Did Amazon add something to the publishing guidelines about covers?

[RPatton]

Cover image
The title, subtitle, author name, and series information on your cover should match the corresponding metadata fields. Covers that may be misleading because they closely resemble another book's layout, color scheme, fonts and/or images aren't allowed.

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201097560

I don't remember the emphasized (mine) portion, but I am not 100% sure.

[Lynn]

I sure don't think that was there the last time I read the guidelines. Kind of makes sense that they would add it but wow, that's a f*ck up waiting to happen.

[RPatton]

If there's a change in the guidelines, that's usually a flag that they've been firing warning shots and about to launch the cannons.

I haven't been hearing anything about covers getting dinged, but that's not to say it isn't happening. I just found it weird to see it now and not part of the original document.

[Lynn]

I have no insight on that. This place is about the only place I pick up publishing/Amazon news these days.

[LilyBLily]

Is Amazon trying to put photo sites out of business? One of my romances uses an image I’ve seen on at least five other books in the past couple of years.

[RPatton]

Is Amazon trying to put photo sites out of business? One of my romances uses an image I’ve seen on at least five other books in the past couple of years.

That's not what the guideline says at all. It says covers that could be misleading because they resemble another book. It would be like creating a book cover similar enough to Harry Potter that someone just glancing at the cover might mistake it for a Harry Potter book. The key word there is misleading not same images.

[idontknowyet]

what will naked chest covers do? they are all exactly the same.

[RPatton]

Again, the key word there is misleading. Put a cover on that is deliberately designed to get a one click because it looks like another popular book and Amazon will come after you if readers complain/return books. Bare chested covers are such a trope and Romance readers are generally savvy enough to know that not all bare chested covers belong to one author/pen.

[JRTomlin]

It is almost impossible to do a cover that doesn't at least somewhat resembles other covers. My most recent cover that was done by Jeff Brown that I really thought was pretty damned unusual for HF covers (not easy let me tell you) within a few days I ran across two covers quite similar. The number of HF covers with helms or swords or armored hands holding swords must be in the hundreds. Yes, I know that Amazon put in the word 'deceptive'. What I am wondering is just how Amazon decides if two similar covers are 'deceptive'.

[Writer]

In theory, this could be a good thing. I've seen a few covers that very blatantly lifted top selling authors' branding. I'm not talking normal things like stock photos, generic layouts, and common fonts. I'm talking a high level of imitating, copying multiple distinctive details in ways that could only have occurred deliberately. IMO, those are the covers this is aimed at.

In practice, though, they may regret adding this to the guidelines. You only have to look around KBoards to see that tons of authors don't understand the way stock photos work or don't realize that they don't own extremely generic concepts. So there could potentially be a lot of ignorant people reporting their competitors for covers featuring girls with flowing hair and magic in their hands.

I'm not sure how familiar the employees getting those reports are going to be with normal genre cover conventions. To someone who doesn't know anything about it, the above mentioned urban fantasy style does look very similar, and those complaints might get kicked up the chain to yet another person who knows as little about cover conventions as the first. 

So, well intentioned idea but maybe not very practical if the final call is being made by someone without experience in design, who has never studied the genre in question.

[CoraBuhlert]

I haven't checked the guidelines lately, but I don't think this is new.

About two year ago, there was a case where an author with an axe to grind published a book with a very similar title, cover, blurb and author name to an upcoming novel by a popular traditionally published author.  Because the two books looked so similar that one might be mistaken for another, there were complaints and Amazon took the copycat book down. You can see both covers next to each other here. They look extremely similar and it's easy to see why that sort of thing would not be acceptable.

Just using the same stockphoto alone shouldn't be an issue or Amazon would have to yank hundreds of books. But using the same stockphoto, font, a similar title and a similar author name may get you in trouble, especially if done maliciously.

[dgcasey]

Is Amazon trying to put photo sites out of business? One of my romances uses an image I’ve seen on at least five other books in the past couple of years.

Same here. On one of my fantasy novels, I used a picture from pixabay and had it up for about two years. And saw it on no less than a half a dozen other novels over that time. At least I could take solace in the fact that MY novel was ranked higher than any of the others.   

