that's more cause I like tatts! It the woman had tatts, I'd probably pick that one :-)

Either way yay! for your new ebook!

[ceciliatan]

Thanks!

I find the problem with focusing on a single body part is that when you view the cover in thumbnail size, which is the most important size for sales purposes, you can't tell what it is. Unless it's something like a hand or a foot. And you might be surprised how difficult it is to gender neutralize even an image of something like a hip, back, or shoulder. (Many previous Circlet Press covers have featured such. People still get the gender of the model correct more than 90% of the time, except when the model was trans to begin with, which I think is only appropriate if there are actual trans characters featured centrally in a book. Which here, they aren't really. Everyone's bi but I think there's only one genuinely trans main character out of the 23 stories.)

[pomegranate02]

Yes, makes perfect sense re the thumbnail size - this is why I'm not a publisher & you are!

I'm looking forward to reading the new book :-)