Cover Controversy: Gettin’ Dressed Up

Clothes and accessories say a lot about a book cover. How many times have you seen a book where a character on the cover is wearing glasses like this:

or shoes like this:

or a haircut like this:

or a combination of all three and thought, “Ooh. That one ain’t gonna get many second looks.”?

I find this pretty often. So what can you put on a book cover that won’t seem laughably out of date in a couple years? Apparently a dress is the way to go. Oh, and to eliminate the threat of bad hair or ugly shoes bringing the whole operation down, let’s just go ahead and remove the humans. Just the dress. Two such covers recently popped up, let’s take a look, starting with this:

Lucky by Rachel Vail.

Now, the twin:

The Goodbye Time by Celeste Conway.

Side by side:

The title font and author name placement even match up pretty closely.

Coincidence or controversy?

(Top Image: ‘Stephen Colbert High School 1980, 11th Grade‘
www.flickr.com/photos/32522689@N00/398038248)

Filed under: Cover Curiosity