Jóhan I LOVE this video, I have felt this so strongly for years and it was so well presented. Fantasy readers want unashamedly fantasy covers. My theories on why traditional publishers are doing this: 1. They want to brand themselves overall as more elegant and posh overall. An elegant and simple design makes them look "fancier" overall across all genres. 2. Rather than hiring art directors that are experts in individual genres like fantasy, they tend to generalize and the same people are doing a lot of different genres, including genres that they themselves don't understand. In my own experience and talking to artist and designer friends, there are a lot of people doing jobs that they are not passionate about and are unqualified to do in terms of the specialization involved in understanding the genres they are working in. 3. Traditional publishing is plagued with design by committee, which leads to generic designs that nobody loves and everyone is just ok with. 4. These covers are way cheaper than custom illustrations. Their budgets are often surprisingly low, many publishers paying less than $1000 per conver, which seems crazy considering how many thousands of copies they sell. Some of the most renowned cover illustrators charge $4000 for illustrations. I was contacted by a major publisher this week for a project, but their budget was less than a third of what I usually charge. 5. Custom illustrated fantasy covers are risky. They are putting a lot of faith into an illustrator to create something beautiful and marketable. With a safe and boring cover, they know they will at least not hugely fail. It's the same reason we don't see that many new blockbuster movies that step outside of what producers know will sell. They aren't willing to gamble in order to make a masterpiece, they would rather settle for something safe and decent. 6. They are afraid to niche down. This in my opinion is a huge mistake in fantasy, where we are proud of our niche! They are afraid of losing out on a wider audience but in doing this they neglect their true audience. You mention that it may be that there are marketing and financial reasons for these covers, I am almost certain that is not the case. Fantasy readers absolutely flock to books with unashamedly fantasy covers. We will buy books with covers we don't LOVE but just like, but people will be very excited about covers that just scream epic and fantasy. People are even willing to spend ridiculous amounts for books with covers they love. I think that the publishers have not tapped into this much yet. I have noticed the disparity between special editions and publishers as well in my work, I am working with or have signed contracts to work with almost all of the major special edition book companies, and while I have met and talked to a ton of publishers, I have done very few covers for them that aren't special editions.
Book covers in general, not just fantasy, have gone downhill. Too many of them look generic or cheaply made that I just wouldn't pick them up. I know books should never be judged by their covers, but who are we kidding? We always have & always will. Not only that, but with the influx of AI art ruining the space, it doesn't give me much hope. Covers don't have to be a 'masterpiece' but they should reflect the story in some way. Imagine picking up a book with a rabbit on the cover & there's no mention of a rabbit in the book; click bait in book form.
A book cover is a window into the story held within the book. It's not just the art but the color, the font, a lot goes into expressing what qualities are going to be within the text. Look at the great art of the paperbacks in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. A lot of horror novels sold on their brilliant covers. Hell, do you think the Goosebumps or Fear street series would have been as big as they were if the cover art was bad?
I really wish book covers (at least current ones) were allowed as much creativity as say - album covers. Of course they’re vastly different mediums but it seems like the artistic creativity is always at the forefront when it comes to an artist putting out a new album (in terms of the cover)
I think the fantasy genre has in general. The publishers are pushing just a sector, everyone else has to self publishing. I’m going through decades old books instead now.
Whenever someone talks about how cover art isnt important, I will always tell them Goosebumps. That series was almost sold based on the fantastic cover art alone. I miss the beautiful covers of the 80s horror paperbacks and the 90s fantasy boom.
The thing that aggravates me the most is when publishing company’s change the cover on self published books that had beautiful covers. I hate that I can never find the original covers which were so much better!
As someone who had based almost 80-90% of my book purchases on cover buys, I absolutely lay most blame on publishers cost cutting. Give me the evocative and beautiful fantasy covers of the past. And indie fantasy has been killing it lately with covers that grab me by the throat and make me want to buy them.
I actually hate most of book covers nowadays. Not because they are ugly, but because they don't differ from each other, they lack character and interesting ideas. And with AI now ... well, I don't think they will improve anytime soon
It's all a bunch of bright colors, patterns, fancy fonts and minimalist renditions of things like trees and daggers. It's all done on computers, and serves the main purpose of saving the publishing houses a ton of money and time. Why hire expensive artists when you can just get someone to throw together some flashy pre-made patterns on some swanky version of Canva for less than half the price?
The dark, flowery, super busy, and nondescript fantasy covers are “art” I used to do in middle school and high school on my folders when I was horrible bored in class and only had a black and a red pen in my bag!
As a designer, I knew which ones were fantasy straight away. The two you pretended that were fantasy, took me by surprise. And then you said that they weren’t fantasy. Suspicions correct. 😂
I just glanced over to my shelf of 300+ fantasy books, and I don't really agree with your points. Yes, the art is different from the 60s, but they are still proudly showing fantasy. I don't think fantasy illustraors or publishers are "ashamed" of looking nerdy. At least my experience is way different then.
I think it's just a matter of personal preference. He loves dragons and character art and more dragons on his book covers and that's fine but other cover styles can work just as well. Like, I do think the cover of The Adventures of Amina al-Sarafi fits the story very well and the medieval style of the new Robin Hobb covers works well too.
Yeah I really like the minimalist design. Even back with Twilight series. I never read them but I liked their cover. But I disagree with him. it was obvious that into the storm and this is where we live isn’t fantasy. When he tricked us I was shocked cause into the storm looks like a self help book. So when he revealed the lie I was like oh man you’re not proving your point at all. But yeah it’s all preference based.
I agree with everything. I want my fantasy covers to be real art, not just an interesting graphic design. I love the Stormlight archives covers and one of the reasons I'm picking up Mistborn in hardcover is how detailed the art is compared to the paperback version (besides actually preferring to read hardcovers). The Sky on Fire, The Silverblood Promise, and Dragon Rider are all book covers from 2024 that I think did a decent job at saying "I'm fantasy".
Personally I'm glad about the state of modernism these days. It makes buying cheap, epice second hand stuff so much easier. Books, TV, board games, video games the list goes on.
Maybe it's just my age showing, but there's something almost definitive about seeing a fantasy book cover by Michael Whelan, or something in his style. When you think of books like "The Symphony of Ages" series, or "The Guardians of the Flame", or books by Lawrence Watt-Evans, Barbara Hambly, Mercedes Lackey, and of course, Robert Jordan, you know you're reading a fantasy novel. Too many modern book covers seem like slicked up sexy bacon, and are leagues away from tickling that sense of epic awe.
It's a trend in everything, to corporatize it and "professionalize," it. New residences, the complete reformation of fast food chain buildings from having any character etc. The idea is to make it obscure and indefinable so you don't take any risks.
I’ve been reading fantasy since 1980 and you are right, you to browse the shops and you looked at the wonderful covers, there was a whelan, a hildevrandt, a Taylor, a lot of times you knew the cover artist as much as the author
I'm guessing it's both marketing + cost - bland covers let snobs feel better about reading fantasy, and the minimalist designs are probably cheaper to get done than something that requires intricate work or the straight up paintings that were done for older fantasy covers.
Yes I think you are right. After editing this video I felt I had SO much more to add to this discussion but definitely think there is some validity to the claim that standardised covers might draw other readers in. (and yes, cost is probably also a big factor). Thanks for watching and commenting.
