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Hi everyone. I made it home all safe and sound, only one slight detour as there was a wreck of some type on I 10 and we had to switch to US 90 at one point. Not sure what the wreck was, but it must have been pretty big to detour traffic.
Kathryn - I love seeing how your covers progress. I love the last cover although I have to say that I like how the red on the first cover shows up on the thumbnail. I can't actually say if I like the red splotches in the full size cover. Is that supposed to be blood? I know you said there was a war going on. However, I'm also not sure that the current title text is bold enough as it is, but it looks good in the thumbnail. Also, your name in the thumbnail seems to not be very legible. If I didn't already know your name, I wouldn't be able to tell who the author was.
His hands look much better. You did a good job there and now that I see their hands on the other side, I can tell that Chris was spot on when she made that comment. It isn't something that occurred to me when I first saw the render with his abs and no hands. Their hands do break up that line and it looks much better. I like the dragon and the landscaping in the background. I don't think I would go much smaller with your couple. I know as a reader, seeing the couple and their interaction on the cover is one thing that will sell a book to me. At the moment, I, personally, don't think it looks too crowded. And other than not being able to read your name, the thumbnail looks good.
Hi Cathy! So glad you got home safe and sound. It's nice to visit but it's always really nice to come home to your own bed too. lol!
Thanks so much for you feedback on the covers! The red at first started out when I was experimenting with the layer style and on one option hit Vivid Light as the blending mode. The red spatters suddenly appeared and they did look like blood spots to me. I have a brush that can make spots like that too so I kinda messed with it a little. I like the red color as a counter but yeah, the blood spots just don't really work.
On my name - now I'm about ready to kick it to the curb. lol! The font I'm using is my little "tradition" I always have my name printed in Cinzel font on covers, it's just a theme that I stick with so hopefully my name is more recognizable because people get so used to seeing it like that. As for the rest, anything goes when it comes to my author tag. The problem is with the colors on the cover, the only thing that really stands out is the layers style I used on the title - but that darned outer glow I really have to watch. When I put my name in the style matching the title it overloads the cover and looks terrible. So I tried without the outer glow, and we can't see it. I tried a different color. I tried every color in the freaking rainbow. All the same, you either can't see it or if you can it looks stupid. Like this one: (Love the color though - can't use it on this cover but I'm saving the style for another day.)
So I went back and tried the title layer styles again and this time adjusted the outer glow one pixel at a time and then the opacity one percentage point at a time. (I know, I know, I'm hopeless. lol!)
This is what I came up with. It still makes the title and name a little heavy to me but considering everything else I tried - I think this might be the best I'm gonna get unless some has another idea. (Please someone have another idea! lol!)
I'm glad you like the hands, thank you! Notice too that with my name tweak, we can't see them anymore. Rats! ;) It always works out like that for me whatever I work the hardest on with posing - turns out can't see it on the cover.
And yes, I don't want to mess with the H/H sizes too much that's a very fine line to walk and absolute suicide if you cross it. hehe! I just want to make sure I've got everything balanced and no massive voids anywhere.
Thanks again for your help with this!
Oh and I was working on some other stuff while I was waiting for feedback. I'll make promotional items and stuff. I was working on something with the dragon, he isn't very prominent on the cover so I thought I'd do a little something with him on it. I worked and worked and finally thought I had something pretty cool but then stepped back and looked at the bigger picture. I started laughing like crazy and had to add something that was the icing on the cake! Check it out!
Needless to say - this one isn't going to be a serious promo any time soon - maybe a gag gift or something. lol!
Cheers,
Kath
Hi Kathryn, yes, I can't wait to sleep in my own bed tonight!! I do love traveling, but I love coming home even more.
Yeah, both thumbnails are much more readable as far as your name, but I wouldn't go with the purple. I like the second one even if you can't see all the hard work you did on the hands. Love the little "Beware of Dog" sign. LOL Now if you could just change that to say "Beware of Dragon"... with a little work you could put it up as a free wallpaper for your readers. :) I'm sure they would get a kick out of it.
