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been that, done there
Gary Robson currently has an article on the Writers' Weekly site that amuses me a lot, because the points he makes are true and at one time or another I've seen all the disasters he describes being instituted by people whose motivations could not have been more sincere. I'm certain I've made at least some of the mistakes myself. Here's the start of Robson's piece:
How to Design a Book Cover That Annoys Booksellers
As both an author and the owner of a (very) independent bookstore, I have a different perspective on book covers. Despite the old saying, "don't judge a book by its cover," people have done exactly that since the first bookshoppe opened its doors centuries ago. Whether browsing the shelves of their neighborhood bookstore or paging through search results online, our customers' eyes are drawn to book covers, and they make snap judgments based on those covers.
Good covers sell. Bad covers not only don't attract customers, but can actively annoy the very people you count on to hand-sell your books. Authors who self-publish or go through a Print on Demand (POD) house often think that brick-and-mortar bookstores won't sell their books. Granted, it takes some work to get in the door, but there are some POD books that sell well in my store. Sometimes, though, a mere look at the cover is enough to make me not want to carry a book -- even a book from a large traditional publishing house.
Are you looking for ways to annoy booksellers and encourage them not to sell your book? I hope not, but if you are, here is a list of some of the ways you can do it:
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My dear, surely things are not that bad.
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and often the author says, "And my brother did the pictures and the cover! SEE?"
Fair enough. I share your pain.
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When I first entered publishing (and we can get the Rosetta Stone jokes over right now), there was such a thing as the "lettering jacket": Penguin often did 'em, as did Gollancz, and most other publishers fell back on them on occasion. The "lettering jacket" was, obviously, one that had no illustration at all; any design effort had gone into the typography, although even then (a) there might be a series style that obviated the need for much typographical thought for each new title, and (b) for standalones, quite often there was no real need for much typographical enterprise because really all the potential buyers/readers wanted to know was title, author, and perhaps subject.
The two companies I've mentioned had extraordinary success with their "lettering jackets", and the editions published thus are often still the ones preferred by readers: would you rather have, say, the old green Penguin edition, typography only, of Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke or a more recent edition with a photographically rendered aghast babe on the front? I only ask.
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Yes, although sometimes the ways it does that selling job are other than what people expect. Of course, the ones the cover is really aimed at are not the readers but the buyers at the big chains like B&N and WalMart.