Just to address the confusion that the title and/or image of this post seems to be conveying: The Story is not a book, and this is not about post about upcoming covers, or wanting to see covers.
I, for one, love book covers. I am one of those people that does and will admit: I judge a book by it's cover. I know that I shouldn't, but it doesn't stop me from doing it! (That isn't to say that I never read books that don't have beautiful cover, because I do. But that is a totally different issue.)
I love the anticipation of waiting for the cover release of a novel that I am just dying to read. (Just ask Rachel Hawkins, how I bugged her endlessly about the reveal date of her cover. Which is one of my favorites btw... well the US one anyway.)
I'm sure that I'm not the only one that craves that visualization. Right?
I am also one of those people that seek out covers. That whole 'books to pine for' thing, that is just to sate my addiction. Which brings me to a QUESTION!!
This morning I woke up to an email about covers. Which has me stumped.
The emailer was asking me, because I'm supposed to be some sort of wise person *snort* (and if that wasn't clear, I am aghast at my status as wise, not a jab at the emailer for thinking so) about posting covers. This person had found images in an online publisher catalog and copy and pasted them into a post for his/her blog, featuring said covers. There question was to ask if that was okay.
I honestly didn't know. My first reaction would be probably not. Does anyone know the correct answer to this question.
My assumption for no is because:
- Those catalogs aren't for blogger use. Yes they are viewable by anyone, but they are meant for booksellers and libraries... right? I'm not going to say that I don't look at them and use them for release date references and look at the pretty covers, but something about copying the image just seems wrong to me.
- As far as I know most of the covers in catalogs aren't final.
- Just because they are in the catalog it doesn't mean the cover is "released"
Again, I could be full of it, but that is just my reasoning for not doing it.
For my 'Book To Pine For" posts I try to make sure I can find the cover in more than two places. I usually search; author websites, online booksellers & publisher websites. I'm sure I've screwed up somewhere along the way, so now if I don't find it there, I don't post it. I've found that GoodReads is not a reliable source as anyone as long as they are a GoodReads Librarian can edit book information. But again, that's just me.
As a reader, you might think that it is free publicity, that comment was even made about the situation. I don't always think 'free publicity' is a good enough answer.
So I guess the questions are: When is it "okay" to post a cover? Can you copy them out of a publisher catalog? Is it really 'free publicity'?
What do you think.. as a reader... as an author... as a blogger?