Since I’ve been commissioning new packages for my historical romances, I thought it was time to ask your opinion about covers and images. Here we go!
I’m curious to see your answers. Please feel free to share the poll link with friends who read historical romance. 🙂
Deborah Cooke & Her Books 
I voted 🙂
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Thanks!
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P.S. I’m going to leave the survey up through NEXT weekend so you have lots of time to reply. We’ll look at the results on August 1.
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I voted
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I also appreciate consistency between covers of a series!
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That’s a good point, Cindy. I like when a series LOOKS like a series!
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I agree!!
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Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so many semi nude and nude guys that I’m not so thrilled about the ‘steamy and or smarmy’ covers.
Don’t get weird thoughts about my statement.
I was an RN for 34 years and the last 14 years was as the Clinical Coordinator of a service that saw mostly men aged from their mid twentys to fiftys at a Veteran’s Medical Center.
I like cover illustrations that have something to do with the story such as locations or an event in the story.
If the protagonist and or protagonist are featured on the cover then I dislike it when I read the story describing the characters as the opposite of the cover illustrations.
That happens almost all of the time from hair and eye color to features of the characters or even the plaid design in Highland stories.
It tells me that the cover illustrates an artist’s work that has nothing to do with the story.
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I’m not sure you asked the right questions to get useful answers.
I like covers that are classy – not something that is hastily put together with a stock photo by the author’s nephew – and while I’m neutral about people on the cover, a typical romance cover is embarrassingly bad and some combination of creepy and cliched. The bare-chested hero standing outside, posed, seems pretty artificial. The book with the hot PDA on the cover is a book I can’t leave lying around. Good looking dudes are great, but I also like them to be practical, not weirdly vain, wandering the Scottish moors with no cloak, in case a good-looking lady wanders by… 😉 I like guys who get things done, not ones that lounge about.
So for example, of the four covers at the top of this page, I like the one for Rosamunde best – because that’s the one that says, these are two real people, coming together to do things of importance. The rest are interchangeable people, throwaways, that say nothing about the character or the story – though at least all of them are attractive and ones that I wouldn’t be distressed for the kids to find.
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I votef
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I love books in a series, so that is my 1st choice when I buy a book. My most important reason to buy a book is the author; some are on my “must buy” list (Claire, you are one of them, and I have MANY of your books on my kindle!!). I prefer medieval historical romance and HOT is great but not essential. Request you KEEP ON WRITING!!
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I voted
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Voted
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I voted
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I think in some of the answers there were more than one answer so they would have needed a number of importance answer
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I voted but felt like choosing only one answer didn’t really describe how I feel. yes the covers are important but so are the authors and the descriptions of the story. I love a beautiful sensual cover, it doesn’t have to be a racy cover but there is certainly nothing wrong with that either. I also like reading stories that are in a series. For me the price matters because I am disabled and my budget is limited.
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