Sunday, May 24, 2020

Stop Petting My Peeves: Son of Book Cover Edition




Remember when I told you one of my prime pet peeves about book cover art? You know, the one where I pitched a fit about saguaros showing up on book covers when the books are set in places where saguaros would never grow?

Well... they're at it again! I don't know how or why this particular book popped up on my screen, but the cover looks like the book is set here in Phoenix. You know I had to take a look. You just knew it, right?


Attention, publishers, marketers, and book cover artistes! You will not find a saguaro in Nevada unless the poor thing is being held hostage. I can't help it if the most iconic cactus in the world is the pickiest when it comes to choosing a place to live.

Now it's time for me to head off into the sunset, grumbling all the way...


11 comments:

  1. Oh, that is really annoying, Cathy! And the worst thing is, it's so easy to get the facts and be accurate. You don't have to understand quantum theory to understand whether a plant grows in an area or not!

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  2. Pet peeves: A character's name is spelled differently on different pages. What really gets my goat is the obliviousness to time things take, time a person leaves, number of miles, time they arrive. Also, distances are sometimes inaccurate or impossible to make in the writer's time schedule.

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    1. I read a book set in Scotland that treated the journey from Edinburgh to Loch Ness as if it took less than an hour. Easy to go there and back in a day. It takes at least four hours (one way) depending on traffic, and since more than one trip was made, it really threw me off in reading the rest of the book.

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  3. I hate when the character gets up at 6 a.m., and has a very long drive for an appointment at 9 a.m., and is going to stop for breakfast on the way. And it's hundreds of miles away. I'm like where is the copy editor? They are supposed to catch this stuff.

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    1. So is the author, when the author has been to both Edinburgh and Loch Ness...

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  4. And they stand out so much once you start to notice! One of mine is hair--color or even the style. Amazing how often I wonder if the cover art folks looked at the book at all.

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    1. I know! As you can tell, I do appreciate accuracy... ;-)

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  5. I read a book with a woman's name spelled Laurie for most of the book, and then one chapter spelled it Lori. Huh? That chapter also had other mistakes.
    Another book meant "past" and it said "passed" several times. I won't mention the series as it's been written about here.
    And also the absolutely wrong word was used in a sentence, but I can't remember what it is.
    Bring back copy editors and proofreaders!

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    1. That sounds REALLY familiar. I wish my brain would ferret out the title! (And those things drive me nuts, too.)

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  6. I edit and proofread so any mistakes jump out at me like neon lights.

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    1. Of course they do! I've noticed that passed/past seems to happen more and more often.

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