I disike how "mature" modern covers try to be. This fake sense of maturity is insanely off-putting to me, someone who read The Lord of the Rings in his childhood - same goes for illustrations and interesting/unique designs. I remember the German book series "The Dwarves" having an amazing hard cover edition with beautiful illustrations and wonderful formatting that just made it so much fun to experience. Kinda hate how the current "meta" is to make books LOOK as bland and boring as possible, preferable like one of these 1$ ones you find in local supermarkets everyone usually ignores. What I don't get about this is... why aren't they more aesthetically pleasing and minimalistic then? There's an edition of The Silmarillion with a beautiful minimalistic cover in blue, some elvish runes and lines, with a gem in the middle. Looks like an ancient book you'd find in a magic library. That's cool, looks nice, eye-catching, doesn't look "immature". People enjoy making fun of Japanese Light Novel covers and their silly names, but they immediately show you what's going on. "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" is about an old elf mage girl who fought the Demon King with the chosen hero and they won. But since time flows differently in an elf's brain, she told her friends to visit them at the next festival. Sadly that's ~70 years later and the hero she loved is now an old, dying man. The story explores her past with her friends, how she deals with the fact that she never said goodbye, how she wasted her time and actually cared for everyone, but couldn't express herself. Very melancholic, but positively so. The cover has the protagonist sit on a beautiful meadow looking into the distance, turning her back to her friends when they were young. Font is sublte mit uniquely magical. That's, like... absolutely perfect? If that'd be a western book, it'd have a bland font, red background and something random like the tip of a magic staff or a CGI model of an amulet. Another simple and cool one is Majo no Tabitabi, The Journey of Elaina. It's an anthology about a travelling witch. Cover is aesthetically pleasing, colors are perfect, has the protagonist winking at the viewer while grabbing her witch hat. Bam. Simple as that. You immediately know what it's about. I hope we'll return to covers like that.
This is why I really only buy books from special edition stores like illumicrate, fairyloot, owl crate, broken binding etc.. they all do such an amazing job with the covers although you do have to pay a pretty penny for them. I agree that it would be nice to see traditional publishers bring back the elements we love about fantasy in the artwork
To me, the most important thing about a cover is Identity. In this case Identity is more than just "this is a fantasy book" it could be "this is a [insert culture] book" or a "this is a [theme or tone] book" etc. Honestly I feel like th books used as an example around 2:24 are poot examples for the argument. To me the 4th one, Darkome looks like a SciFi book maybe Dystopia. The Hurricane Wars cover tho looks amazing and well... kinda looks like a Hurricane with depictions of story relevant stuff. It clearly has had just as much effort and work put into it. I also think this kinda shows how narrow a view "Fantasy" is generally seen in, like it doesn't need dragons to be "Fantasy." (Side note, I am excited to read some more foreign/international fiction/fantasy to see the different PoV and "evolution path" it took).
You’re spot on on your take. As a lifelong fantasy reader, I yearn for covers that capture my imagination. That “The Blade Itself” cover highlighting Logen and Ferro is superb. And agreed that the Gwynn books and Stormlight are like upgrades of what I grew up loving (such as the original Wheel of Time stuff). I remember seeing the original Tad Williams Dragonbone books in Costco as a teenager. I fell in love immediately. I’m not sure I would have picked them up if they were in the modern style!
I think it’s definitely minimalist vs maximalist. There’s nothing wrong with one or the other inherently, but I think with fantasy or sci fi, which have such robust stories/worlds, a maximalist cover, aka a cover with lots of illustrations to encompass the spirit of the story, probably works better. I can understand why publishers are pushing such minimalist covers since it’s the modern trend, but it may be to the detriment of certain genres like fantasy. Contemporary literary fiction definitely seems more worthy of minimalist.
Fantasty trad pub is awful. Current cover design is corporate and lame. Self pub and small publishers like Baen know how to commission a piece of art and make it the cover. Had been like this for almost 20 years now. Corporate npc art directors all just groupthink and push out the same boring covers. Specifically, i blame the people who work at the publishers. Specifically the art and graphic designers. When outsiders with no training like Petrik Leo can design awesome books for Broken Binding, and boutiques like Curious King can make beautiful books, and self pub Kickstarters like Gunmetal Gods and have kickass art……no excuses for the corporate flunky.
current popular media has an art problem in general, in terms of traditional drawing and painting. they'd happily shove ai art down people's throats if they could get away with it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking it's harder to get a sense of what a book is about by it's cover. I was actually thinking about adding something to the reviews I post about how well the cover ties to the story, or if the cover misleads the reader at all.
I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY agree with you that modern, especially trad-published, covers have become generic and uninteresting. Certainly very few are evocative in fantasy. Speaking as someone who grew up in the 70's and 80's and LOVED going to the bookstore to drool over all the fantasy books and their covers, I miss those days. 😩☺
Rajaneimi's Darkome is not fantasy, it's SciFi. It's about a future world where DNA manipulation is possible, and programmable on the go. The main character is ill and her program chip can somehow keep her alive but she belongs to a ideology-bound group which does not allow such tech. She must choose to stay with the 'family' or stay alive. Trouble is, the govt wants to know her secret tech.
I think the art style is still recognizable, it's just much different than it was 10+ years ago. I do agree with your points that sometimes these new cover styles don't really give you much sense as to what you can expect from the book. Maybe, after reading, it all makes sense more, but it would be nice it we weren't doing as much guesswork. Don't think it's a big deterrent for me, but I do generally prefer scenes and characters over symbols and abstract imagery.
@@astevenswrites Yes agree. I do think modern covers are beautiful. Unfortunately though, most of them don't really tell me much about the story itself.
I recently got the Green Rider on Libby specifically because the cover art drew me in. I never heard of the series, but I'm already on book 2. These covers have a market.
Y'all do realize that this is the epitome of "do not judge a book by it's cover". This is why there are blurbs and synopsis pieces on the book to give you an idea of what's inside.Now, I admit, I pick up books with eye catching covers, which for me covers a wide range of design; but I put them back as well when the blurb doesn't indicate something I want to read.
The justification, as I've heard it, is that they're catering to online purchases. When scrolling a website, a book cover is, at most, an inch tall on a screen; there's only so much detail that shows up unless you click into the book. Granted, an under utilized strategy could be to purposefully make covers with just the right amount of detail to make people click in to see a bigger picture.
Tbh, i always prefer a cover that really shows me it's fantasy even if it's weird or ugly because it's easier to find in libraries that don't have a shelf only for fantasy and in small bookstores
This was an amazing video on a topic that is dear to me. It would have been unfortunate if I hadn't watched this video. Similarly, the title of your video didn't fully portray the topic. But, that's a common trend on TH-cam right now, and I personally hope it will end soon.
I'm a bit different on this. Personally, I find it *fairly* easy to spot the difference between fantasy and non-fiction. Sure, before it was literally thrown in your face, but I still, it's not a big deal for me. And my second (and final) take is that, at least in public, I don't want the cover to be super fantastical. I like myself a fantastical cover when it's on the shelf, but when I'm out in public reading, and I have a fantastical cover, I kind of try to hide the cover a bit, and if I can, I just take a different book that has a more generic cover. That's just how *I* am though. But fun video anyway!
I like a wide range of art styles for book covers. I actually really like the style on Williams' latest _Osten Ard_ books, but it really is a shame that they weren't done by Michael Whelan (possibly my all-time favorite fantasy book cover artist). But I also agree that publishers are playing follow-the-leader with the cover style lately.
I use Goodreads as my companion when looking at books. The covers don’t do much imho anymore. I don’t automatically reject a book based on the crappy cover anymore.
I honestly love bold, graphic covers. Like the revamp for Dungeon Carl is something I would totally pick up compared to the older version because it has mystery behind it! Maybe it's just because I am a graphic designer and cover designer, too. But I I love the bold, intriguing style that many new covers have.