I like the last one a lot. I think the dragon needs to go up and a hair to the right (my right, looking at the screen). Its just slightly off to my sense of symmetry. Which I will admit is very strong. I have a hard time with asymmetrical anything lol. Although I am working on it. And please take it with a grain of salt it may just be me.
hehe! Thanks Cathy! Now the sign was pristine when I found it - I added all the grunge and bent it up. I thought about putting dragon but with the way he's jumping on the fence he's all growly snarly, dog just seems to fit better, especially since an old beat up sign - what in the hell have they been feed that dog? Um - trespassers. lol!
Thanks Sonja - it's really just a joke. I was laughing because while working on it - I got so focused on one "tree" that I didn't even think about the "forest" until I was getting ready to save it and could take a step back from it - literally.
My husband and son got a kick out of it too. ;)
Okay I gotta get up early for the HowReRoll's morning stream. I posted a couple of pages back about the art I was doing with the hippogryph I made in DAZ and other things I did in PS. Well, the DM is like a kid in a candy store, he loved my little "care package" and said he's going to use the stuff in the stream tomorrow morning. My son and I both have double alarms set because he starts at 5:00am and we don't want to miss it. lol! I usually never actually wake up but hit the snooze, not remembering why I set the alarm, and the second time I usually turn it off. Never once do I become conscious. lol!
Anyway, gonna set the coffee pot to go off at 4:30.
Have a good one!
Cheers,
Kath
Hey everyone. So, I had this idea for a book cover and have been playing around with it for a few weeks. It isn't a finished render as I'm still playing with the texture for the gun handle which I ended up doing myself. I also don't have the dimensions for a proper cover set yet. I'm just wondering what everyone thinks about this as a possible cover for a mystery type novel. Any thoughts? I'll take any comments or observations.
Hmmm. Really can't see the gun unless the image is studied. If you hadn't mentioned it, I'm not sure I would have noticed it in the three-second glance these covers usually get.
I do notice the rose, paper with lipstick, and writing pad. Color- and texture-wise, these are the dominant objects in the scene. Based on these elements, I'm assuming it's a murder made to look like a suicide. If so, I think I'd bring out the gun MUCH more, and instead of the writing pad (bad angle), think about superimposing one or two lines of text of the note in a creative way so that it blends in with the scene. (I think I'd play with making the smoke from the gun grow upward and form the letters. I'm a big fan of that, though it's not the answer for everything. This PS brush set shows some examples of using text as scene elements: http://www.daz3d.com/ron-s-text-effects).
Of course, maybe it's not a murder-as-suicide at all, in which case, nevermind!
Kathryn, I just did y quick dive-in on this side tonight and saw your new cover. The couple looks very good, love the flying dragon as well, but your name in the thumbnail is nearly unreadable. To much fuzzy light-colored background. You are a good author and a good artist, no need to hide your name, I think.
As for the dragon on the mountain wall- to my tired eyes it looks like he`s wearing the headdress of a jester.
Well. Maybe I should go to sleep asap and have another look tomorrow.
I was thinking cover for a murder mystery. If I manage to get something good, it will go up for sale so it would be for whatever the author wants to use it. I did want the gun to be prominant so I kind of missed the mark there. I didn't realise until I saw the thumbnail how much it blended into the background. I have that PS brush set. I'm not great with brushes yet, but I'll have to play with it to see if I can figure it out. I've changed some things around to hopefully make the gun more prominent; changed some angles, moved the lighting slightly and, since the rose is somewhat poseable, I placed it under the gun and decreased size of it some. I'm running a render now so I'll see how it looks once it is done. Thanks for the comments. They were very helpful.
You don't actually need that brush set -- I was thinking more you could overlay the text from that pad in the background in some way, assuming it's important. I noted the brushes because of Ron's creative examples.
If the nodepad and what's on it isn't important, then it really doesn't matter. What conjured in my mind was a smoking gun, and what looked like a suicide note. Murders made to look like suicide are fairly common in murder mystery plots, so that motif will have a wide audience of buyers for such a cover. The rose with its thorns intact, and the lipstick seal, suggest something like misplaced love/trust, so those are good human interest elements.
