Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Is there ANYONE else out there?

Being the romance addict that I am, I own, borrow, and check out a lot of books. In the last year or so I have noticed that the romance covers are increasingly less unique and seem almost repetitive. Now you may be thinking to your self, "What the hell is she talking about? Duplicate covers? Similar designs?"Nope. I'm talking about this guy.

The romance industry's latest darling -
cover model Nathan Kamp

Now, I enjoy attractive men on the cover of romance novels as much as the next reader. And there is no denying that Mr. Kamp is attractive - I don't personally believe he's really hot but he's got an attractive face, a nice body, and does the 'dark & dangerous' thing well - which is great for the paranormal and suspense romances. But I'm SO COMPLETELY SICK of seeing his face on the cover of so many books!

There are thousands and thousands of romance-cover-worthy men and yet all the romance cover designers can come up with is 500 covers with this guy on them? Ever heard of variety being the spice of life... well guess what... it's the spice of romance covers too.

I want to make it clear that I'm not bashing Nathan Kamp - I have nothing against him, of course. I've read/listened to his interviews, comments from those who have met him, articles about him, etc. etc. and he seems to be a very nice guy. But enough is enough. I feel like we've had this model shoved down our throats so much I'm gagging from it. It's especially irritating when multiple books in a series have a cover with this model. Everyone in a family, area, group would NOT look the same. Yes, it's all fantasy and most readers, myself included, can overlook a bad cover and concentrate on what's inside but we would rather enjoy a unique cover with an interesting man that is somewhat similar to the character in the book than to have to make a concious effort to ignore the cover.

I know I'm not alone in this. I've seen complaints and criticisms from other readers that are also weary of the constant use of the same model. What do you all think of this practice of flooding the market with covers with the same model? Good business, bad business? Good for readers, bad for readers? Are you sick of Kamp or do you adore him and want more, more, more?

~~JUST FOR FUN~~

Here are just SOME of the many faces of Nathan Kamp - in fact, these are some of the books that I've read or are coming out soon that I plan to read (although several of them are re-issues and my editions have different covers).

























5 comments:

Holly said...

I honestly don't ever even look at the covers, so when I started reading this post I was thinking, "It's not THAT bad, is it?" and then I saw all the covers you listed and DANG! They really DO need another guy. lol

Emmy said...

woah!! I can't believe they use that same guy for everything.

Ange - The Romance Groupie said...

Yeah, and that's probably less than half of the covers he's on. If I did them all I'd have to change my blog name to KAMP-WORLD. LOL!

Thanks for stopping in to comment ladies!

Jennifer *Dragoneen* said...

I can't help it. I'm in love with Nathan Kamp. He's just too freakin' hot.

He's actually my siggie on another board LOL

Anonymous said...

Did anyone notice that the covers for "No Rest for the Wicked" and "Wicked" are almost identical? Looks like the same photo shoot, just a different pose.

Linked here via a comment on Dear Author. Thanks for posting all those covers - that man really gets around! :)