Coincidental covers

May 13, 2008 at 10:47 AM
20 comments

I recently saw a promotion for a new book and it looked eerily familiar to me. I was sure I'd seen it before, but it's a new release, so how could that be? Turns out, I had a different book in my Amazon wish list with the same photo on the cover. It seems odd to me that with so many images in the world to choose from, two distinct books end up with nearly identical covers.

clipped from www.amazon.com

Oh My Stars: A Novel (Paperback)

clipped from www.amazon.com

Skeletons at the Feast (Hardcover)

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geez! there must be THOUSANDS of images to choose from ... you'd think that they'd be able to find something that hasn't been used.

How bizzarre! Not only that it happened, but that you remembered it!

That is weird....

haha. too weird.

wow really close. weird

That IS strange....especially since its a relatively distinctive image.

(By the way...'Oh My Stars" is a FABULOUS book...I'm a huge Lorna Landvik fan!)

Do you think someone somewhere made a huge mistake?

And here was I thinking that authors/publishers chose illustrators to do their covers and that they would be unique!

Wow. Here I am ready, willing and able to design some lovely book covers and publishers are just tossing any old photograph on without checking to see if the pic has been used previously? Life is so unfair.

Bookishly Fabulous replied to Nancy Mitchell’s comment:
May 13, 2008
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Nancy's right, Oh My Stars is awesome.

That is weird about the cover...

That IS odd!

Looks like some design firm is in BIG trouble...

am wondering whether this is a famous art piece or something ...

Actually this is a surprisingly common occurence. One of the blogs I read regularly complains about this practice (mostly on romance covers). I found this post for you on another blog: When Covers Are Two of a Kind. It's a pretty annoying practice.

[this is good]

Maybe they're cosmically linked...

Well, people (and publishers) don't use image search engines. It's interesting they both chose similar fonts, but the placement and saturation are different. I wonder if that's preference or a reflection of the stories within.

I know, right? I feel the same way. You'd think they'd at least spring for a category exclusive when they license the photo.

Red Pen replied to Nancy Mitchell’s comment:
May 15, 2008
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Nancy M & Bookishly Fab - Oh My Stars is the one I already had on my wish list. I'm glad to hear you recommend it.

Thanks for the link. I had no idea it was so prevalent!

I've found most Lorna Landvik books are golden. =) "Oh My Stars" is a good one; I think my fave of hers is "The Tall Pine Polka".

Coincidental covers

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