I think I could have guessed The Book That Wouldn't Burn as fantasy if I hadn't already known about it... something about the grand space stacked with books and fiery lighting, but I guess it could be construed as a generalized library to someone else. Compare that to the rest of the covers. Yeah, publishers are not doing a good job selling fantasy right now. As a reader, it's not only confusing, but discouraging and if you're not paying attention to books through places like this, would you be encouraged to check these out? Or would you miss modern fantasy by picking something else that looks almost identically plain? Those UK covers of The Wheel of Time are so bad and I'm pretty sure I would never pick those books off a shelf as a new reader who had never heard of the series. Now, the old art? That definitely catches the eye.
I actually like the The Book That Wouldn't Burn Cover but I don't think it feels "fantasy" but thank you for sharing your perspective. The new Wheel of Time really do make me sad... :(
One that you could satisfy both the customer who appreciates a beautifully detailed fantasy scene and the customer who's too shy to pull out a book with a shirtless barbarian on the cover while he's riding the bus would be to use one image for the cover and another for the jacket (you could even make the jacket reversible to offer a third choice), but it's difficult to communicate this to somebody browsing a bookstore, who is likely to assume that what they see in front of them is all they're getting.
8:37 I was just going to say that self pub has great fantasy covers. You can definitely see a difference between whether a book is traditional or self pub because self pub actually looks like fantasy
As for covers I miss in the 90s we had photo art. Like the illustrations in the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy had photos of real models one of the fox trot collections is a photo of a Bulletin board or I spy books? I want those to make a comeback but I suppose they were never that dominant anyway
I hadn’t really thought about it before but I think there’s something in your observation - I guess something about marketing trends? Interesting though that LOTR often has “epic” and “clear/bold” covers published at the same time, presumably targeting different readers.
I think the difference is less the hiding away of distinguishing marks of fantasy and way more a shift from literal depictions of the story into symbolic vibes-based design. Also I think we shouldn’t discount that the title of a novel is part of the cover too and contributes to the cover’s message; you need to do a lot less work to show that “Darkome” is fantasy than, say, “Shadows of Self.” Those WoT covers are sinful though.
The covers of the mass market paperback versions of The Liveship Traders are FANTASTIC! Have you ever seen them? I'm kicking myself for selling my copies. I AM KICKING MYSELF!!
Maybe it's because I am an author, maybe it's because I majored in book publishing, but I could not only tell which books were fantasy (you got me there for a moment BTW, I was like, "welp I got half of them wrong") I could tell their price range and more or less what subgenre they were in and I haven't checked but I am willing to bet that they are all trad published. Their covers are very to market. It's not in fashion anymore to have pictoric illustrations for book covers, but the colors, the designs, they are like speaking a language and they say fantasy (I was a bit unsure if Darkome wasn't sci-fi, but I guess it could be urban fantasy), the fonts are kinda artistic, the designs are more organic than say non-fiction books. The covers all look sorta the same because that's the role of the cover from a book making stand point, it's to speak the cover language and inform the reader upon looking the genre, the vibes and the price. I like that you noticed the self-published books have a different cover lingo than the trad published books and that is made on purpose. Most people associate trad publishing with quality, so it is made to have this distinction on purpose. Do indie books have cooler covers? As an indie author I might be biased but I love them. They don't sell as well. I love beautiful artistic covers, but I can tell from experience unless they are done a specific way they struggle to sell the books.
I agree modern covers don’t immediately let the reader know this is a fantasy book like old ones did. I think the reason is 90s and older fantasy covers generally depicted a scene, where you could see that there were fantasy characters, creatures and landscape. Modern fantasy covers tend to focus on a few key graphics or items, such as a sword, and they rarely have people on them. They simply don’t give as much info away about the book as the old ones did. The new style must sell better because otherwise publishers wouldn’t do it, but I find it bland compared to the old style.
Ngl I think the "standardization" of covers better reflects how diverse the fantasy sphere has become over the years. Maybe Epic* Fantasy is going through an identity crisis, but for all the different types of twists on the greater genre as a whole, I think what we have now better reflects the tone and ideas of these books. My only issues with covers right now would either be the use of AI or just how certain trends produce books with covers that are all same-y (but that's not a new issue). Interesting video, but I think such a wide genre being dissected through the lens of primarily epic fantasy doesn't fit well.
I guessed them all correctly and then when you told that lie I went back and said “I would never have guessed Into the storm is Fantasy and I ALMOST said This is where we Live is but it felt too metaphorical. But what really shocks me is that Hurricane Wars isn’t- I get Darkome because it seems like sci fi so I get drawing the line there but I’ve seen Hurricane Wars on shelves for years and always thought it was fantasy” then you said you had lied… and everything made sense.
I’ve been disappointed with so many of the fantasy covers lately. I miss the pictures that show at least some content in the book. It helps with the imagining of the story to get at least a flavor of the world and its colors
Cover wise I really prefer the simple color with a title and maybe some symbol related to the book. Like the old leather bound look. The overdone art and busy covers just give me a headache xD
When you were about to show the covers by Orbit and their logo popped up, I immediately thought "How could a company with a logo that generic and bland make good book covers?" Then you proceeded to show generic covers by them and said they weren't good. Which makes perfect sense, and is kind of funny, but a cover is such a fun/cool thing and it's unfortunate that it gets squandered so much by trad-publishers. I hadn't seen that original Rage of Dragons cover but that's really the perfect example of having 'a story with characters in a scene' on the cover vs what's effectively just a pattern/emblem that might as well be any random objects/shapes since it's indistinct from all the other covers coming out. Magic the gathering card art usually has great stories-in-single-images. So many cards in that game would make amazing book covers. Trad-pub has gotta start hiring those artists with mtg-style art-direction for fantasy novels. That'd make everyone want more books, even non-readers would get into it because of the art alone. haha
There are 2 reasons for. 1 - The cover artists don't read the books they working on. They get a small sumarization and do their job based on this sumarizatation at best. 2 - In general, Dragons, Elves or Heros on a cover look like Kids books. Today, the main customer base for Fantasy books are women that often have no kids and those women would be ashamed openly buy a Kids book.
One of the best parts of fantasy is when you get to the point that you understand the cover art. My standards are WoT hardcovers and Stormlight archive. Anything less is a disappointment
It doesn’t mean they’re losing their identity because it doesn’t impact the story. Also covers like the bloodsworn saga by John Gwynne show the cover art game is still strong
I have Michael whelans art books. He did two covers for a sci fi book. Ones with an alien on the cover, the other with a human. The publishers was seeing what would sell better
I really like beautiful book covers, but yeah they all kind of blend into one super-pretty rainbow mesh. I guess we really can't judge books by their covers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Contradiction: You said no more "pulpy" covers. Dungeon Crawler Carl has the pulpiest cover you showed in the video and you absolutely love it. (Side note: The 1960s Lord of the Rings Covers are not "pulpy). Nonetheless, we agree, almost all of these new covers suck (despite the pretty colors). Nothing competes with Michael Whelan's Memory Sorrow and Thorn covers (except possibly Frank Frazetta's Conan covers).
Covers aren’t the problem it’s the Trad Pub Industry no longer choosing Authors and Books to push based on merit. It’s losing its identity because the best of the best are no longer embraced by Trad Pub and have to go the Independent Publishing route. Start embracing Books/Series based on Merit again and this too shall pass…
I use to prefer the US Baen covers to the UK ones. I thought the embossed Fallen Angels by Baen was just beautiful. If I want to collect a series I want them all by the same cover artist. Nothing better having a set of books that are in the same size, look and format. I got my Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn in large trade paperback. Big, heavy and bulky, but I love them, even if the spines are creased and worn.