Currently, the note is just what came with the set. I was playing with the idea of changing to text to match the theme, but hadn't decided anything yet. A suicide note is actually a good idea and I'll play around with that idea and see if I can make something work with it. At the moment, my current test render has nothing on the desk as I hid all of the papers. I wanted to see if I could get a better angle on the gun so it drew the eye more. I can add the paper element back in once this render is finished and see what I come up with.
@Knittingmommy: As prominent as the rose looks in your render, and due to the fact that I see the rose from the back, this cover tells me something about a love story without a happy ending. Not murder, not mystery.
Didn't see the gun at all before reading the posts.
Heya Cherp!
So sorry! I added the Beware of Dog sign on the castle wall. My idea was to have him coming over it to attack. As I started to set him up, I realized he looked like a big ole guard dog being all ferocious and trying to come over the fence. Of course, this one can breathe fire . . . but hey, he's still a big German Shepherd. lol!
So on my latest cover my name is still hard to read? I thought I made it better going with the same layer style as the title. Rats! If I go too much further it just looks absolutely rediculous. Hmmmm - wait! Lightbulb moment!
Be right back!
Cheers
Kath
Knittingmommy I like the idea, but the execution is not working because the gun blends in completely. If not for the smoke, I would not even have been able to find the gun at all (I found the barrel, then the trigger, and then realized that the handle was not a highlight on the tray). Here are my suggestions:
SUGGESTION: Nothing says "murder" like a drop of blood. Add a hint of red to one of the thorns right over the little note with the lipstick. Then add a small splotch of blood next to the lipstick print (possibly touching it, just a little). Do NOT actually show the trail of blood running from thorn to paper -- that would sell this as a vampire novel and -- honestly -- unless you are super good a Photoshop, the chances of making a good blood drip/splatter are slim. I'm not trying to be rude or suggest you don't have those skills, I'm just saying that it's very difficult to to dripping blood and not have it look good. Another thought: When finished, you could upload two versions of the cover: one with the blood and on without.
My final suggestion is to step back for a second and think about the story so you can better set the scene. Whose desk is this? A man's or a woman's? I would guess the woman has sent this to the man, so it's probably his desk (and possibly his gun). Add elemnts to sell this as a captured moment from a story.
Anyway, I hope I came off as encouraging rather than nitpicking. I like the general idea very much. Best of luck with it.
Hi everyone! I was going to chime in on this Cathy but I think everyone pretty much has it covered.
Okay here's the result of my lightbulb moment.
Now wait a sec here! I shrunk this sucker all the way down to 5% and it was showing up fine. Now that I'm looking at the thumbnail attachment for the file upload - you can't see it at all. I had it smaller than that and it was fine. ARGH!
Let me try something maybe it's just the thumbnail on the attachment.
Nope it changes when I upload it to the forums - crap.
I think I know the problem now. It's the small near-white frame each letter shows. Looks good on the big cover, awfull on the thumb, because the white pixels tend to smear with the background and camouflage the shape of the letters.
Edit: The title looks better, because the blue background allows the yellow-golden letters to pop out.
The text in the thumbnail for "Spirit of Dragons" doesn't work because it's too busy. Try removing the glow and lighten the letters while changing the background a little (either a darker or brighter). Without the glow effect, you could make the words bigger.
My main problem is with their skin -- it doesn't match. His skin looks like it's been painted, but her skin looks like plastic. And is she supposed to look bored with her hero, and glancing away from him? His eyes kinda work, like he's trying to see his lover, but she's looking away from him.
Finally, the dragon is too faint and small. He should be bigger and more visible. In the thumbnail, he looks like a bird or a dragonfly.
Good start with it, though! I really like the title, too.
MM - thanks for your comments. No, they weren't nitpicking. They were very helpful and this is why I asked for everyone's input. Your suggestions sparked a couple of ideas so that is always a good thing.
Cherp - I can see how you could think that and I'll have to keep that in mind. While it wasn't my intention to have a love story gone bad per say, it isn't out of the realm of possibilty that author could use it for that.
I'm reworking my setup and I might have something for everyone to comment on tomorrow. I really appreciate all of the helpful input. Even if I don't end up selling it, working on a cover will definitely give me an insight into everything that goes into making one.
