Judging Books By Their Covers
Paul, on a related note, I'm looking at the cover of your book and thinking, "That's marketed wrong." I'm reserving judgment about Perry for now, but for all the reasons you note, marketing is important if you have a good idea and want people to pay attention to it. We wouldn't need to admonish people not to judge books by their covers if it weren't a fact that they do. That one says, "For a small circle of academics only."
How would creative people on Ricochet design a cover for that book? It should convey to the people who most need to know how interesting the words in the title really are.
I'm reminded that Stephen King wrote a great review of my brother's great novel, Fieldwork:
First the good news: This is a great story. It has an exotic locale, mystery, and a narrative voice full of humor and sadness. Reading Fieldwork is like discovering an unpublished Robertson Davies novel; as with Davies, you can't stop reading until midnight (good), and you don't hate yourself in the morning (better). It's a Russian doll of a read, filled with stories within stories. ...
If this is such a good read, what's the bad news? That's easy. As of March 26, Fieldwork was No. 24,571 on the Amazon best-seller list, and not apt to go much higher. The reason why is illustrative of how the book biz became the invalid of the entertainment industry, and why fiction sales are down across the board (with the possible exception of chick lit). Critics, with their stubborn insistence that there's a difference between ''literature'' and ''popular fiction,'' are part of the problem, but the publishers themselves, who have bought into this elitist twaddle, are also to blame. Since we're talking Fieldwork, take Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Publishing houses have two faces. In the case of FSG, Jekyll belongs to the distinguished company that has published such award-winning novels as Gilead, The Great Fire, and The Corrections. Hyde is the side which seems to proclaim ''Don't read this, it's too smart for the likes of you.''
"Don't read this, it's too smart for the likes of you" is what the cover of Paul's book says right now. Let's improve it.
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Jun '10
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Hey, I don't just judge a book by its cover. Most times I read the first paragraph, too. OK, OK, when it comes to nonfiction I will peruse the table of contents and the index, if the book has one. I may be superficial, but I have my methods.
Edited on August 15, 2011 at 5:28amJun '10
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
More seriously to have someone liken your brother's writing style to a matryoshka doll is high praise, indeed.
Oct '10
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
The good news is I have Dr. Rahe's book on my shelf; the bad news is it remains unread for now. In terms of cover I thought about it for a min and this was my first thought. In the foreground you have the boat complete with Washington from Washington Crossing the Delaware except the perspective is different. They are rowing toward the viewer, the boat in the bottom right of the cover, with each passenger in the boat breaking the fourth wall and looking directly at the viewer. In the background over their right shoulders is a city on the shore in the upper left portion of the cover. Starting to write this I thought NYC but I substitute it now for the current DC skyline on the Potomac. Over the city starts the title "Soft Despotism" and under the boat "Democracy's Drift" tracking the eyes from left to right to help accentuate the direction of the boat: away. Washington is leading the escape from Washington, DC... and what does that mean? Read the book and find out.
Edited on August 15, 2011 at 5:54amMay '10
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
This is probably not what you had in mind, but I was inspired to tool around on photoshop for a few minutes back in Feb of 2009 when I read about Obama's town hall meeting in Fort Myers, FL. Many attendees came with their hands out asking what the new president was going to do for them, and Obama's response reminded me so much of David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps," I couldn't resist.
May '10
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Would you buy this book?
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
I love these suggestions. Let's keep the challenge open a bit before doing a display. Anyone else?
Apr '11
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Wow. That cover says popular and commercial hit. So the answer is "No".
It looks just like all the fear-mongering, anxiety-heightening jeremiads by a host of radio-talk-show hosts. I don't buy those, either. It's not that I don't agree with them; it's that I don't expect to learn anything new from them. Granted, I got SDDD after hearing Prof. Rahe on Uncommon Knowledge, but the cover, with the peculiar phrase "Soft Despotism" and the list of people whose thought is being analyzed, would have gotten me to pick up the book.
