Cover Reveal for At Her Mercy/At the World's Mercy (我为鱼肉)

[douqi]

Rosmei has revealed the covers for all planned eight volumes of Ning Yuan's court intrigue baihe novel At Her Mercy/At the World's Merch (我为鱼肉, pinyin: wo wei yurou). Per previous practice, they did not provide any further information about the novel in their cover reveal tweet, so once again I resigned myself to doing some free marketing and promotional work for a commercial entity. The cover designs are as follows:

Comments

[douqi]

I saw lots of people on Twitter admiring the cover, so this is probably going to be a minority opinion, but my main feeling is: it's... fine, I guess? I'm not a fan of the character art style, though I am relieved to be spared the quite cartoon-y character art I've seen in some adjacent areas of publishing. I'm also hoping the details on the scenery covers show up better on the physical books than in digital format.

(I am capable of liking covers! I like morefate's designs for Ning Yuan's Middle-Aged Love Patch, as well as their designs for Da Ying's xuanhuan titles)

[halfcactus]

They look good when they're posted all together like this and you can see the color palette, but here's my minority opinion: I find the text placements on the front covers (flush on the corners) very bemusing, composition-wise. Also I wish Rosmei would be better at title typography... I've seen worse from them but I'm frustrated at the wasted potential in this.

[douqi]

Yeah, that typography choice is... weird. Tbh, I feel like the English-language publishers of these c-novels in general have struggled quite a bit with title/cover typography.

[halfcactus]

I'm glad that you at least still have versions of the book with more satisfying design choices and that you can actually read!

One of my annoyances is that everyone is so collectively defensive about publishers that any cover dissatisfaction is instantly snuffed by people who purport to understand the industry. Like just a couple of weeks ago there was a hugely viral post that claimed that not having synopses was standard + smart marketing tactics. XD I'm actually fascinated that Rosmei seems to have latched on to the "title in all-caps + metallic effect" formula that 7S has been doing for its gufeng books and then... stopped there, which strikes me as bizarrely bare-minimum design research. /opinions I can never share publicly as someone who does dabble at graphic design but is not in the industry

[douqi]

Yeah, what is UP with people defending publishers' sub-optimal (to say the least) decisions as if they were being paid loads of money to do it?? I don't understand, even after having watched someone tie themselves in knots trying to argue that Rosmei couldn't possibly write summaries because... that would be copyright infringement, the last time the summaries discourse rolled round.

(pretty sure the reason Rosmei can't produce summaries at this point is because no one involved in the process has actually read this and the other baihe title; gossip suggests that they're not giving translators enough time to actually finish reading the books before starting work)

Re: graphic design — momijizukamori has also repeatedly lamented the 7seas/Rosmei approach to design and typesetting.

[profiterole_reads]

They're very pretty. <3 And thanks for doing their marketing work for them.

[douqi]

I just love Ning Yuan's work too much not to.

[aurumcalendula]

I really appreciate you providing blurbs for it! (I do wish Rosmei did way more marketing for it since the only English translation for it besides their previews is a MTL one that started this July)

The cover art is pretty, but I'm surprised they went with two different styles (and I feel like the green and blue color schemes should've been next to each other).

[douqi]

MTL one that started this July
oh wow the RAGE i felt just learning this fact

I'm surprised they went with two different styles
I know they sometimes do dust jackets with scenery art combined with interior covers with character art, so maybe this is a mix of both?

[aurumcalendula]

Yeah. They at least say it's MTL at the beginning, but I'm still not thrilled about it to say the least.

[llonkrebboj]

Oh what the heck, those covers are lovely!!!! I really really like the ancient painting style ones. If they keep them for the final prints (hopefully the dust jackets so I can wrap them that way), I'll let myself be art baited 🤣

I also think it's really cool that the character art is implied to be set within the landscape art.

1. Palace in the night vs. the bedchamber chin tilt xD
2. Temple in the wilderness vs. horseride
3. Burning campsite vs. general on her horse in the flames
4. The palace/court in the day vs. her backlit by sunlight in the palace

[douqi]

Re: being art baited — there's a traditional Chinese print edition from morefate scheduled to be released at... some point, and I'm waiting to see what they're going to do for the cover designs. Since Rosmei refers to this being a 'joint publication' between them and morefate (which I find an odd turn of phrase, since morefate has a traditional Chinese licence for Taiwan/HK and Rosmei has an English-language licence for Singapore, two things that are not the same), I wonder if that means they'll use the same cover designs.

All this to say that I'm pretty confident the actual text content of the morefate version will be superior to the text content of the Rosmei version (which, in the preview, featured the word 'shero'), so if they do have the same cover designs, I'd strongly recommend getting the former XD

[llonkrebboj]

THIS IS THE SHERO NOVEL? 😬🤣 oh hell no, not if they keep that choice 🤣 (there's a reason i haven't gotten more PFH or any 7S ones xD). And ooooo morefate collab huh? I do like their cover for Cyan Wings' 魔尊!

Let's wait and see 👀

[douqi]

Ahahaha, yes, the infamous 'shero'! I've also heard gossip about their translation expectations which, if true, do not bode particularly well. Yeah, I haven't loved all the morefate cover designs (their Miss Forensics one was extremely phoned in and disappointing), but they've had more hits than misses for me, so I'm interested in seeing what they do.

[hazevi]

Based purely on art I'd say that I really do like the color schemes and vibes for volumes 3 and 5! Color scheme for 3 looks like an ancient Chinese painting and 5 is a fiery red for the battlefield which is very suited.

I'm iffy about the character art on the covers (it's cool, but it's on the cover...) but that's been a criticism of mine since like the whole licensing thing got started and 7seas started insisting on putting the main characters on all of their covers.

The thing about these, though, that I can't shake off regarding overall criticisms is that they are a bit generic... palaces and outdoor scenes for 1, 3, and 7 could possibly apply to a lot of historical novels and then the character art could give the impression that it's just another romance series. I'm sure there are scenes or items of note that make 我为鱼肉 unique; those could have been included in the art.

The art is really pretty, don't get me wrong. I admit that I might just be picking at threads.

[douqi]

I'm sure there are scenes or items of note that make 我为鱼肉 unique; those could have been included in the art.
My possibly not-so-crackpot theory that no one involved in this project has actually finished reading the novel yet intensifies.

[geraineon]

Ah, thanks for the heads up on this. Would it be alright to link this post to promote on fedi?

[douqi]

Sure, go for it!