We’re taught from childhood to “never judge a book by its cover”. The adage is both a specific warning for those looking for a good read and a metaphor, describing face value’s untrustworthy relationship with that which lies beneath. The reason it has stood the test of time is that, as well as being one of the western world’s most quoted anecdotes, it’s also one of the most ignored. We frequently judge a book by its cover – we simply don’t have the time to invest in making well-informed decisions about everything forced under our noses. Some decisions, if not most, need to be made using little more than the most immediate indicators. Conclusion: the book cover does not just decorate and protect its content: it’s a powerful sales tool. A good one will grab your attention. That’s its job, that’s all it needs to do. The title, blurb, price-point, endorsements, and opening page will do the rest. So will the customer reviews. And it’s position on the table at the front of the bookshop. And the adverts. And the audio snippets. And the interviews. And the book signings.
But.
It’s not that simple. Nothing ever is.
In a passionate and funny TED talk, advertising guru Rory Sutherland said: “Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself.”
In other words, the packaging of a product can fundamentally alter our understanding of, and relationship with, its content. This has been proven time and time again. Good packaging can even positively impact our experience of something that is, ultimately, disappointing. A crappy present in a lovely box complete with ribbon, bow and neat corners is still a crappy present. However, it might make you smile because you know the gift-giver has put love, time and effort into the act of giving.
An example or two
Take a shirt. Go on, pick one up. Compare a shirt from Tesco with one from Hugo Boss: similar material, design, quality; but only one of them conjures up an image of a handsome, buff, lightly stubbled man standing confidently next to a painfully beautiful woman, both looking like they could take on the world and win. Only one promises to give you something more than a shirt to put on your back.
The same is true of books. We can radically alter a reader’s relationship with a book simply by modifying its wrapping. By giving it a brand. Like all brands, all visual identities, these can be built from the ground up or borrowed: alluding to other brands by using similar identifiers. Remember when Bloomsbury released Harry Potter books with ‘adult’ covers, so that grown-ups might not feel so uncomfortable reading them on the Tube? Remember how the kids’ versions were bright and bubbly with cartoon characters and fancy fonts? Remember how the new ones were dark and used smaller imagery and smaller, simpler fonts, suggesting mystery, danger and thrills? Remember how incensed people got having already bought and read the kids’ versions, and discovering there was no additional material inside? No altered words or themes? No torture or illicit thrusting? No difference between the texts at all?
The point? There is a relationship between a book and its cover. A change in the cover effects a change in its content, even if this change is only perceived.
What makes a good cover?
There is no formula to a good cover, but there is a set of underlying principles that can help us out. When looking at covers we ask the same, subliminal question that we ask of a gift: “Does it look like love, time and effort has gone into creating this?” There are, of course, many questions within this question:
- Does it look like my kind of book (i.e. does it conform to a genre I subscribe to; classic-lit / sci-fi / chic-lit / Booker Prize / crime)?
- Does it conform to the basic principles of design (this is real back-of-the-brain type stuff; the rule of thirds, elegant proportions, good composition, a consistent colour palette)?
- Does it look well produced? (Nice cardstock, laminated, un-creased, embossed, perhaps, foiled, hologramed)
- How big is the title compared to the author (which is more important)?
- Is the book endorsed? Do you know/respect the person offering the endorsement?
- Does the design compliment the title (is it well considered, modern, attractive)?
These questions, and the answers that go with them, bounce around our heads so fast that we barely recognise their existence. The conclusion is often formed at near light-speed. It can change just as quick, too. We might dislike the cover but remember the author’s name; one we have read before and enjoyed, an interview we heard on the radio, an endorsement made by our favourite author or critic.
Never settle for ‘good’.
What does this mean to us writers? Quite simply: that a cover can be equally, if not more important than the book inside. An interesting aside: eBooks might be subtly changing this, some eReaders unable to reproduce the artwork, but the same principles apply. I’ll leave that for another post. If you’re going to spend months/years of your life writing a book then it’s worth taking a deep breath, doing some research, and really thinking about the cover. “Yes, this one will do,” should never, in fact, do.
Written by Adrian Robinson
19th August, 2011