Not that a graphic wouldn't help. Maybe a parade of Emperors wearing their New Clothes--FDR, HST, LBJ, RMN, JEC, WJC, and BHO--with Karl Marx somewhere in the line. If the picture was done in an editorial cartoon style, they could be marching over a cliff. I'm sure Barack's buns would move the merchandise.
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Last week I was at one of my favorite book stores -- Tattered Cover. I picked up a book and saw a positive blurb for it from Dave Eggers. So I put the book down without further investigation. And then -- and this is embarrassing -- I picked up a book and saw it was blurbed by the woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. I practically dropped it.
Presumably I'm just not the market for either of these novels but I wonder if publishers shouldn't avoid blurbs from hacks.
Jul '11
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Claire, I take your point, but this is a serious book published by one of the finest university presses in the world. The sort of person who would want to read this book is interested in the subject, which is more than adequately conveyed by the cover. Such people do not need design gimmickry to induce them to buy the book; they might even resent it. The cover makes no bones about the book's gravity. To doll it up would be to introduce a discrepancy between the weightiness of the text and the frivolity of its packaging. Maybe a few more yahoos will buy the book if it has an arresting image on the cover, but what of the Professor's (and Yale University Press's) dignity?
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
And serious is necessarily commercially unappealing?
Isn't that precisely the problem? A separation of "people who think" from "proles to whom the plasma TV appeals?"
Since when did "dignified" mean "blank and blue?"
Jul '10
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Just needs a couple of vampires and maybe a werewolf on the cover. Or a bursting bodice. Do both, why chintz?
Jul '11
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
And serious is necessarily commercially unappealing?
Not necessarily, but as far as books are concerned, usually. But if commerce is the goal, why not go through a trade publisher rather than a university press?
Jul '11
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Isn't that precisely the problem? A separation of "people who think" from "proles to whom the plasma TV appeals?"
Yes.
Oct '10
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
And serious is necessarily commercially unappealing? · Aug 15 at 12:22am
The cover is just aesthetically unappealing. There is no excuse for ugliness, even with serious things.
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Yes, that is good.
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
This is quite instructive. I tried to reach a popular audience with the book and did something like fifty radio interviews. Sales were pretty good but not great. The biggest boost I got was a seven-minute spot on Mark Levin's show. The first printing sold out immediately. Hannity toyed with doing a couple of TV shows on it, and I once got close to getting on Glen Beck. Television sells lots of books.
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Now, mind you, I am not an authority on getting books to sell well--I've had little luck with it. But every commercial instinct in me says, "Dramatic cover counts, and there's nothing wrong with dramatic if indeed that's what's in the book."
I'm completely with Mollie on the blurbs. Everyone knows that's a racket, anyway.
Jan '11
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
I know the request for designs was meant as something fun for creative types to engage in, as is often the case, but this kind of thing always rankles the capitalist curmudgeon in me. Designers shouldn’t work for free and this kind of thing cheapens their work. l know, I know, this makes me look like a crabby, coffee-deprived killjoy considering the spirit in which it was presented, but I've seen many such ‘community efforts’ result in a design that is actually used for a commercial work, with little or no remuneration for the designer. The newly-minted antispec.com is attempted to fight back against spec work and ‘crowdsourcing,’ most recently by pointing out the Huffington Post’s design contest seeking a new logo for their politics section. Of course that’s far more egregious than a casual request on Ricochet. AOL bought HuffPo for $315,000,000 in February, so they have no excuse for expecting free design work.
Aug '11
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
PST here, just sat down with coffee... give me a few minutes.
Re: Judging Books By Their Covers
Even (perhaps especially) if a book is serious, it's important to have a visually attractive cover. There's something about the cover that affects one's psychological desire to purchase and read a book. At least that's true for me.
Biggest turnoff: the author's enormous face or entire body plastered on the cover.
Biggest turnon: daguerreotypes, black and white or sepia photographs, portraits of historical figures.
For Prof. Rahe's book, I think I'd like to see the portraits of Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and Rousseau lined up along the bottom portion of the front cover.