I’m not sure if I agree that it’s as bad as you say (or what I’m understanding from your video). I only knew one book of the set you flashed on screen, but I got all the fantasy books right. Some of them (Darkome) did almost throw me off, but I generally find that fantasy book covers are often more detailed, contain more elements associated with fantasy (ie swords, weapons, glyphs, symbols), and/or have… more painterly? Rendered? hand drawn? illustration styles as opposed to more abstract or simplistic styles (no matter how beautiful). Though I do agree that there are a lot of fantasy books out there that don’t have the genre-signalling they should have (Skyward Inn was a good example. Too abstract, yeah) The reason why Darkome threw me off was more because of the gene strand in the background. Looking at the synopsis, the artist probably went for portraying vibe (old school comics = dubiously sci fi/fantasy) + core elements of the story (rNA, pandemics). Idk. I haven’t read the book. But I can see why they made the choices they did. In all fairness, art IS subjective. And book covers nowadays HAVE been veering more to emphasizing the title text and author’s name over the actual illustration of the book cover (just look at how much space the text takes up compared to older covers). Based on your examples though, you seem to prefer covers with more emphasis on the illustration or where the text is part of the illustration itself, which doesn’t really align with the design trend… not bad, just preference. That said, I enjoyed the video! This was an interesting topic to think about, and I agree with a lot of your other points.
I think this is less about the covers being "fantasy ish" and more about the book covers being boring these days with the more exciting / fantasy ish covers released as special edition books... Maybe it's expensive to have really nice covers on books, maybe publishers are taking readers at their words when they say don't judge a book by its cover, maybe they just can't be ars*d 🤷🏾♀️. I mean, who really knows what goes on in the murky world of publishing.. Either way, the covers have gotten a lot boring no doubt but I bet publishers would say something like, "but we save the good stuff for the special edition & don't you just love that."
You're framing it in your thumbnail as a definite when I'm sure you know more than most it's an issue of later generic editions that boost the value inherently of snagging first editions with the cool concept art. You know this, man! No book nowadays, well maybe,but hardly any fantasy/horror book worth its salt and name, that I know of, isn't going to be ultra generic lackluster from the get-go and not compete for eyes, even modestly. So it's an issue of later generic editions not lost art from the get-go.
My favorite fantasy covers are the lord of the rings trade paperbacks (the color coded ones) with simple symbols and images. I don’t think they would work for every series, but they are by far the classiest Edit: I got further into the video and Lord of Chaos has a good cover and I will die on this hill (fires of heaven is trash though)
I disagree and I was able to guess all the books correctly. Designs are now more modern but fantastical element is always there. They are more minimalistic now they don't have full fledged paintings on them.
Interesting topic. Art is subjective though, so I see your point, but I think it’s easy to argue the other side of this as well. Thank goodness bookstores don’t sort their books by cover design….lol.
3:49 Why are you so afraid to just flat out say these covers are garbage? 😅. Who cares if you offend the artist who made them. If you call the covers beautiful it’s not really constructive criticism, it’s just “beating around the bush”.
@ From what I’ve heard he won’t be doing any more cover art. The man is in his mid 70s and with Brandon Sanderson taking his 5 year hiatus from Stormlight Archive, there is no way he could do the future covers. And that’s a real shame because I absolutely love his artwork on those covers
I've noticed the change, but haven't made up my mind if I think it's a 'good' or bad thing. I'm going through the Night Runner Series and the cover art on the first three books , which were published in the 90s is so different from the covers for rest of the series which were published as late as 2014. The later books could have almost been mistaken for romance novels (speaking of romance books, I don't read them but I've noticed a similar topic of conversation is going on about the change in covers over there. Apparently the highly stylized colorful covers have been changed to something... more bland) Having said all that, I admit I have a second hand copy of the famous LoTR Purple Emu edition. Not to read, but because they were charmingly weird.
Thank you for the comment. I am also not sure if it is a good or bad thing yet. While I do prefer covers with fantastical art on them, I am more interested in people reading fantasy. If modern covers help more people pick up the books then I am all for it!
I even run into problems with my book covers because artists want to steer towards these safe designs. So, I design and create my own. This also explains why people are steering towards the use of AI because they can't get what they want from artists who only want to stay on trend.
Yeah the standard for the covers hasn't been good in probably decade or a bit more. Like when i got into adult fantasy i started with First Law, you'd expect from a series that's that famous to have more interesting art other than a sword, dagger and a halebard. Just a bit more effort can go a long way.I genuinely started malazan just because i saw the art and the title, art isn't great or anything but it does set the atmosphere for the book and the title intrigues you. And i don't like the money excuse for a well established titles and writers. You can find a couple of artists in the fan base that would probably do it even for free or a small amount.
EVERYTHING contemporary is generic looking. Every vehicle looks the same. New construction houses all look the same. Video game controllers are standardized. Some genres of music all sound the same. I have a middle schooler. Literally every one of his friends have the same haircut and dress the same. As a culture, we've lost individuality.
My most favorite cover is Lord of the Rings, it's just red with a golden ring in the middle. Just perfect. I almost only read on my kindle as I don't have any space for physical books so the cover should not make any difference. Wrong 😅 Especially German books are ugly as hell. My heart bleeds when I compare John Gwynn's books in English and German.
Agreed that a lot of new covers are lame and generally bland. I wonder also if it has anything to do with earlier covers actually being paintings, like Elmore, and how much is creater digitally. And I have developed a habit of picking up ealier editions of LoTR as there are just a lot of beautiful covers.
Jóhan I LOVE this video, I have felt this so strongly for years and it was so well presented. Fantasy readers want unashamedly fantasy covers.
My theories on why traditional publishers are doing this:
1. They want to brand themselves overall as more elegant and posh overall. An elegant and simple design makes them look "fancier" overall across all genres.
2. Rather than hiring art directors that are experts in individual genres like fantasy, they tend to generalize and the same people are doing a lot of different genres, including genres that they themselves don't understand. In my own experience and talking to artist and designer friends, there are a lot of people doing jobs that they are not passionate about and are unqualified to do in terms of the specialization involved in understanding the genres they are working in.
3. Traditional publishing is plagued with design by committee, which leads to generic designs that nobody loves and everyone is just ok with.
4. These covers are way cheaper than custom illustrations. Their budgets are often surprisingly low, many publishers paying less than $1000 per conver, which seems crazy considering how many thousands of copies they sell. Some of the most renowned cover illustrators charge $4000 for illustrations. I was contacted by a major publisher this week for a project, but their budget was less than a third of what I usually charge.
5. Custom illustrated fantasy covers are risky. They are putting a lot of faith into an illustrator to create something beautiful and marketable. With a safe and boring cover, they know they will at least not hugely fail. It's the same reason we don't see that many new blockbuster movies that step outside of what producers know will sell. They aren't willing to gamble in order to make a masterpiece, they would rather settle for something safe and decent.
6. They are afraid to niche down. This in my opinion is a huge mistake in fantasy, where we are proud of our niche! They are afraid of losing out on a wider audience but in doing this they neglect their true audience.
You mention that it may be that there are marketing and financial reasons for these covers, I am almost certain that is not the case. Fantasy readers absolutely flock to books with unashamedly fantasy covers. We will buy books with covers we don't LOVE but just like, but people will be very excited about covers that just scream epic and fantasy. People are even willing to spend ridiculous amounts for books with covers they love. I think that the publishers have not tapped into this much yet.
I have noticed the disparity between special editions and publishers as well in my work, I am working with or have signed contracts to work with almost all of the major special edition book companies, and while I have met and talked to a ton of publishers, I have done very few covers for them that aren't special editions.
