Judging books by their covers
Oct. 10th, 2008 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghara(inspired by reading this)
Am I in a very minor minority here?
First, let me make the dreaded confession - yes, I HAVE pre-judged a book by a cover - we ALL do it - it's that visual thang that's hardwired into the human brain. The cover is the first thing we see on a book, and come on, be honest, if a cover leaves you absolutely cold would YOU hold out any hopes that the book underneath it would enthrall you? Didn't think so. Dreaded confession two - I've been surprised and astonished any number of times when, being persuaded to read a book whose cover did not appeal, I actually found the book itself not only acceptable but often absorbing.
Yes, I can be shallow that way.
From under the author's hat, I await the book covers on my own books with anxious trepidation because I know first-hand of reactions much like the one I have described above. Some people who might have loved the book will never pick it up because the cover doesn't trigger their "pick me up" impulse. A recent reviewer of "Spellspam" bemoaned the cover because to her it would have meant that she would never have picked up that book if she had had the choosing of it - and she thought the cover was bad. There are people close to me who agree with her. There are other people who adore that cover. Personally, I think that the three books makes a nice set, cover-wise. But there you have it - there's at least one person out there who WOULD NOT HAVE PICKED IT UP if she had tripped over it in a bookstore.
Another case in point - "Secrets of Jin Shei" was written and conceptualised in my own head as high-concept alternate history or historical fantasy book, along the lines of Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana" - but it was marketed as mainstream, and given a mainstream-y cover. What did that mean - well - it meant that I was sliced by the double-edged sword of having potentially higher exposure (the book was shelved in the mainstream section, and while fantasy readers WILL be seen in the mainstream section mainstream readers would not be seen DEAD crossing the other way) but by the same token those people who would have picked it up and loved it as what it was originally intended to be may have never heard of it or seen it and might never have picked it up judging it by its mainstream-y cover, and those people who did pick it up based on its bookstore placement and its mainstream-y cover might have been deeply disappointed and even annoyed by the fantasy elements in what they believed to be a mainstream historical novel.
So. Slapping it on the counter and staring at it. Book covers. How do you judge books? Do book covers make a difference? To simplify the thing completely, the same book was published with a pink cover and a blue cover would it matter to you which?
Do unmet expectations, as based on what you were led to expect from a cover, ever sour your opinion on the author - who had nothing whatsoever to do with what sort of cover got slapped on his or her book...?
Am I in a very minor minority here?
First, let me make the dreaded confession - yes, I HAVE pre-judged a book by a cover - we ALL do it - it's that visual thang that's hardwired into the human brain. The cover is the first thing we see on a book, and come on, be honest, if a cover leaves you absolutely cold would YOU hold out any hopes that the book underneath it would enthrall you? Didn't think so. Dreaded confession two - I've been surprised and astonished any number of times when, being persuaded to read a book whose cover did not appeal, I actually found the book itself not only acceptable but often absorbing.
Yes, I can be shallow that way.
From under the author's hat, I await the book covers on my own books with anxious trepidation because I know first-hand of reactions much like the one I have described above. Some people who might have loved the book will never pick it up because the cover doesn't trigger their "pick me up" impulse. A recent reviewer of "Spellspam" bemoaned the cover because to her it would have meant that she would never have picked up that book if she had had the choosing of it - and she thought the cover was bad. There are people close to me who agree with her. There are other people who adore that cover. Personally, I think that the three books makes a nice set, cover-wise. But there you have it - there's at least one person out there who WOULD NOT HAVE PICKED IT UP if she had tripped over it in a bookstore.
Another case in point - "Secrets of Jin Shei" was written and conceptualised in my own head as high-concept alternate history or historical fantasy book, along the lines of Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana" - but it was marketed as mainstream, and given a mainstream-y cover. What did that mean - well - it meant that I was sliced by the double-edged sword of having potentially higher exposure (the book was shelved in the mainstream section, and while fantasy readers WILL be seen in the mainstream section mainstream readers would not be seen DEAD crossing the other way) but by the same token those people who would have picked it up and loved it as what it was originally intended to be may have never heard of it or seen it and might never have picked it up judging it by its mainstream-y cover, and those people who did pick it up based on its bookstore placement and its mainstream-y cover might have been deeply disappointed and even annoyed by the fantasy elements in what they believed to be a mainstream historical novel.
So. Slapping it on the counter and staring at it. Book covers. How do you judge books? Do book covers make a difference? To simplify the thing completely, the same book was published with a pink cover and a blue cover would it matter to you which?
Do unmet expectations, as based on what you were led to expect from a cover, ever sour your opinion on the author - who had nothing whatsoever to do with what sort of cover got slapped on his or her book...?
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-11 05:13 pm (UTC)Cover designs are--or should be, or started as--code for the sort of book inside. They indicate genre or subgenre.
Art directors will try new things, but if a book with a new sort of cover does well, then other books that the publishers think will appeal to those readers will get a similar cover treatment. Paranormals with sexual themes get the half-head or shadowy body part because of the Laurell Hamilton novels that went over to that design. Leather-clad women seen from the rear are code for paranormals with lots of butt-kicking, because the first Kim Harrison had that sort of cover. The doodle-font, cutsey-line-drawing, minimalist cover for chick-lit comes off The Devil Wears Prada. I don't know who originated the "flowers or fields = women's litrachaw" business, but it's a clear trend. (Though fortunately a failing one, as those covers are BORING and many people already think litrachaw = boring. People do not buy books they think will bore them.)
It happens in all genres: men's thrillers have giant type on the covers and little else; usually a dark background in red or black. Mystery novels with cartoonish, bright-colored illustrations are cozys. Nasty thrillers will be red or black, often with yellow lettering, and often with dripping blood somewhere.
The problem (for readers) arises in the publishers categorize differently from readers. Or possibly (probably) publishers deliberately code a book as part of a hot-selling subgenre, even when the book is only marginally in that subgenre. Then the readers start to feel that the coding doesn't work. Eventually that perception is completely true.
At that point, the book with the unique, eye-catching cover that has some indication of the contents, but isn't readily subcategorizable, starts to sell better. All of the examples I gave above were once new and fresh. They're just not new and fresh anymore, and yet their subgenres are still doing well.
Art directors must (and of course, do) come up with new ideas to convey each genre or subgenre. Unfortunately, they are not the only person making the decision. Sometimes the art, marketing, and editorial people are all sympatico and can work well. Other times there are, shall we say, politics interfering in the process.
And of course people are fallible. Sometimes everyone at the pub house loves a design, but they have utterly failed to gauge the readers correctly.
To (finally!) answer your question: unmet expectations don't make me think badly of the author, since I know full well that he or she almost certainly had zero to say about the cover. However, if I'm expecting one book and get a different book, I may dislike it when I might have enjoyed it if it were "correctly" labeled. (It's the reason I don't like lhassi: it looks like a milkshake, but it's salty. The taste is fine, but the mental disconnect is just too much.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 09:47 pm (UTC)