I think the title treatment comes down to the use of canned Photoshop layer styles, which should be avoided at all costs. If you look at the Amazon fiction bestseller list, virtually all use basic text, except for maybe a drop shadow or glow. I realize that genre fiction may use unique treatments more than literary fiction, but even here, the Big Guys keep it simple. For example, this one from Stephen King:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bazaar-Bad-Dreams-Stories/dp/1501111671/ref=zg_bs_17_29
This Cornwell novel is also not bad for its simplicity, yet unique use of blending modes. I rather like the effect.
http://www.amazon.com/Depraved-Heart-Scarpetta-Novel-Kay/dp/006232540X
There are plenty of reason to keep it clear, concise and simple. In a hectic world, impressions get made in less than a second.
I would also agree that the heroine looking off into the distance hints at something amiss between them. It may be intentional, but genre conventions being what they are...
And agreeing with another point, her skin looks too clean. Too porcelain pure. Luckily skins are easily changable. Try a variation of them. See which on gells better with the hero.
Tobor I agree with. Any effect that is easy to achieve gets quickly overused and rapidly falls in the territory of the cliche. Do you remember how quickly the "page curl effect" came and went? And how wild the drop shadows got before they toned down (for the most part -- there are still abusers out there). Anything that is easy to do and looks cool can quickly become overused (Comic Sans and Curlz fonts, anyone?).
But part of it comes down to being what's currently in style. You can look back through time and see trends in book covers, movie posters, theater posters/playbills and all forms of commercial art that is designed to (essentially) sell a story. Right now, clean cover type is "in" because it is both the style (it's in trend) and because it is practical (it's still legible in the thumbnail). I think the practicality of the clean type movement in design will keep it around for a long time, but at some point design sense will shift again and something new will take its place.
I like the font, and a non-beveled look with simple colors might be more effective (in Communication theory we could express this by saying that the signal of the lettershape would be clearer without the noise of the type effects). But perhaps you could try something a little more exotic with the text? Make both the S and D bigger, put them closer together, and decrease the size (and possibly even change the font) of the word "of." I made a super-fast sketch (i.e. super-bad) to show what I mean, and by moving the words around (and possibly decreasing their horizontal scaling), you would have room to make a much bigger dragon.
The green color is just so you can read it -- I obviously am not suggesting it as a color option!
You might even try butting the S & D together like I did in this cover design I did: http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/88578
Anyway, just something to think about.
These are three of my bookcovers I've done with 3D Daz Studio and V4, V5 & M4, M5
The rest of them are here at Amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/Mercedes-Keyes/e/B00576AAM0/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
@MKeyes: I prefer the one in the middle. The other two are unruly. But the only readable thumbnail text is Ireland.
If I were your publisher I would try to get rid of several elements of these covers, or make them a non-intrusive, soft colored background, so that the readers eye can rest on the really relevant people, and nothing else (besides the title, of course)
This is the fourth time I've tried typing this reply. Windows has been doing updates and my computer reboots on its own even though I have it set to schedule a time. Microsoft's intrusion into my personal bubble is getting downright offensive.
Anyway, fortunately the forum is pretty good about saving drafts so I don't lose too much when the bottom falls out. Let's see if Ican make it through this one.
First off - thank you. Mitch - okay let me back up a couple of steps here. This novel took over ten years for me to write because that's how convoluted the world building became. It went Tolkien on me to say the least. I took all of my historical research of the early medieval period and combined all of the legends and lore of dragons and elemental magic I could find. So here's the general story line - it's important not only to the title but the thematic elements on the cover.
The dragons are actually extinct, but because of their mastery of elemental magic (fire, water, and earth - with golden dragons controlling all three plus healing magic) they have bound their souls to human partners so they live through them. They remain a separate and unique personality. The hero is Lathan Aro - Lathan being the human name and Aro being the dragon. Many are familiar with the tale of Arthur being the son of Uther Pendragon, in truth Pendragon is a rank among the Kindred. One must achieve the rank in order to be on the council for example. Arthur - in truth his scribe - did a little rewrite of history. The Kindred live on the Isle of Mist which is hidden by magic, some know the name of Avalon, and the Lady of the Lake who guards Excalibur is a female Kindred - water dragon to be precise. On the Isle of Mist in the Kindred temple is the sacred chalice, the golden dragons are its loyal guardians. It is what gives them the ability to heal and "chalice magic" a great summoning of power directed with a single word. The regular elemental spells are cast in Latin. Others know the name of the chalice as the Holy Grail.