Book covers in general, not just fantasy, have gone downhill. Too many of them look generic or cheaply made that I just wouldn't pick them up. I know books should never be judged by their covers, but who are we kidding? We always have & always will. Not only that, but with the influx of AI art ruining the space, it doesn't give me much hope. Covers don't have to be a 'masterpiece' but they should reflect the story in some way. Imagine picking up a book with a rabbit on the cover & there's no mention of a rabbit in the book; click bait in book form.
A book cover is a window into the story held within the book. It's not just the art but the color, the font, a lot goes into expressing what qualities are going to be within the text.
Look at the great art of the paperbacks in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. A lot of horror novels sold on their brilliant covers. Hell, do you think the Goosebumps or Fear street series would have been as big as they were if the cover art was bad?
Self publishing is the future mate
I really wish book covers (at least current ones) were allowed as much creativity as say - album covers. Of course they’re vastly different mediums but it seems like the artistic creativity is always at the forefront when it comes to an artist putting out a new album (in terms of the cover)
I think the fantasy genre has in general. The publishers are pushing just a sector, everyone else has to self publishing. I’m going through decades old books instead now.
It's cheaper to make a generic cover from a template than pay an artist what they're worth to make a beautiful cover.
Whenever someone talks about how cover art isnt important, I will always tell them Goosebumps. That series was almost sold based on the fantastic cover art alone.
I miss the beautiful covers of the 80s horror paperbacks and the 90s fantasy boom.
The thing that aggravates me the most is when publishing company’s change the cover on self published books that had beautiful covers. I hate that I can never find the original covers which were so much better!
Cover art used to be ART. Now it’s clip art. I love paranormal fantasy but refuse to buy vampire books with pink cartoon covers.
Stormlight archive, original wheel of time covers, the older discworld, dragonlance books... those are the covers i want❤😊
WE NEED TO BRING BACK GREAT FANTASY ART COVERS!! This is why I love Stormlight - those Michael Whelan covers are sublime!
As someone who had based almost 80-90% of my book purchases on cover buys, I absolutely lay most blame on publishers cost cutting.
Give me the evocative and beautiful fantasy covers of the past. And indie fantasy has been killing it lately with covers that grab me by the throat and make me want to buy them.
Modern book covers are almost all unbelievably boring imho. I miss the old sweeping art covers with actual characters depicted.
The publisher didn't want to pay Whelan. You're right, it's a tragedy.
I actually hate most of book covers nowadays. Not because they are ugly, but because they don't differ from each other, they lack character and interesting ideas. And with AI now ... well, I don't think they will improve anytime soon
It's all a bunch of bright colors, patterns, fancy fonts and minimalist renditions of things like trees and daggers. It's all done on computers, and serves the main purpose of saving the publishing houses a ton of money and time. Why hire expensive artists when you can just get someone to throw together some flashy pre-made patterns on some swanky version of Canva for less than half the price?
At least print an already existing painting over it, like the Oxford or Macmillan’s Classic Editions.
@frizzyrascal1493 That's a pretty cool idea!
The dark, flowery, super busy, and nondescript fantasy covers are “art” I used to do in middle school and high school on my folders when I was horrible bored in class and only had a black and a red pen in my bag!
As a designer, I knew which ones were fantasy straight away. The two you pretended that were fantasy, took me by surprise. And then you said that they weren’t fantasy. Suspicions correct. 😂
I just glanced over to my shelf of 300+ fantasy books, and I don't really agree with your points. Yes, the art is different from the 60s, but they are still proudly showing fantasy. I don't think fantasy illustraors or publishers are "ashamed" of looking nerdy. At least my experience is way different then.
I think it's just a matter of personal preference. He loves dragons and character art and more dragons on his book covers and that's fine but other cover styles can work just as well. Like, I do think the cover of The Adventures of Amina al-Sarafi fits the story very well and the medieval style of the new Robin Hobb covers works well too.
@@AigraAlso the American edition of Amina al-Sirafi has a sea monster on it, so...
Yeah I really like the minimalist design. Even back with Twilight series. I never read them but I liked their cover. But I disagree with him. it was obvious that into the storm and this is where we live isn’t fantasy. When he tricked us I was shocked cause into the storm looks like a self help book. So when he revealed the lie I was like oh man you’re not proving your point at all. But yeah it’s all preference based.
I correctly guessed all fantasy books in the start of the video, btw
Legend!
Thank you for watching!
I agree with everything. I want my fantasy covers to be real art, not just an interesting graphic design. I love the Stormlight archives covers and one of the reasons I'm picking up Mistborn in hardcover is how detailed the art is compared to the paperback version (besides actually preferring to read hardcovers). The Sky on Fire, The Silverblood Promise, and Dragon Rider are all book covers from 2024 that I think did a decent job at saying "I'm fantasy".
Personally I'm glad about the state of modernism these days. It makes buying cheap, epice second hand stuff so much easier. Books, TV, board games, video games the list goes on.
This most likely is just a corporate cost cutting measure, the more generic the art the less it likley costs.
Maybe it's just my age showing, but there's something almost definitive about seeing a fantasy book cover by Michael Whelan, or something in his style. When you think of books like "The Symphony of Ages" series, or "The Guardians of the Flame", or books by Lawrence Watt-Evans, Barbara Hambly, Mercedes Lackey, and of course, Robert Jordan, you know you're reading a fantasy novel. Too many modern book covers seem like slicked up sexy bacon, and are leagues away from tickling that sense of epic awe.
Michael Whelan is such an icon when it comes to how I perceive "classic fantasy covers".
It's a trend in everything, to corporatize it and "professionalize," it. New residences, the complete reformation of fast food chain buildings from having any character etc. The idea is to make it obscure and indefinable so you don't take any risks.
I’ve been reading fantasy since 1980 and you are right, you to browse the shops and you looked at the wonderful covers, there was a whelan, a hildevrandt, a Taylor, a lot of times you knew the cover artist as much as the author
@@neiltaylor513 And earlier you had Frazetta, Olivia and Vallejo ... although the Ballantine LotR covers were a hoot.
@ I always had a soft spot for Geoff Taylor, every cover he did seemed to have totally nothing to do with the story in the book lol
I'm guessing it's both marketing + cost - bland covers let snobs feel better about reading fantasy, and the minimalist designs are probably cheaper to get done than something that requires intricate work or the straight up paintings that were done for older fantasy covers.
Yes I think you are right. After editing this video I felt I had SO much more to add to this discussion but definitely think there is some validity to the claim that standardised covers might draw other readers in. (and yes, cost is probably also a big factor). Thanks for watching and commenting.
I disike how "mature" modern covers try to be. This fake sense of maturity is insanely off-putting to me, someone who read The Lord of the Rings in his childhood - same goes for illustrations and interesting/unique designs. I remember the German book series "The Dwarves" having an amazing hard cover edition with beautiful illustrations and wonderful formatting that just made it so much fun to experience. Kinda hate how the current "meta" is to make books LOOK as bland and boring as possible, preferable like one of these 1$ ones you find in local supermarkets everyone usually ignores.
What I don't get about this is... why aren't they more aesthetically pleasing and minimalistic then? There's an edition of The Silmarillion with a beautiful minimalistic cover in blue, some elvish runes and lines, with a gem in the middle. Looks like an ancient book you'd find in a magic library. That's cool, looks nice, eye-catching, doesn't look "immature".
People enjoy making fun of Japanese Light Novel covers and their silly names, but they immediately show you what's going on. "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" is about an old elf mage girl who fought the Demon King with the chosen hero and they won. But since time flows differently in an elf's brain, she told her friends to visit them at the next festival. Sadly that's ~70 years later and the hero she loved is now an old, dying man. The story explores her past with her friends, how she deals with the fact that she never said goodbye, how she wasted her time and actually cared for everyone, but couldn't express herself. Very melancholic, but positively so.
