Book Covers

Writing and Publishing Erotica Podcast

[14-01-04: Corrected and uploaded the correct audio file… Sorry!]

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What’s your most recent release?

H. K. Kiting: The Funhouse

Dean Chills: Forbidden WInter

Episode 15: Book Covers

We’ve talked a bunch about the act of writing itself, but we’ve never touched on one of the most important aspects of your book: The Cover. In many ways, the cover is more important than the contents of your book: it’s the first thing a prospective reader sees, and if they hate the cover, your book has zero chance of being bought.

What should be on an erotic book cover?

• Shirtless men and Fabio clones?
• Half-dressed women
• Faces or just bodies?

Amazon’s UNOFFICIAL rules:

• –Naked female torso including front view or sometimes side view. Side boob inappropriate.
• –Arms or hands across breasts.
• –Naked butt. On one occasion, upper thigh close to lower butt cheek was unacceptable.
• –No naked people in a clinch even if they aren’t “fondling”.
• –Any sexual position that implies penetration (Missionary, doggie-style, etc).
• –No naked characters straddling each other.
• –No handcuffs on wrists. Handcuffs being held is fine.
• –No “O” faces.
• –No nudity.
• –No women on their knees in front of men (as in implied fellatio).
• –No men between women’s thighs (as in implied cunnilingus).
• –No men’s faces on breasts.

Still there is NO official list of rules other than a vague statement that their content guidelines are “About what you’d expect.”

Ways of getting a book cover made:

• Buy a premade book cover
• Hire someone to make a book cover
• Do it yourself

Doing it yourself:

• Tools (Photoshop, Pixelmator, etc.)
• Abtract?
• Photos- Taken yourself or purchased from Stock Photographers [Jason’s Mummification]

Legal considerations:

• Model release (and especially decency clauses)
• Photo licenses and royalties. Not as simple as just buying from a stock site.

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