With magic based on the elementals, the dragons can do a lot but they only control 3 with the goldens having a bit of extra magic. They cannot touch the Air and Spirit Elementals. The Spirit Elemental is the greatest because without it the others would not exist, the legends say it is too strong to be harnessed. But there is another race of humans who can control magic - the Illarians who can control the Air Elemental and revere the Spirit. They raise their wards on an island that is difficult to locate but not impossible. They raise sylphs - tiny winged humanoid creatures and drakes - similar to dragons they are known in myth as fire drakes but this is incorrect, the drakes at one time possessed the same magic as the regular dragons. The Illarians are a reclusive lot but now the same enemy who hunts the Kindred for their magic now hunt the Illarians as well. But the sylphs sing chants that heal the little drakes. They can't heal humans or themselves. Unfortunately after arriving in their haven, the Illarians thought themselves completely safe and stopped using their magic. The drakes, about the size of a large house cat, are good mousers but that's about it. They range in colors from red, blue, brown, and silver. Only a few clans can call on their control over the Air Elemental - there is one clan that can still control their magic with impressive results. But as a people the Illarians are skittish and a majority are pacifiists. They have no single government but are a hodge-podge of clans - and each govern their own for the most part but they do have clan gatherings. If a majority of clans decide something, others are likely to follow. Maybe - or maybe not. Although on friendly terms with the Kindred, the Illarians are absolutely terrified this warrior race.
The heroine, Mirrandan, is a modern day police detective. Her parents were murdered when she was very small so she doesn't remember much of them. Their killer has never been discovered which lead to her desire to become a cop. But her father had a mysterious history, one she is trying to discover as it probably lead to his murder. She finds tantalizing clues but ones that defy all logic yet never gets closer to the answer. Until she receives a strange gift from her dead father that had been kept in a safety deposit box and the instructions were in his will, only known to the lawyer who is the executor. Upon receiving this gift, the heroine opens it to discover strange colored crystals and an ancient tattered book written in latin. She is thrown back in time and practically lands in Lathan's arms - right as hunters are trying to kill or capture him. Lathan manages to save both their lives and because of that Mirranda hasn't taken his head off (she's a black belt and specializes in the kata which she has with her). She thinks the guy is gorgeous but absolutely nuts. He insists magic exists in the world and that the dragons were real. Plus he insists that he can sense magic in her - she is Illarian and can control the magic of the Air Elemental.
As things progress she discovers he's right. But there's more, she also controls the magic of the Spirit Elemental - a power far stronger than dragon magic. Their relationship plays a key role in the story because Lathan Aro, as king of his people and bonded with a golden dragon controls Earth, Fire, Water and the chalice magic. Mirranda, whose heritage is Illarian controls the Air Elemental and has been gifted with the Spirit - something unheard of. Together all the elementals are represented. That's really important because they learn that Kindred and Illarian were actually one people. Their only hope for survival is to rejoin the two societies in the middle of a war for their very existance.
So it's Spirit of Dragons not only because the dragons are actually extinct and it is their souls bound to their human partners, but the manifestation of the Spirit Elemental in Mirranda - who will become their queen, and the Spirit Elemental begins to awaken in other Illarians as they and their wards, sylph and drake, rediscover their own magic. It's the rejoining of the societies becoming one people again that provide the answers for their survival - if they can win the war against those who hunt them for their blood - blood that contains powerful elemental magic.
Sorry for the length there but I really want this cover to reflect the thematic elements. I of course have the dragon and the castle with the mist. I really liked their expressions - they're facing a war with possible genocide as an outcome. Probably not the best time to fall in love and try to plan the rest of your lives together. So if anyone has suggestions for the heroine please let me know. I like her pensive expression because it's perfect for what they're facing, I would have her looking at him but I'm afraid that pensive expression wouldn't translate right.