The cover has the protagonist sit on a beautiful meadow looking into the distance, turning her back to her friends when they were young. Font is sublte mit uniquely magical.
That's, like... absolutely perfect? If that'd be a western book, it'd have a bland font, red background and something random like the tip of a magic staff or a CGI model of an amulet.
Another simple and cool one is Majo no Tabitabi, The Journey of Elaina. It's an anthology about a travelling witch. Cover is aesthetically pleasing, colors are perfect, has the protagonist winking at the viewer while grabbing her witch hat. Bam. Simple as that. You immediately know what it's about. I hope we'll return to covers like that.
"These book covers suck.... but OMG the designers are so talented" lol
Most of the covers are cheaply made. There is mostly no drawing involved. And by using AI it will even become more cheap and presuably crappy, too.
It doesnt help that the author has no say on the covers when traditionally publishing.
This is why I really only buy books from special edition stores like illumicrate, fairyloot, owl crate, broken binding etc.. they all do such an amazing job with the covers although you do have to pay a pretty penny for them. I agree that it would be nice to see traditional publishers bring back the elements we love about fantasy in the artwork
To me, the most important thing about a cover is Identity. In this case Identity is more than just "this is a fantasy book" it could be "this is a [insert culture] book" or a "this is a [theme or tone] book" etc. Honestly I feel like th books used as an example around 2:24 are poot examples for the argument. To me the 4th one, Darkome looks like a SciFi book maybe Dystopia. The Hurricane Wars cover tho looks amazing and well... kinda looks like a Hurricane with depictions of story relevant stuff. It clearly has had just as much effort and work put into it. I also think this kinda shows how narrow a view "Fantasy" is generally seen in, like it doesn't need dragons to be "Fantasy." (Side note, I am excited to read some more foreign/international fiction/fantasy to see the different PoV and "evolution path" it took).
You’re spot on on your take. As a lifelong fantasy reader, I yearn for covers that capture my imagination. That “The Blade Itself” cover highlighting Logen and Ferro is superb. And agreed that the Gwynn books and Stormlight are like upgrades of what I grew up loving (such as the original Wheel of Time stuff).
I remember seeing the original Tad Williams Dragonbone books in Costco as a teenager. I fell in love immediately. I’m not sure I would have picked them up if they were in the modern style!
The Book That Wouldn't Burn looks like sci-fantasy to me, and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi screams swashbuckling adventure fantasy to me.
I think it’s definitely minimalist vs maximalist. There’s nothing wrong with one or the other inherently, but I think with fantasy or sci fi, which have such robust stories/worlds, a maximalist cover, aka a cover with lots of illustrations to encompass the spirit of the story, probably works better. I can understand why publishers are pushing such minimalist covers since it’s the modern trend, but it may be to the detriment of certain genres like fantasy. Contemporary literary fiction definitely seems more worthy of minimalist.
Fantasty trad pub is awful. Current cover design is corporate and lame. Self pub and small publishers like Baen know how to commission a piece of art and make it the cover. Had been like this for almost 20 years now.
Corporate npc art directors all just groupthink and push out the same boring covers. Specifically, i blame the people who work at the publishers. Specifically the art and graphic designers.
When outsiders with no training like Petrik Leo can design awesome books for Broken Binding, and boutiques like Curious King can make beautiful books, and self pub Kickstarters like Gunmetal Gods and have kickass art……no excuses for the corporate flunky.
current popular media has an art problem in general, in terms of traditional drawing and painting. they'd happily shove ai art down people's throats if they could get away with it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking it's harder to get a sense of what a book is about by it's cover. I was actually thinking about adding something to the reviews I post about how well the cover ties to the story, or if the cover misleads the reader at all.
I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY agree with you that modern, especially trad-published, covers have become generic and uninteresting. Certainly very few are evocative in fantasy.
Speaking as someone who grew up in the 70's and 80's and LOVED going to the bookstore to drool over all the fantasy books and their covers, I miss those days. 😩☺
Rajaneimi's Darkome is not fantasy, it's SciFi. It's about a future world where DNA manipulation is possible, and programmable on the go. The main character is ill and her program chip can somehow keep her alive but she belongs to a ideology-bound group which does not allow such tech. She must choose to stay with the 'family' or stay alive. Trouble is, the govt wants to know her secret tech.
thank you for an interesting video!
Glad you enjoyed!
I think the art style is still recognizable, it's just much different than it was 10+ years ago. I do agree with your points that sometimes these new cover styles don't really give you much sense as to what you can expect from the book. Maybe, after reading, it all makes sense more, but it would be nice it we weren't doing as much guesswork. Don't think it's a big deterrent for me, but I do generally prefer scenes and characters over symbols and abstract imagery.
@@astevenswrites Yes agree. I do think modern covers are beautiful. Unfortunately though, most of them don't really tell me much about the story itself.
The original US Assassin’s Apprentice cover was actually really good.
I recently got the Green Rider on Libby specifically because the cover art drew me in. I never heard of the series, but I'm already on book 2. These covers have a market.
By Kristen Britain?
I want all of my fantasy books looking like those older corgi editions of Discworld with Josh Kirby as an illustrator
Those covers are so iconic!
Y'all do realize that this is the epitome of "do not judge a book by it's cover". This is why there are blurbs and synopsis pieces on the book to give you an idea of what's inside.Now, I admit, I pick up books with eye catching covers, which for me covers a wide range of design; but I put them back as well when the blurb doesn't indicate something I want to read.
The justification, as I've heard it, is that they're catering to online purchases. When scrolling a website, a book cover is, at most, an inch tall on a screen; there's only so much detail that shows up unless you click into the book.
Granted, an under utilized strategy could be to purposefully make covers with just the right amount of detail to make people click in to see a bigger picture.
Tbh, i always prefer a cover that really shows me it's fantasy even if it's weird or ugly because it's easier to find in libraries that don't have a shelf only for fantasy and in small bookstores
This was an amazing video on a topic that is dear to me. It would have been unfortunate if I hadn't watched this video. Similarly, the title of your video didn't fully portray the topic. But, that's a common trend on TH-cam right now, and I personally hope it will end soon.
I'm a bit different on this.
Personally, I find it *fairly* easy to spot the difference between fantasy and non-fiction. Sure, before it was literally thrown in your face, but I still, it's not a big deal for me. And my second (and final) take is that, at least in public, I don't want the cover to be super fantastical. I like myself a fantastical cover when it's on the shelf, but when I'm out in public reading, and I have a fantastical cover, I kind of try to hide the cover a bit, and if I can, I just take a different book that has a more generic cover. That's just how *I* am though. But fun video anyway!
I think this is a very good addition to the conversation. Thank you for watching :)
Raise your freak flag dude, don't hide it behind generic.
I like a wide range of art styles for book covers. I actually really like the style on Williams' latest _Osten Ard_ books, but it really is a shame that they weren't done by Michael Whelan (possibly my all-time favorite fantasy book cover artist). But I also agree that publishers are playing follow-the-leader with the cover style lately.
Yes I do as well! The new Tad Williams covers are not bad - they are just so out of style from the other ones which is a shame :(
I use Goodreads as my companion when looking at books. The covers don’t do much imho anymore. I don’t automatically reject a book based on the crappy cover anymore.
I honestly love bold, graphic covers. Like the revamp for Dungeon Carl is something I would totally pick up compared to the older version because it has mystery behind it! Maybe it's just because I am a graphic designer and cover designer, too. But I I love the bold, intriguing style that many new covers have.
Love this comment! I think the new DCC is definitely more appealing to a wider audience!
