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Conclusion
Are there any conclusions we can reach from studying the above information? Yes, there are a few. First, there exist certain publishers who always seem to give credit for the art work they use in their paperback romances and there are also ones who almost never seem to give art credit in their paperback romances. Bantam and Sonnet/Pocket always seem to give credit and well they should since their covers consistently made it into our best nominations. However, Leisure, Love Spell, MIRA (owned by H/S), Harlequin/Silhouette, St. Martin’s, Dell, Fawcett and Zebra/Kensington seem to almost never give an art credit for their paperback romances. I have yet to see an art credit on an Avon paperback romance release but I’ve consistently seen art credits on its hardback romance releases. In fact, most hardback romance releases seem to list art credits, perhaps because of the cachet of being released in hardback.
We can only speculate as to the reasons for inclusion or failure to include art credits. For one, I doubt that the top artists/illustrators/designers in the book publishing business would agree to accept the assignments if their best work were to appear uncredited. They also might want their copyrights to clearly appear so that there is notice about their remaining rights in their work. Thus, such artists may only work for a publisher who credits them. Secondly, if I were illustrating the worst covers in the business, I would want my work to appear uncredited too. Indeed, five out of our six nominations for worst cover list no art credit. Might these publishers’ lines of romance novels start issuing better art work on their covers if they did run art credits? I would think so because I doubt most artists would agree to let their names run with really bad art work. Let’s face it: probably some of these publishers want art work this bad if they so consistently use it. They probably ask for it. Let’s give the artists a reason to balk at these requests.
Notice that certain artists’ names repeat in our slate of nominees. Franco Accornero appears so many times that he could possibly sweep three different award categories. Indeed, even at this level we must thank him for consistently delivering a high quality piece of art to romance books. On his entry for Bride To Be, a historical set in the regency era, I think he may well have come upon a cover image that the Regency Romance sub genre would be wise to emulate for a more sophisticated look. Lisa Litwack is also credited numerous times so we know she too is doing top art work in the romance genre. I hope that by forcing the spotlight on the artists and their work via this contest and my columns, romance publishers might take our input on covers more seriously than they have been. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they brought artists into their sphere of influence who are on the level of Bantam’s or Pocket’s (Sonnet is a Pocket imprint)?
A final note to authors: Many of you need to improve the visuals on your websites. You need large, clear scans of both your front cover and your stepback. Sandi and I are running into too many authors’ websites which have bad visual imagery and, in some cases, no visual imagery. Sometimes we are even stuck having to use authors’ bad visual(s) because there is no better image(s) anywhere else on the web. Also, check the scan of your cover at Amazon. If there is no scan of your cover, or if it is a bad scan, see if you can get Amazon to substitute a good one. Finally, many of you do not have your websites listed here at AAR. This increases our difficulty in finding you and including your work. There is a specific page at AAR for authors’ links where you should have your website’s link placed.
— Carol Irvinwith technical assistance from Sandi Morris
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