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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 4117905" data-attributes="member: 20741">Yes.The publisher, from early on, thought that the book had cross-over appeal and would be purchased by mainstream buyers if they would just look at it.  This is especially thought to be the case with  historical fiction readers in the USA and Canada.Something that appears historical was marketable to those readers in a way that fantasy was not, according to the publisher.The very first hardcover edition of A Game of Thrones had a silver low key deliberately non-traditional fantasy cover. And as GRRM confirms - it sold poorly <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The softcover? After Jordan's recommendation went on the front cover and it had a traditional fantasy painting? It sold extremely well. Been all uphill ever since.GRRM's publishers thought after ASoS became a monster hit and the series essentially reached "#1" in the genre that they had reached all the fantasy readers they needed to reach. The feeling was that the word of mouth on the novel amongst those familiar with the genre was huge enough that readers of the genre would seek it out no matter the cover. So they went back to the "stealth cover" to try to sell it to people who didn't already know about it.This was GRRMs explanation in Toronto in January 2005 after AFFC came out and he was asked to explain the cover art change.Anyways, that's the deal with the non-traditional "fantasy art" covers.</blockquote>

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