I think I could have guessed The Book That Wouldn't Burn as fantasy if I hadn't already known about it... something about the grand space stacked with books and fiery lighting, but I guess it could be construed as a generalized library to someone else.
Compare that to the rest of the covers. Yeah, publishers are not doing a good job selling fantasy right now. As a reader, it's not only confusing, but discouraging and if you're not paying attention to books through places like this, would you be encouraged to check these out? Or would you miss modern fantasy by picking something else that looks almost identically plain?
Those UK covers of The Wheel of Time are so bad and I'm pretty sure I would never pick those books off a shelf as a new reader who had never heard of the series. Now, the old art? That definitely catches the eye.
I actually like the The Book That Wouldn't Burn Cover but I don't think it feels "fantasy" but thank you for sharing your perspective.
The new Wheel of Time really do make me sad... :(
One that you could satisfy both the customer who appreciates a beautifully detailed fantasy scene and the customer who's too shy to pull out a book with a shirtless barbarian on the cover while he's riding the bus would be to use one image for the cover and another for the jacket (you could even make the jacket reversible to offer a third choice), but it's difficult to communicate this to somebody browsing a bookstore, who is likely to assume that what they see in front of them is all they're getting.
8:37 I was just going to say that self pub has great fantasy covers. You can definitely see a difference between whether a book is traditional or self pub because self pub actually looks like fantasy
As for covers I miss in the 90s we had photo art. Like the illustrations in the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy had photos of real models one of the fox trot collections is a photo of a Bulletin board or I spy books? I want those to make a comeback but I suppose they were never that dominant anyway
4:34 Assassin's Apprentice USA Edition: I'm a ugly hobbit.
I was so mad when they redid the Discworld covers and voice acting in the audiobook
I hadn’t really thought about it before but I think there’s something in your observation - I guess something about marketing trends? Interesting though that LOTR often has “epic” and “clear/bold” covers published at the same time, presumably targeting different readers.
I prefer new covers but it should not be the only factor in deciding
I hate storm light covers but I know it's a great fantasy
I think the difference is less the hiding away of distinguishing marks of fantasy and way more a shift from literal depictions of the story into symbolic vibes-based design. Also I think we shouldn’t discount that the title of a novel is part of the cover too and contributes to the cover’s message; you need to do a lot less work to show that “Darkome” is fantasy than, say, “Shadows of Self.” Those WoT covers are sinful though.
The covers of the mass market paperback versions of The Liveship Traders are FANTASTIC! Have you ever seen them? I'm kicking myself for selling my copies. I AM KICKING MYSELF!!
Maybe it's because I am an author, maybe it's because I majored in book publishing, but I could not only tell which books were fantasy (you got me there for a moment BTW, I was like, "welp I got half of them wrong") I could tell their price range and more or less what subgenre they were in and I haven't checked but I am willing to bet that they are all trad published. Their covers are very to market. It's not in fashion anymore to have pictoric illustrations for book covers, but the colors, the designs, they are like speaking a language and they say fantasy (I was a bit unsure if Darkome wasn't sci-fi, but I guess it could be urban fantasy), the fonts are kinda artistic, the designs are more organic than say non-fiction books. The covers all look sorta the same because that's the role of the cover from a book making stand point, it's to speak the cover language and inform the reader upon looking the genre, the vibes and the price.
I like that you noticed the self-published books have a different cover lingo than the trad published books and that is made on purpose. Most people associate trad publishing with quality, so it is made to have this distinction on purpose. Do indie books have cooler covers? As an indie author I might be biased but I love them. They don't sell as well.
I love beautiful artistic covers, but I can tell from experience unless they are done a specific way they struggle to sell the books.
As an American, I've been buying the UK versions of some books because I like their cover designs better, such as The Kingkiller Chronicles.
I agree modern covers don’t immediately let the reader know this is a fantasy book like old ones did. I think the reason is 90s and older fantasy covers generally depicted a scene, where you could see that there were fantasy characters, creatures and landscape. Modern fantasy covers tend to focus on a few key graphics or items, such as a sword, and they rarely have people on them. They simply don’t give as much info away about the book as the old ones did.
The new style must sell better because otherwise publishers wouldn’t do it, but I find it bland compared to the old style.
nah,the new style is cheaper than illustration
That is a good about cost. Publishers are trying to save money
The whole subject is wierd. Almost none of the WOT covers showed any actual scene from their books.
Why can't they do something good???
Ngl I think the "standardization" of covers better reflects how diverse the fantasy sphere has become over the years. Maybe Epic* Fantasy is going through an identity crisis, but for all the different types of twists on the greater genre as a whole, I think what we have now better reflects the tone and ideas of these books. My only issues with covers right now would either be the use of AI or just how certain trends produce books with covers that are all same-y (but that's not a new issue).
Interesting video, but I think such a wide genre being dissected through the lens of primarily epic fantasy doesn't fit well.
I guessed them all correctly and then when you told that lie I went back and said “I would never have guessed Into the storm is Fantasy and I ALMOST said This is where we Live is but it felt too metaphorical. But what really shocks me is that Hurricane Wars isn’t- I get Darkome because it seems like sci fi so I get drawing the line there but I’ve seen Hurricane Wars on shelves for years and always thought it was fantasy” then you said you had lied… and everything made sense.
I’ve been disappointed with so many of the fantasy covers lately. I miss the pictures that show at least some content in the book. It helps with the imagining of the story to get at least a flavor of the world and its colors
Cover wise I really prefer the simple color with a title and maybe some symbol related to the book. Like the old leather bound look. The overdone art and busy covers just give me a headache xD
great video
When you were about to show the covers by Orbit and their logo popped up, I immediately thought "How could a company with a logo that generic and bland make good book covers?" Then you proceeded to show generic covers by them and said they weren't good.
Which makes perfect sense, and is kind of funny, but a cover is such a fun/cool thing and it's unfortunate that it gets squandered so much by trad-publishers.
I hadn't seen that original Rage of Dragons cover but that's really the perfect example of having 'a story with characters in a scene' on the cover vs what's effectively just a pattern/emblem that might as well be any random objects/shapes since it's indistinct from all the other covers coming out.
Magic the gathering card art usually has great stories-in-single-images.
So many cards in that game would make amazing book covers. Trad-pub has gotta start hiring those artists with mtg-style art-direction for fantasy novels. That'd make everyone want more books, even non-readers would get into it because of the art alone. haha
The cover for The Book that Wouldn't Burn is perfect for the book that it is in my opinion.
There are 2 reasons for.
1 - The cover artists don't read the books they working on. They get a small sumarization and do their job based on this sumarizatation at best.
2 - In general, Dragons, Elves or Heros on a cover look like Kids books. Today, the main customer base for Fantasy books are women that often have no kids and those women would be ashamed openly buy a Kids book.
One of the best parts of fantasy is when you get to the point that you understand the cover art. My standards are WoT hardcovers and Stormlight archive. Anything less is a disappointment
It doesn’t mean they’re losing their identity because it doesn’t impact the story. Also covers like the bloodsworn saga by John Gwynne show the cover art game is still strong
Oh yes they are beautiful!!
Dont judge a book by its cover is the biggest BS in literature there is. Book covers sell me
I have Michael whelans art books. He did two covers for a sci fi book. Ones with an alien on the cover, the other with a human. The publishers was seeing what would sell better
I really like beautiful book covers, but yeah they all kind of blend into one super-pretty rainbow mesh. I guess we really can't judge books by their covers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Contradiction: You said no more "pulpy" covers. Dungeon Crawler Carl has the pulpiest cover you showed in the video and you absolutely love it. (Side note: The 1960s Lord of the Rings Covers are not "pulpy). Nonetheless, we agree, almost all of these new covers suck (despite the pretty colors). Nothing competes with Michael Whelan's Memory Sorrow and Thorn covers (except possibly Frank Frazetta's Conan covers).
