Comments on: Book Cover Conversations Are So Very Clichéd

By: More exciting book cover talk & a quiz for you! | Tamara Paulin – Writer

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 23:53:49 +0000

[...] “Cover art is never quite the same as what’s in the book, because the inside is made up of words, and the outside is made up of pictures, and they each do very different things.” Mark C. Newton [...]

By: World Wide Wednesday: Black Prisms & White Cats | Fantasy Literature's Fantasy Book Reviews

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:19:10 +0000

[...] This one can be found over on A Dribble of Ink run by Aidan Moher. Aidan is the acknowledged king of cover art, and he has a great deal to say on the subject. In fact, recently there have been a number of discussions around the subject of cover art prompted by Aidan, including one conducted by Mark Charan Newton which can be found here. [...]

By: Philip Palmer

Philip Palmer — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:49:30 +0000

A couple of times I’ve bought a book because of the cover – because it was classy, stylish, and beautiful – and was annoyed to find the book itself was crap. So that has to be Rule Number 1:

RULE NUMBER 1: IF YOUR BOOK IS CRAP, GIVE IT A CRAP COVER.

I’ve also been told – by my important publisher friend who is also, er, my, publisher, about other books which are BRILLIANT and have brilliant covers and still don’t sell that well.

RULE NUMBER 2: THERE AIN’T NO JUSTICE IN THIS FRAKKING WORLD.

I do totally understand people buy books with terrible covers; because the cover makes it clear (due to its various ‘signifiers’, to use the utterly pretentious but strangely useful technical term) what kind of book it is.

RULE NUMBER 3: SOME PEOPLE DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT COVERS, THEY JUST WANT TO KNOW THEY’RE GOING TO LIKE THE BOOK.

For my part, I love covers; they’re part of the joy of reading; cover porn indeed! I sometimes fondle books with beautiful covers, whilst huddled in my study, fondly recalling the days I had a social life.

And now I come to think of it, at one point I used to be pulp crime novels for their lurid covers, and then not even bother reading them.

I’m sure many people buy books DESPITE the covers; but if the covers were fab, but also accurately signified the ‘kind of book it is’, my guess is they’d still buy them. And would be less embarrassed about it too.

RULE NUMBER 4: IF A COVER IS CRAP, IT TELLS YOU THE PUBLISHER DOESN’T LOVE THE BOOK.

RULE NUMBER 5: THERE IS NO RULE NUMBER 5.

By: neth

neth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:38:43 +0000

Interesting post and interesting discussion – I’ve been far too busy in the past few days to follow in detail the Twitter discussion and various other blog posts, or even read in detail the other responses here, but I believe I have something that hasn’t been raised in the discussion here.

I think Mark is taking the realistic, pragmatic position in this (which often where I fall), but I think being too pragmatic in this is very dangerous. What happens when the cover misrepresents what’s in the book? What happens when a cover is whitewashed? Whitewashing a cover is usually defended (if at all) with the economic argument. Should it matter.

And while it’s an extreme end of the spectrum it does fall on the same spectrum of this discussion. Should covers be designed only to sell? Is this really what we want? It’s a delicate balance – covers that sell or covers that appeal, covers that sell or great art that represents the book well, stock photos/illustrations or original art, covers that meet expectation or challenge them, hoods or bloody maps with script, covers with POC or whitewashed?

And one last parting shot – as the market shifts more and more digital and buying shifts more and more towards the internet, how much will the cover art of the future really matter?