It’s a dull old Monday morning, so I thought I would liven it up with a book contest and the chance for funny people to show off their funny skills.
Here’s the cover of my latest release, The Frog Prince’s Daughters.
And below the jump is the mock-up of the cover originally proposed by my publisher before he got hit by a clue-by-four:
There. That livened up your Monday morning, didn’t it?
Now to the contest part. Whoever, in the comments, comes up with the best reason as to why I should have gone with the drag-queen frog cover rather than the pretty gold girl cover gets a free copy of my book in the electronic format of their choice (the choices, for the record, are: epub, pdf, mobipocket/kindle, ereader, microsoft reader, sony reader lrf, and html).
And if you really want to know the deal with the drag-queen frog and exploding that’s-a-what-now? in the bottom right, you’re just going to have to buy the book and find out, now aren’t you? Yes. I’m implying logic was involved. Check it out here. Listen to it free via podcast here.
Happy commenting. Oh – contest ends whenever I feel like ending it.
Hmm. Well, that appalling cover would certainly have attracted the all-important colour-blind segment of the market.
Seriously, what were they thinking? Actual cover is much nicer!
Well, that went well! I guess people were a little scared by its splendour. Congratulations, stringy, email me for your prize.
No fair, the competition has only been running 1 day.
Your publisher was being purely practical and was thinking about continuation of the royal lineage. Because that glowing ball thing reminds me most of the sort of thing you find floating in your backyard pond or (worse) pool here in the tropics…with frogs directly responsible. Then you really really wish you’d bought that scoop net last weekend.
And how else is she supposed to attract a prince frog without the lipstick and fake eyelashes? Practical. Except they should have added a strap to hold the little crown on while hopping.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Frog sex. Thanks for that.
I’m really glad the last word of your last sentence was “hopping”.
Is the contest still on?
Setting aside the fact that I genuinely prefer the gold-girl cover, I would say the frog cover is an intriguing twist on the frog prince tale, implying the frog prince is a frog princess? It arouses more curiosity than the other e-cover, which would have been an argument for the frog cover than against it.
Honestly I find lipstick on a frog with a tiara somewhat disturbing, so I think I’d be more likely to read the blurb or summary for the book with the gold-girl cover.
Afraid not, Vicki, sorry, thanks for commenting though….
Curiosity is a great motive, but do I really want people going in with the attitude “can this book possibly be as garish as the cover implies?”…maybe I do, so they’re pleasantly surprised! That said, while I don’t think the frog cover properly reflects the book, the gold-girl cover, as pretty as it is, doesn’t really capture it either – a little too wistful or something. But still lovely, and makes the cover as good as it could have been.
And without saying too much about the book, I wouldn’t really want the frog princess implication on the front…
[...] was created by photographer Andreas Reh. He recently emailed me to thank me for using it (or requesting my publisher use it, is more accurate…) and to let me know he’d talked about it in his news section. It [...]