30 September 2009

Lookalike covers

We were on a bit of a covers junket before I went away, my cover, then different covers for the same book. Next I thought I would look at the flip side of different-covers-same-book, here we have same-covers-different-books (okay, not the same but very similar).

With the popularity of Twilight I decided to start here.


Some effort here to change what is clearly the same photo.


Identical photo.


Again some effort made to change original photo.


Same photo, second one zoomed out further.


Here's a three-for-one deal.


And a four-for-one. This one intrigued me because one of these is the New Testament of the Bible (guess which one).


Finish on this one because it amused me. The second picture is not actually a book cover, it's an add for cold sore cream.

If you know of any classic lookalike cover feel free to share :)


Music: St. Germain
Currently reading: 'Loving a Lost Lord' by Mary Jo Putney

26 comments:

Jen Roland said...

This is one of the joys of stock art. You never know where else it will wind up.

I was shocked the other day to see covers of Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights that had been all Twilighted-up with black backgrounds and roses.

Marie-Nicole Ryan said...

Ah, yes, the joy of stock art. I know one of my covers had two other version from different publishers about the same time mine was released. The other two had the images reversed and one of them was monochromatic in shades of gray. Mine had some other images added and IMHO was the best of the three. :-D

Scott Klarr said...

Another two you can add: 'Crimes Against Logic' by Jamie Whyte and 'The Invisible Man' by H.G. Wells

Subscapula said...

Rad. Very rad.

Anonymous said...

Wow. How potentially confusing for the reader.

These are great, thanks for finding them! I linked to you:)

Elerick Mathias said...

The cover you have for Twilight was also the cover to the book The Giver in my high school class.

Anonymous said...

Here's a similar thread on a popular photo. It's in Hebrew, but the pictures speak for themselves.
http://www.room404.net/?cat=1008

becca bernstein said...

Love this comparison. Thanks for putting this together.

Anne B said...

Note to self, take own photo for book cover... that is IF I ever write a book. =)

Kenny McMurtrie said...

Nice :)
Taps into the whole lazy advertising/forcefeeding that we're all subjected to in the West.

Keep it up.

Anonymous said...

I've seen the picture of "Sharing Sam", "Sing to me" and "For Petes Sake" (sorry if I got them wrong), in the cover of a mexican bands album. The name is "Otra Historia" by "Insite". Heres the link:

http://images.google.com.mx/images?q=otra%20historia&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:es-ES:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=es&tab=wi

Brad said...

Wow. I don't know how you found all of these. It is understandable that lazy advertisers will use photos that have appeared in other publications, but what really intrigues me is the first one. What are the chances that two different photos would so closely resemble each other? Unless it's the same photo shoot. But the apple looks slightly different to me.

Mik said...

Heavy use of stock images, I also wonder about some of these self-publishing companies that offer cover art for their users, no doubt images get used by more than one author.

Unknown said...

The cover for "Luna" and "Fate" also looks extremely similar to the cover of a book by Alice Hoffman "Ice Queen"

http://books.livingsocial.com/books/2124-alice-hoffman-the-ice-queen-a-novel?alt=The+Ice+Queen%3A+A+Novel

Such laziness

A Muser said...

love the cold sore one :) a lovely contrast of covers.

Louise Delamore said...

Glad you all enjoyed, or bemoaned as the case may be, my selection. :)
I should add that these covers don't even scratch the surface, there were simply too many to put up on one blog post. Maybe more for a later post, hmmm.

Ian said...

I like the four-for-one. Emos for Jesus!

Laura Colgan said...

The pics must be from a site (or disc) which u buy images from. bit ridiculous that people pick the same ones... a pic u take urself is always more original and noone else will ever have it

Anonymous said...

the four-for-one deal. that cover looks remarkably similiar to the one used for The Host by Stephenie Meyer.

Alun Richards said...

http://images.buch.de/images-adb/d6/01/d6010615-db68-4bd5-863f-a2286b2d44e3.jpg

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/Images/ExternalImages/ProductsDetailed/45/019745.jpg

Anonymous said...

Wow. Interesting if you came across two different books with the same cover image in the same shop. They made me smile, especially the four and three time repeats.
Thanks (:

Mari Miniatt said...

The one with the right eye. That is becoming popular now. Not necessarily that exact image. I opened a box of books for work a few weeks ago. 7! 7 different titles all had the right eye on the cover.

Katherine Langrish said...

This is so funny. Shameless, really!

Storm Safety Blog said...

The slightly different apple-in-the-hands photo was probably deliberately done, to capitalize on the popularity of the Twilight series. The others kind of surprised me. I understand that stock photos are cheaper and easier than setting up a photo shoot, but can't the publisher purchase exclusive rights, at least within the industry?

Contented Home said...

WOW, you know, there are lots of artists out there that can be hired to create some ORIGINAL ART for the covers. Just a thought.

Christopher Cocca said...

the CS Lewis was my favorite, but the cold sore one, well. I guess it does go to show some of the externalities of stock art.

Rather than use the stock images, book designers should go through flickr and similar sites and see what people will agree to let them use for an exclusive price. I imagine some users might be willing to even license at a discount for the potential exposure.