Hilarious that this lists as published by Berkeley Publishing, a division of Penguin Random House. A “pro” made this cover! Hahahahaha
I checked the Berkeley site, but couldn’t find it there or at Ace Books (the original publisher of a print version in 1987??). Either it isn’t really from them or even they won’t lay claim to this mess.
Well, no. What was likely the case was that she got the ebook rights from the publisher as the book was out of print. That means that she did the artwork. I found a kathrynkramer.net and it has lots of lousy covers though this one wasn’t there.
That’s what I expected too, DED, but the listing on Amazon lists Berkley Publishing as the publisher for both 2012 editions of this e-book and also Ace Books as the publisher of the now out-of-print paperback. I’m guessing that Berkley/ Penguin just slapped something on it and “published” it to prevent her from getting the book’s right back.
If you click on the paperback version you get a completely different cover. Of course all of the copies for sale are used. If the publisher still owned the book, I don’t see why they would swap out the artwork for this dreck.
As an indie author, I know that you can put whomever you want as the publisher. It’s entirely possible that Ms. Kramer put that in there to let everyone know that the book was at one time traditionally published and that it’s not indie, though the cover screams it.
And the copyright page inside the book is wrong. If it was still owned by the publisher, their name would be all over it. Instead, all we have is the author’s name and a warning notice.
Naaman Brown
9 years ago
Personally, I’d rather see the tactical equivalent of a simple Holliston Black Novelex cloth cover with title and author in gold leaf lettering in all capital Garamond than see something like this.
It is not even amateur–in the arts the word amateur (to me) means someone who is not professional but who has a genuine fannish love for what they are doing. Putting this on the cover for the reading public shows no love for the work, nor respect for the author or the reading public, even if the art was done by someone’s child who loved the author.
![cover[1]](https://lousybookcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/cover129.jpg)
I . . . just . . . . there are no words.
Plastic toys? Humongous fake flowers? REALLY??? I, too, am speechless.
344 pages? And this is the cover? Really!?
Hilarious that this lists as published by Berkeley Publishing, a division of Penguin Random House. A “pro” made this cover! Hahahahaha
I checked the Berkeley site, but couldn’t find it there or at Ace Books (the original publisher of a print version in 1987??). Either it isn’t really from them or even they won’t lay claim to this mess.
err… meant “Berkley”… spell check does me in.
Well, no. What was likely the case was that she got the ebook rights from the publisher as the book was out of print. That means that she did the artwork. I found a kathrynkramer.net and it has lots of lousy covers though this one wasn’t there.
That’s not to say that this isn’t terrible.
That’s what I expected too, DED, but the listing on Amazon lists Berkley Publishing as the publisher for both 2012 editions of this e-book and also Ace Books as the publisher of the now out-of-print paperback. I’m guessing that Berkley/ Penguin just slapped something on it and “published” it to prevent her from getting the book’s right back.
But then again, I like conspiracy theories 🙂
If you click on the paperback version you get a completely different cover. Of course all of the copies for sale are used. If the publisher still owned the book, I don’t see why they would swap out the artwork for this dreck.
As an indie author, I know that you can put whomever you want as the publisher. It’s entirely possible that Ms. Kramer put that in there to let everyone know that the book was at one time traditionally published and that it’s not indie, though the cover screams it.
And the copyright page inside the book is wrong. If it was still owned by the publisher, their name would be all over it. Instead, all we have is the author’s name and a warning notice.
Personally, I’d rather see the tactical equivalent of a simple Holliston Black Novelex cloth cover with title and author in gold leaf lettering in all capital Garamond than see something like this.
It is not even amateur–in the arts the word amateur (to me) means someone who is not professional but who has a genuine fannish love for what they are doing. Putting this on the cover for the reading public shows no love for the work, nor respect for the author or the reading public, even if the art was done by someone’s child who loved the author.
What, no flame? Too obvious, I guess.