John - Cover Cafe Committee Member
Our lone male voice on the committee.

How did a man become a member of the Cover Ballot group? I have a small collection of pinup art that I have collected over the past 10 or so years. One day some 6 years ago, I was wondering if there were any websites that had book cover art for sale or downloading. I did a search and the Cover Ballot popped up. Looking through the covers and the comments made by the committee at the time, I contacted the then head of the group Carol and asked if a guy could be a member. They said yes. I have participated ever since.

I have learned a lot from the brilliant women who are the main folks of this group. I see details in the covers that I would never have seen before. My wife says that I can shop from the middle of a store which is true and I sometimes miss things that you really have to look for. Same thing with the covers. Before becoming a group member, I would have never noticed strange arm placements or costumes that are from the wrong historical period without the training from my fellow group members. Now at least I see some of them.

Being male, I don’t particularly like guy only covers and find the classic clinch covers pretty boring. I apply the “5-minute” test: Is the couple engaged with each other sufficiently that if we looked back in 5 minutes something hot and amazing would be going on. If yes, it gets my vote. I find that “trends” in covers seem to stifle originality. For example, several years ago, someone designed the split cover where the top is one scene and the bottom another. That was cool and innovative. Now, a fairly large percentage of covers use this feature. Unless they are pretty amazing I won’t vote for them either. On step back covers, I like to see something fairly demure on the outer cover and something that is both a continuation of the outer cover and a really steamy on the inside. I do appreciate it when the cover at least sort of fits the category that the book fits in. I find it pretty amazing that floating eyes is a stock metaphor for what we call alternate reality

All in all, I think there are a lot of good covers out there and hopefully our little group has some impact on the quality of covers being put on the books. Some of the art work really is quite impressive.

Yes, occasionally I will read one of the books based on a great cover.