column: Goodness and Badness in Science Fiction and Fantasy Cover Art

[dreamking47]

There's a lot of really good cover design coming from small presses -- Aio Books, Prime, etc.

Also Orb (within Tor) has some really nice designs.  I wonder how separate they are from Tor?

MattD

[Shrain]

Hey Matt, Orb is an imprint of Tor, a part of Tom Doherty & Associates, which is in turn owned by Holtzbrink. The cool thing about Orb is that Tor set it up mainly as a way to keep the classics of speculative fiction in print. So they produce trade paperbacks (not mass market) of much loved books.

Now, I was *going* to paste in the FAQs url for Tor. But when I clicked on my Tor bookmark, I got directed to their new site. Whoohoo! I love surprises like that. Let's see... here's a quote about their Orb imprint: "Collector-quality trade paperback reprint editions of award-winning and noteworthy works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror."

Anyway, stumbling upon the new site is pretty awesome. If anyone's ever visited their site in the past couple years, you know that new stuff is hardly ever added. And now they've redone the whole thing! I wonder if the Nielsen Hayden's were involved in this one too?

Oh, a free newsletter! Sweet. Links to blogs for authors, artists, staff members, and other interesting sites. (Hmm, Brandon's sites aren't on there. Well, guess he'd better call up Moshe and ask about that.) Anyhoo, must go browse a bit more!

new url: http://www.tor-forge.com/

[dreamking47]

I agree, the new Tor website is very nice.  The focus is where it should be: on the books.

Re: Orb, thanks Shrain for the info.  I guess what I was wondering is whether Orb has its own marketing and design staff, or whether they use Tor's?

MattD

[WriterDan]

Yeah, but since when did Tor start publishing Harlequinn Romance books?

http://www.tor-forge.com/islandheat

So I'm sure that some authors wirte these kinds of books in "Fantasy" worlds, but the least they can do is keep the gratuitous love scene off of the cover of the books.  Is Tor just trying to break into the 50% market share that the Romance genre cerrently owns?  Can you say "sellout"?  What a travesty.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I love the term "sellout." Because it implies people sell stuff for reasons *other* than making money.

[Spriggan]

There's a lot of money to be made there so why wouldn't a rational company not want to try their hand in it?

I find opinion's like Dan_gaidin's disturbing since it's more or less "how dare they do something that I don't like" and the term sellout is very arrogant or demeaning and states the person saying it is better then others or superior and that is the same attitude that non-fantasy/sci-fi fiction writers have towards fantasy and sci-fi as well as people like Terry Goodkind.

If you don't like something that's fine, but don't start demeaning others because they do or saying the genre has no merit or you justify those that say the same thing about what you read.

[WriterDan]

Well... I obviously tweaked someone's nerves here.  I really didn't mean to.  If I had wanted to be demeaning, I could have been.  So, I think the whole repentance call was a bit much.  I really don't see myself as some  high-handed control freak that wants everyone to do things "my way".  Neither was I overly bent on showing myself as superior to any other party.  I am, however, a fantasy and sci-fi reader and I expect a publisher to realize that.  If I wanted to read a romance novel, then I'd buy a romance novel.  But I don't read romance.  I want to see fantasy and sci-fi.  And yes,  I know that there is going to be some overlap.  That's to be expected.  There is a major difference, however, between a fantasy novel with some romance in it, and a romance novel with some fantasy in it.  If they want to try their hand in a new genre with a romance novel set in a fantasy world, fine! be my guest!  Just don't market it as a fantasy book.  Market it as a romance.  Now, maybe the wording of my opinion that I have just shared here and the (obviously individually understood) meaning of what I posted earlier might be a tad different.  Ever say something with a little more gusto than usual to get people to respond to you?  I'd be the first to say yes.  So, I apologize if my moment of gusto made me "disturbing" to you Sprig.  Guess I need to do some more homework on the English language before I go bandying it about in such a reckless manner again.  You know, it never ceases to amaze me how radically different people's responses to a single word can be.

[stacer]

Actually, Dan, I don't think you're the target for paranormal romance. That side of Tor's business is more aimed at women, from what I can tell--they're trying to bring in romance readers to fantasy (and with romance being 50% of the whole fiction market sales, you can imagine why they'd like to capture that market too--and most of those romance readers are women). There's still plenty of regular fantasy and science fiction to go around for those whose preferences run more in your line of thinking. They're not changing that, as far as I can see--simply expanding their audience with a new imprint with a new focus. Not really a sellout so much as serving an underserved audience.

[Nessa]

Dan_gaidin, Sprig is easily annoyed/riled. Don't take it personally.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Don't take this as antagonistic, but your original post, using the word "sellout", was pretty contentious. I haven't ever heard it used in a non-condescending manner. So yeah, while you may be passive aggressive with the needing "to do some more homework on the English language before I go bandying it about in such a reckless manner again," it's not like anyone had a very strange reaction to your word choice.

If they want to try their hand in a new genre with a romance novel set in a fantasy world, fine! be my guest!  Just don't market it as a fantasy book.  Market it as a romance. 

See, the thing is, the very fact that we're having this discussion indicates that they *are* marketing it as a romance. Isn't the article this thread is based on about how covers target certain things? The cover in question DEFINITELY is targeting a certain group. That group isn't you. But it does make clear which group they think will like it.

[WriterDan]

Okay,

So there's definitely a HUGE difference between the old Tor website and the new one.  Based on the old one, I was under the impression that Tor wasn't into general Fiction or other arenas (just fantasy and sci-fi).  This new webiste is definitely 100% better than the last one.    So, I saw this romance cover on the enw site and it just about killed me because it looked underhanded.  Now that I've gone back and actually run through their website, it's obvious that they're keeping things separate, which I appreciate.  To me it smaked too much of the whole Terry Goodkind mess where he thinks that fantasy readers are stupid and he is just using the genre to pander his philocophical ideals -- trying to give the impression of one thing while really having his thrust elsewhere.  In this case, it looked as if (from my perspective) they were trying to sell a fantasy book with a "romantic" cover.  That was what bothered me mostly -- the seeming deception -- and thus my initial violent reaction to a limited initial amount of research.

And nothing taken personally here.  This is, after all, just a message board and I recognize the limited amount of authored meaning, and copious amounts of  reader understanding, that is inherent in this type of communication.  Thanks for the reponses.  Sorry for the mess.

[Spriggan]

Hum..about time Tor actually updated anything with their website, you're right it's a lot better then before but it's still lacking in a lot of ways.

[stacer]

I'd love to hear in what ways you think it's lacking, Sprig. I'm always interested in hearing that sort of thing about publishing sites--always on the lookout for good ideas.

[Spriggan]

Sure, I'll do a write-up (in a different thread) later on this week once I've had the time to thoroughly examine the site, though most of my complaints are layout, function and organization (labeling) related.

[Spriggan]

Writeup done, 6 pages without resources, references, ect 12 pages with.  The two files are attached to this post, if people want to discuss it make a new thread, I'm too tired to do so.