Poor Lathan definitely has his hands full. He brings home his new "queen" but because she doesn't have a dragon spirit everyone believes she's ensorcelled him and the stakes are raised when attempts are made on her life. She can take care of herself and has powerful magic, but can anyone stand for any length of time against several dragons? Lathan doesn't want to find out.
This is an excellent point Tabor - but to be really fair you can't compare King and Cornwell to this cover. So I jumped over to Amazon - Spirit of Dragons is for sale, I'm reformatting and doing a new cover because of my contest entry - I have to submit 5 printed novels for the contest. No ebook but print. So that's why I'm doing all of this. (The funny thing is, I made Spirit's cover before I started with DAZ yet I went through the same thing of about 50 iterations of the cover and still haven't decided which one is best. I swap them out every now and then - so far nothing new to report in regard to sales.) Anyway, Amazon has the handy Others who bought this also bought - etc. So here's the list you can pull up from Spirit (my list a lot of this changes per person because of the alogrithm looking at their purchase history).
I just flagged my novels with a circle. Kathryn LeVeque and I always show up together because our names are similar and we're friends. Plus she can produce a book every month, I can't. She also does her own covers.
Of all the authors only one is a traditionally published author. But you can see the styles that are selling in the genre now. We honestly can't compare to King which I put at the bottom.
HOWEVER! I do get your point Tabor - employ the KISS rule - Keep It Simple Stupid (not that you're calling me stupid. lol!)
FIRST!!!! ***Tackles First with a big hug!**** Hi sweetie! I missed ya. Glad to have you back! I hope you stick around. (Drinks and goodies are in the fridge, grab a chair!) I agree on the plastic part - I'll have to see if I can fix it. I don't have much for female Gen 2 Iray skin textures.
I like this! Let me see what I can do with it. I can do quite a bit in photoshop with the new text editing abilities but the S I might have to hand draw or use a warp. We'll see though. Great job on that cover. I love the cat on the back of the chair. lol!
Okay, let me see what I can do.
OH almost forgot - the deadline clock is now ticking. I have to finish this by Dec. 11th so I can get it uploaded to Createspace, 5 novels printed, then shipped directly to the contest by the deadline. Tick tock! ARGH!
Cheers,
Kath
kathrynloch Sorry for the short note, but I'm on deadline today. Sorry about the computer problems. Sounds like a great novel -- I'll mention it to my wife! Thanks for the comment about the cat! I really worked on the getting the pose and expression "just right" to add some more humor to the scene. Right now I'm re-working it into a Christmas cover -- which is due early next week! Naturally, I'm having nothing but computer problems this week.
Regarding the text for your cover: The trick is to put all the text elements in different text boxes. This would mean a separate box for:
That gives you lots of options for moving the text around, and applying different sizes to the capital letters.
Best of luck -- gotta run.
One thing to keep in mind with threse layer styles is that they're designed for a different purpose than book covers, which must also look good at thumbnail sizes. Layer styles like 3D metal and others are made for printed flyers, brochures, and maybe some full-size graphics for the Web. By their nature, they simply don't look good shrunk down. This is one reason why books from traditional publishers -- which also print their covers for retail -- trend toward a plainer look. As I noted in the Cornwell cover, it's instantly readable in thumb size, and though not fancy, is still quite creative within its practical limitations.
I think it's better to compare with covers from traditional publishers because those publishers have significant risk if a cover isn't just so. An indie ebook or POD cover can be quickly redone if it affects sales, but a retail book from King, Brown, Cornwell, or other top-stair author would suffer millions if they get the cover wrong. From my own experience, this makes publishers less willing to gamble with new ideas, and so you tend to get cookie-cutter layouts. But overall, there still seems to be plenty of creativity in the covers out there. I'm seeing some terrific stuff.
