Covers for fanfiction

[Herdo]

I am curious. What are your opinions of covers for fanfiction?

FF.net (and I'm sure many other sites as well) have a function that allows you to upload a cover for whatever fanfics you upload.

Does the presence of a cover help you decide if you want to read the fanfic or not? Or do you ignore the cover and look only at the summary/author?

Do you use covers for your fanfics? If you do, do you draw/make your own or take a fitting one from the internet?

I personally don't use the cover function on FF.net.

 

[Glimmervoid]

I've put three pieces of fanfiction on sites which allow covers. My Harry Potter/Marvel fic doesn't have one and neither does my OC Dresden Files fic. I did use a cover for my MLP:FiM/Lovecraft fic, however.

Over all I like covers. They make a good fic better, and, yes, an ingesting cover will grab my attention. The only problem is making them. Being no good at art, I took a screen cap from a episode for my MLP fic but that's not an option for Harry Potter or Dresden Files.

 

[PCHeintz72]

I do not take into account covers at all when deciding to read something. There are several reasons for that.

1. A lot of the images shown on sites like fanfiction.net are actually not truly story covers but merely either something the author puts on all their stories, or ultra generic in looks. I realize that is nto always the case, but it seems mostly.

2. FF.NET only introduced that feature relatively recently... 90%+ stories on FF.NET predate that.

3,. I tend to use the RSS/ATOM feed system on FanFiction.NET, even if still at least partially broke. That system does not show the logo.

4. I read in TXT... Thus I tend to do a snatch and grab and read offline. Thus having a logo is pointless as I only see it for a few moments.

5. While using downloaders for me is a very recent thing, I still do copy paste into text editors mostly... but a downloader does not grab the logo.

6. That logo in most cases is so small as to be pointless... I do not mind fanart in the least and have downloaded fanart for a number of stories over the years, but I like to see it at say 480p or greater, not so measly a image size as say 112p, as the image size on one logo I downloaded as a test showed.

7. They limit you to one. Those with fanart libraries for their stories or large images need to look elsewhere and link to say deviantart from their profile page.

 

[rdde]

I've been turned off by covers. They don't help me determine if the story is worth reading or not and a lot of personal art covers don't appeal to me.

On the other hand, if great covers guarantee great works and unappealing covers guarantee unappealing works, I'll advocate them for everyone.