Thank you for watching! I’d love to hear your thoughts-how do you feel about the way fantasy is represented through cover art?
Covers aren’t the problem it’s the Trad Pub Industry no longer choosing Authors and Books to push based on merit. It’s losing its identity because the best of the best are no longer embraced by Trad Pub and have to go the Independent Publishing route. Start embracing Books/Series based on Merit again and this too shall pass…
I love everything designed by Jeff Brown💜 THAT is a good rep of fantasy + sf through cover art.
I use to prefer the US Baen covers to the UK ones. I thought the embossed Fallen Angels by Baen was just beautiful. If I want to collect a series I want them all by the same cover artist. Nothing better having a set of books that are in the same size, look and format. I got my Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn in large trade paperback. Big, heavy and bulky, but I love them, even if the spines are creased and worn.
I suspect that a lot of modern covers are just made to look identifiable on mobile devices
I’m not sure if I agree that it’s as bad as you say (or what I’m understanding from your video). I only knew one book of the set you flashed on screen, but I got all the fantasy books right. Some of them (Darkome) did almost throw me off, but I generally find that fantasy book covers are often more detailed, contain more elements associated with fantasy (ie swords, weapons, glyphs, symbols), and/or have… more painterly? Rendered? hand drawn? illustration styles as opposed to more abstract or simplistic styles (no matter how beautiful). Though I do agree that there are a lot of fantasy books out there that don’t have the genre-signalling they should have (Skyward Inn was a good example. Too abstract, yeah)
The reason why Darkome threw me off was more because of the gene strand in the background. Looking at the synopsis, the artist probably went for portraying vibe (old school comics = dubiously sci fi/fantasy) + core elements of the story (rNA, pandemics). Idk. I haven’t read the book. But I can see why they made the choices they did.
In all fairness, art IS subjective. And book covers nowadays HAVE been veering more to emphasizing the title text and author’s name over the actual illustration of the book cover (just look at how much space the text takes up compared to older covers). Based on your examples though, you seem to prefer covers with more emphasis on the illustration or where the text is part of the illustration itself, which doesn’t really align with the design trend… not bad, just preference.
That said, I enjoyed the video! This was an interesting topic to think about, and I agree with a lot of your other points.
I think this is less about the covers being "fantasy ish" and more about the book covers being boring these days with the more exciting / fantasy ish covers released as special edition books...
Maybe it's expensive to have really nice covers on books, maybe publishers are taking readers at their words when they say don't judge a book by its cover, maybe they just can't be ars*d 🤷🏾♀️. I mean, who really knows what goes on in the murky world of publishing..
Either way, the covers have gotten a lot boring no doubt but I bet publishers would say something like, "but we save the good stuff for the special edition & don't you just love that."
I have a theory that aesthetics are periodized, even if the aesthetes used make no sense what-so-ever LOL
Need some Kirby covers !
You're framing it in your thumbnail as a definite when I'm sure you know more than most it's an issue of later generic editions that boost the value inherently of snagging first editions with the cool concept art. You know this, man! No book nowadays, well maybe,but hardly any fantasy/horror book worth its salt and name, that I know of, isn't going to be ultra generic lackluster from the get-go and not compete for eyes, even modestly. So it's an issue of later generic editions not lost art from the get-go.
My favorite fantasy covers are the lord of the rings trade paperbacks (the color coded ones) with simple symbols and images. I don’t think they would work for every series, but they are by far the classiest
Edit: I got further into the video and Lord of Chaos has a good cover and I will die on this hill (fires of heaven is trash though)
Those are iconic! And nooooo, I can't stand the Lord of Chaos cover haha
I disagree and I was able to guess all the books correctly. Designs are now more modern but fantastical element is always there.
They are more minimalistic now they don't have full fledged paintings on them.
The new asoiaf covers are great
Interesting topic. Art is subjective though, so I see your point, but I think it’s easy to argue the other side of this as well. Thank goodness bookstores don’t sort their books by cover design….lol.
Thank you for watching! There are definitely lots of good arguments on the other side!
3:49 Why are you so afraid to just flat out say these covers are garbage? 😅. Who cares if you offend the artist who made them. If you call the covers beautiful it’s not really constructive criticism, it’s just “beating around the bush”.
Michael Whelan is getting old now, one of the last great cover artists.
@ From what I’ve heard he won’t be doing any more cover art. The man is in his mid 70s and with Brandon Sanderson taking his 5 year hiatus from Stormlight Archive, there is no way he could do the future covers. And that’s a real shame because I absolutely love his artwork on those covers
@@Aych328 He is a legend, one of the best ever. I have his artbooks, they are amazing.
Was just about to comment about the video about the horror cover video
It is such a great video!
I've noticed the change, but haven't made up my mind if I think it's a 'good' or bad thing. I'm going through the Night Runner Series and the cover art on the first three books , which were published in the 90s is so different from the covers for rest of the series which were published as late as 2014. The later books could have almost been mistaken for romance novels (speaking of romance books, I don't read them but I've noticed a similar topic of conversation is going on about the change in covers over there. Apparently the highly stylized colorful covers have been changed to something... more bland)
Having said all that, I admit I have a second hand copy of the famous LoTR Purple Emu edition. Not to read, but because they were charmingly weird.
Thank you for the comment. I am also not sure if it is a good or bad thing yet. While I do prefer covers with fantastical art on them, I am more interested in people reading fantasy. If modern covers help more people pick up the books then I am all for it!
I even run into problems with my book covers because artists want to steer towards these safe designs. So, I design and create my own. This also explains why people are steering towards the use of AI because they can't get what they want from artists who only want to stay on trend.
3:38 The Tarot's hanged man makes an appearance.
Hm, so let's add a dragon at the cover of The Book That Wouldn't Burn because it'sss fantasyyy.
I love the Broken Binding, but please do not call the Fine Press. The are NOT Fine Press - at all.
1:33 But it still looks like a fantasy book.
It is probably a result of of the genre becoming more popular. Although romance books still have shirtless guys on them (mostly?) lol.
Yes! It is probably a mixture of it getting more popular and the publishing firms having some data that current covers sell better.
Yeah the standard for the covers hasn't been good in probably decade or a bit more. Like when i got into adult fantasy i started with First Law, you'd expect from a series that's that famous to have more interesting art other than a sword, dagger and a halebard. Just a bit more effort can go a long way.I genuinely started malazan just because i saw the art and the title, art isn't great or anything but it does set the atmosphere for the book and the title intrigues you. And i don't like the money excuse for a well established titles and writers. You can find a couple of artists in the fan base that would probably do it even for free or a small amount.
Ryan Cahill's books are self published but they are quite generic.
EVERYTHING contemporary is generic looking. Every vehicle looks the same. New construction houses all look the same. Video game controllers are standardized. Some genres of music all sound the same. I have a middle schooler. Literally every one of his friends have the same haircut and dress the same. As a culture, we've lost individuality.
My most favorite cover is Lord of the Rings, it's just red with a golden ring in the middle. Just perfect. I almost only read on my kindle as I don't have any space for physical books so the cover should not make any difference. Wrong 😅
Especially German books are ugly as hell. My heart bleeds when I compare John Gwynn's books in English and German.
Agreed that a lot of new covers are lame and generally bland. I wonder also if it has anything to do with earlier covers actually being paintings, like Elmore, and how much is creater digitally.
And I have developed a habit of picking up ealier editions of LoTR as there are just a lot of beautiful covers.
Damn only guessed 3/5 correct.. oh well it means I was right lol
Haha! Well done!