Tabor - I agree with Kathryn. While an excellent point about the text, romance covers are in a class totally different from other novels. This is especially true of the historical romance genre covers. Very rarely, as a reader, does a cover with straight text catch my eye. My first thought when I see a cover with straight text is that the cover artist doesn't know the genre. Readers of historical romance especially love the fancy text. It helps to get us in the mood for a "go back in time and forget our troubles" type of mood before we even open the book. The fancy text also tends to give us a clue as to the time period the book is set although not always. However, there are just certain styles of text readers expect and it also, either by intent or coincidence, tends to separate the subgenres. I.e. medieval romances tend to stick to one font type and regency romances stick to another. Readers can usually tell from the font first if this is a book written in their preferred subgenre before they even look at the description. I'm afraid that I'm as guilty as most readers in judging the quality of a book by it's cover. Now that I've actually tried to disect and understand everything that goes into making a cover that isn't quite true anymore. However, a cover artist really has to understand the romance reader better than any other genre, I think, because we are just a different animal than the average reader. I'm almost ashamed that I may have let a book cover with plain text slip by me now that I have a better understanding of cover art creation.
Kathryn has a type style that gives definite clues as to the nature of her book, fantasy and historical romance, that fit with what is expected by readers of that genre. If she were to go straight text like the Stephen King and other authors in other genres, she might actually lose potential readers who haven't found her yet. I think those readers that she has an established relationship with regards to return customers might buy a book with a cover like that, but I don't think she can risk losing both potential readers and repeat customers. Bear in mind, that these are just my observations as a reader of this genre for more than thirty years. I've read a lot of books over the years in the romance genre and, with the exception of gothic romances and most contemporary romances, fancy type is the norm and what us readers expect. That doesn't mean that things couldn't change, but if it hasn't changed much in thirty years, I have serious doubts it will change in the near future. If anything has changed over the years it is that digital publishing has created the ability to have even fancier type than the old typsetting days. That is a change that I think most readers have embraced and wouldn't want the change to go back to a plainer text.
I'm not saying that this is fair or that this is the way it should be. It is just the way it is. It adds to the romantic cover in a way that plain text never could. I think most historical romance readers would tend to agree with me. We are a selfish lot who expect things the way we want them and we don't really care what publishers think we should embrace. Romance readers have frustrated publishers for years because we almost never totally get on board with what they think we want. And, we tend to almost never fall in line with their expectations as a group, like readers of other genres tend to do. We also tend to be more loyal to authors, cover styles, and particular writing styles within our genre than any other reader base. When we find an author we like and appreciate, we tend to buy books from our favorite authors religiously. This was true in the old days of brick and mortar stores and is especially true now with Amazon's pre-order option. The cover and small description is the only selling point besides the authors name and now we can order books from our favorite authors before they even come out based solely on the cover art and small (usually even less than when the book comes out) description. Plain text just isn't going to cut it in this particular genre, not if the author wants to actually sell books.
As for the Big Guys, yes, they keep it simple. But their reader base allows for that type of simple text. The Big Guys aren't trying to convince a wider reader base of romantic souls to read their books. Their books are geared to a totally different type of reader than those of us who tend to read historical romance as our main source of entertainment. Do some romance readers like King, Grisham, and Connelly to name a few? Sure. But they may only read one or two of those types of novels and never read another. Some might even decide that they like them and read the their whole catalog. But, for the most part, most romance readers tend to stick with their preferred genre and they have certain expectations that should not change or ever try to be like the 'Big Guys' because those 'Big Guys' aren't the 'Big Guys' in the historical romance genre. If you want to compare Kathryn's covers to the 'Big Guys' then you need to compare her to Kathryn Le Veque or Christi Caldwell because those are the 'Big Guys' that Kathryn is comparable to in this industry.
Authors and cover artists need to keep those readers in mind because we expect what we expect and you can't go messing around with that. <-- from a reader's perspective not as a cover artist or author yet.
Knittingmommy: I agree with you 100%. Text still needs to be legible, which is why I suggested getting rid of the belvel, but did not advocate changing the font (which I liked). And the funny thing you bring up is that it's all a matter of perspective. Although Stephen King is a juggernaut in the publishing industry, he's a nobody in the realm of historical romance. Robyn DeHart is a MUCH bigger name in the historical fiction genre. Sure, if King wrote a "straight romance," people would grab it up, but only out of curiosity.