I redid the covers to that series a few months ago.

[sliderule]

I think this is in response to authors creating covers that are so similar to another's as to be virtually indistinguishable except the author name. I've seen a few of those and was actually appalled when I saw it.

This isn't a matter of using the same photo/art. This is duplicating layout, typography so thoroughly that if you didn't see the author name, many readers would believe they came from the same author. It's a copying of someone's cover brand.

[BelindaWhite]

I think this is in response to authors creating covers that are so similar to another's as to be virtually indistinguishable except the author name. I've seen a few of those and was actually appalled when I saw it.

This isn't a matter of using the same photo/art. This is duplicating layout, typography so thoroughly that if you didn't see the author name, many readers would believe they came from the same author. It's a copying of someone's cover brand.

This exactly. There has been a new witchy mystery popping up in my Facebook feed A LOT lately. I thought one of the authors I was following had put out yet another book in her series. Nope. The cover was a direct knockoff of her brand. Enough so to have me (a fairly seasoned author by now) convinced it was by the popular author.

Certain very distinctive branding elements were used. Namely two lines centered around words that are known to be connected to author #1's series. And that was only the beginning. Same style, same items on the covers, same coloring, everything but the name. If I was author #1, I'd be totally ticked off. Her covers are very distinctly hers.

Or at least, they were.

[twicebitten]

 huh. I'll stab my favorite person in the head if they go after these books:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HLKV538/  (I think my best friend is safe.)

[Joe Vasicek]

Amazon is currently researching ways to combine text with images for purposes of search, recommendations, and possibly product categorization. With that in mind, it appears that the new TOS is their way of saying "don't try to monkey with our algorithms by changing your covers." Which is also super-vague, and totally won't lead to a train wreck in any way.

My wife is getting a master's in computer science, with an emphasis on machine learning. She says that there are all sorts of stupid little things you can do to trip up an algorithm, like slap a sticker on a stop sign to make a self-driving car ignore it. As Amazon rolls out changes to its algorithm that incorporate our book covers, I expect this will open up a whole new playground for scammers and savvy authors alike.

[deedee]

Covers that may be misleading because they closely resemble another book's layout, color scheme, fonts and/or images aren't allowed.

This is awesome. The look & feel of my best covers for one of my best series (including a unique font) were copied by a KU author & at that time I was told there was nothing I could do.

[Bill Hiatt]

Amazon is currently researching ways to combine text with images for purposes of search, recommendations, and possibly product categorization. With that in mind, it appears that the new TOS is their way of saying "don't try to monkey with our algorithms by changing your covers." Which is also super-vague, and totally won't lead to a train wreck in any way.

My wife is getting a master's in computer science, with an emphasis on machine learning. She says that there are all sorts of stupid little things you can do to trip up an algorithm, like slap a sticker on a stop sign to make a self-driving car ignore it. As Amazon rolls out changes to its algorithm that incorporate our book covers, I expect this will open up a whole new playground for scammers and savvy authors alike.

Another algorithm? And here I was, thinking this was a good thing.

Given some of the odd things the current algorithm recommends to me, I have little hope that Amazon will make the search process that much better by somehow including cover imagery in it. But I think you're right--if they do, people will find ways to game it.

[sliderule]

I think this is in response to authors creating covers that are so similar to another's as to be virtually indistinguishable except the author name. I've seen a few of those and was actually appalled when I saw it.

This isn't a matter of using the same photo/art. This is duplicating layout, typography so thoroughly that if you didn't see the author name, many readers would believe they came from the same author. It's a copying of someone's cover brand.

This exactly. There has been a new witchy mystery popping up in my Facebook feed A LOT lately. I thought one of the authors I was following had put out yet another book in her series. Nope. The cover was a direct knockoff of her brand. Enough so to have me (a fairly seasoned author by now) convinced it was by the popular author.

Certain very distinctive branding elements were used. Namely two lines centered around words that are known to be connected to author #1's series. And that was only the beginning. Same style, same items on the covers, same coloring, everything but the name. If I was author #1, I'd be totally ticked off. Her covers are very distinctly hers.

Or at least, they were.

That's exactly who came to my mind.