Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulpmeister
You're right about Jack of Eagles, fjtorres, that was very typical of the period; BUT, you knew at a glance that you were getting sf, and very often the very name of the author was the largest thing on the cover; a brand name. UK Panther paperbacks of many of Asimov's books had ASIMOV in huge type, one of those more or less generic space hardware images, and then the title. What you saw is what you got: an Asimov SF book.
The problem with the Chocolate Factory cover is that unless you already know all about the book you have no idea what it contains. The vaguely Stepfordish look is oddly creepy, but uninformative.
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Agreed on both counts.
What sold paperbacks in those days was the brand (usually the author but not always), the title, and most especially the back cover text.
In the early days paperbacks were just too cheap to get commisioned covers and the art departments at many publishers were not terribly concerned with paperback covers for most genres. Off the top of my head, ACE, BALLANTINE, and DAW were very good; NAL, BERKLEY, and AVON were really bad. At "best", impressionistic--at worst irrelevant.
Things improved by the late 70's and 80's in terms of cover quality but in recent times we've seen a decline back to the 70's most notably from the BPHs who have resorted to online stock images and cliches.
http://publishingperspectives.com/20...n-book-covers/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/19...iches?s=mobile
http://stevewhibley.blogspot.com/201...rs-beware.html
http://thebooksmugglers.com/2010/03/...n-fantasy.html