Is the Book Cover Dead?

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by JOZAWUN

Yes, but that's a defect of the interface.

indeed?

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

indeed?

We were talking about utility, not vanity

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by JOZAWUN

We were talking about utility, not vanity

your vanity can be my utility. it tells me about you. you choose it to do exactly that, do you not?

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by JOZAWUN

Yes, but that's a defect of the interface.

Originally Posted by calibrated

One man's bug is another man's feature.

Exactly! Some of us can identify items from a bookshelf of thumbnails faster than a text list of titles and authors, especially if you like to sort your collections by something other than the alphabet. That's why it's good to have options. It's not a defect at all.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Exactly! Some of us can identify items from a bookshelf of thumbnails faster than a text list of titles and authors, especially if you like to sort your collections by something other than the alphabet. That's why it's good to have options. It's not a defect at all.

I can usually identify a book I've read by its cover, but rarely by its title. This creates problems for me because the cover is generally tied to the publisher, not the author; when rights are purchased by another catalog, the cover changes.

Covers are also important to the branding of an author, especially for series works; all the covers in the series have the same themes. And who cannot instantly identify a harlequin romance by the cover? Is the amount of exposed cleavage on the cover directly proportional to the erotica contained therein? Or is she just a tease.

[BearMountainBooks]

Readers still love book covers. I do a cover poll before releasing each book so readers can choose between two covers--egads! I get hundreds of visitors voting. People who don't even READ vote (they say so in the comments.) Artwork matters.

Books I LOVED with bad covers:

Unicorn on Speed Dial (awesome cozy fantasy)
The Heretic (I hate the cover. The old one was better. Urban Fantasy)
Father Love (Noir; pulp mystery. Boring cover, very decent quick read.)
LOVE Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson books. Hate all the covers.
Just finished reading Tamora Pierce's Bloodhound (the second in the series. Boring covers, pretty dang good books.)

I miss being able to see the title of books when I'm reading. I come to forums and want to tell people what I'm reading and...sometimes I can't remember the author name or the title because I don't see it sitting on the table next to me when I'm not reading it! It's on my kindle and I go right to the page I'm reading when I pick it up--no cover, title or author to stick in my head...

[bbqncigars]

Good cover art can persuade me to sample the book. I don't buy any book (or ebook) without trying it first. It's even better if the cover portrays a specific scene in the text (Demon of Undoing) rather than a generic reference (A Wrinkle In Time). Bad covers make it very unlikely for me to open the book, lacking a plethora of glowing reviews.

[Gorgonseyes]

The design of my cover has driven me nuts lol... So I DO think it matters

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

I can usually identify a book I've read by its cover, but rarely by its title. This creates problems for me because the cover is generally tied to the publisher, not the author; when rights are purchased by another catalog, the cover changes.

Covers are also important to the branding of an author, especially for series works; all the covers in the series have the same themes. And who cannot instantly identify a harlequin romance by the cover? Is the amount of exposed cleavage on the cover directly proportional to the erotica contained therein? Or is she just a tease.

The imprint has more to do with the content than the actual cover. That and the cultural tolerance, which these days is much more tolerant of nakedness and ... let's call it brash poses rather than artful ones...

[frahse]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

Nostalgic lamenting from even the decidedly non-Luddite sector, MIT's Technology Review.


http://www.technologyreview.com/blog...27783/?ref=rss

Much ado about little, but I too do miss book cover art. When reading pBooks, I'll often pause in my read to refer to the cover, especially when a passage or phrase relates back to what the artist was no doubt conceptualizing when creating the artwork.

Yea, it's there at the beginning but it in an eBook, it isn't something to which you can so casually and easily refer; it takes more than a degree of time and effort.

Maybe I should print out the cover art and tape it to the inside front on the cover!

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

No, I don't think that it is. If I am looking at a book, and I see that the cover looks like it was created by a child, I move on. I don't bother with the blurb, I don't bother with reading the sample. I won't ever buy a book because of the cover, but I might decide not to buy based on the cover. I assume that a sloppy cover indicates a sloppy book.

Cover art and blurbs written by 5th graders can greatly handicap a book, and yet you see them on good books by intelligent authors.
Why? Did the authors or publishers children need a Saturday project because it was raining and they couldn't go outside?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by frahse

Cover art and blurbs written by 5th graders can greatly handicap a book, and yet you see them on good books by intelligent authors.
Why? Did the authors or publishers children need a Saturday project because it was raining and they couldn't go outside?

I think in some cases, authors don't have any say. In others, they pay for the artwork, but it turns out ... not so great. And of course, just because we're good writers doesn't mean we have good taste in art. Artwork can be expensive and it's a skill that takes a lot of time to learn.

Look at the covers on the Sookie Stackhouse books (Charlaine Harris books). Both the new ones AND the old ones are some of the UGLIEST covers ever done. Yet the series is very popular and is an HBO series now. The first ones (Or were they the second) definitely have the 5th grader look to them.

I try not to let the covers influence me too much, but they do. There's no denying it.

[tompe]

The purpose of the book cover is to sell the book. A cover that causes people to pick up the book in a bookshop is a good cover. The purpose of the cover is not to perfectly relect what happens in the book.

[MV64]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

No, I don't think that it is. If I am looking at a book, and I see that the cover looks like it was created by a child, I move on. I don't bother with the blurb, I don't bother with reading the sample. I won't ever buy a book because of the cover, but I might decide not to buy based on the cover. I assume that a sloppy cover indicates a sloppy book.

A LOT of books have uninspired cover art and I, too, completely pass on most of them, unless I know by reputation the book is good.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Wait a bit.
Once ePub3 takes hold, we'll have animated and video covers!
With audio!

I wasn't exactly kidding.
Neither are these guys:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...-cover/255935/

Daylight Saving came out in the U.K. in February, and in the months leading up to its release, the publisher used a novel strategy to generate interest in the teen novel: It placed a ticker at the bottom of the digital cover, counting down to the launch date. (It's still counting, now into a negative number.) In addition to the digital jacket's embedded clock, an underwater design ripples with the drag of a cursor, as if your finger could make waves through the screen. The interactive blue splashes (gimmicky, maybe) are nonetheless entrancing for the few minutes spent toying with the cover. And with that, the book has caught the eye of a potential buyer. Once purchased, of course, the water transforms into a static image, its graceful motion unsupported by the media formats in which it is ultimately consumed (print or the standard digital forms). The cover is seductive, but its spell is broken. Which brings to mind the tagline of Daylight Saving: "Can you save someone from something that's already happened?"

[yoho]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Purely by coincidence, an interesting article on the BBC News web site today about the misuse of the word "Luddite":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17770171

is this sarcasm?