To which I reply, "Hold up there, Hoss. Sure, the sales aspect is valid, but there are other reasons a book cover is important. So pipe down and listen up. You just might learn a thing or five."
5 Reasons Why Book Covers Are Important
Protection
No, not as in you can whap someone over the head with it. A book cover's most functional job is to protect the brilliant writing within. It holds together and protects the pages.
Status Symbol
You are what you read . . . or at least that's what other people think when they see you toting a book. Other's perceptions of you will be very different depending upon if you walk around with a copy of War and Peace under your arm or if it's a Harlequin romance.
Decoration
Even if Martha Stewart isn't your middle name (and if it is . . . wow, stinks to be you), books are part of a living room's decor, or family room, or wherever it is that you keep your books. A coffee table wouldn't be complete without a gorgeous book sitting on it.
Preview
I'm never one to arrive late to a movie because I love to see the movie trailers. A book cover is like that, giving you a bit of a teaser for the story inside.
Classification
A cozy mystery cover is distinctly different from a bodice ripper, and a cover gives you that information at a glance.
Book covers do have a pretty full agenda besides simply being a marketing tool, which honestly makes me glad I'm not a designer. Way too much pressure.
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6 comments:
Michelle,
Thanks for the post. You've helped me look at book covers in an entirely different way.
By the way, I'm an artist and I'm glad I'm not a book cover designer, too! That's an awful lot of pressure. I'm much happier writing the stuff that goes between the covers.
Thanks again and best wishes,
Carrie
You're an artist and a writer? Wowzer. Hats off to you, m'dear!
Good lesson Teach! Sharing. :-)
Its true. Book covers can give totally the wrong impression. Like when the cover image, judging from the style of costume and armour says- set in the 1100s, and that girl looks like she's been kidnapped by the guy brandishing the sword- but the novel is set at least a couple of hundred years later, and the blurb says something else about the relationship.
Don't judge a book by its cover eh?
Just discovered your blog after coming across your giveaway on GoodReads yesterday ... love, love, LOVE it!
Books as status symbols? Guilty as charged! I own a Kindle (it was a gift) and use it sometimes, but when I read big doorstoppers like "Winter's Tale" and "11/22/63," I'm only too happy to drag print copies around.
Which brings me to one of my gripes about e-books: No one can tell what anyone else is reading! How am I supposed to book-spy on people at the beach? Isn't that the best part of walking down the beach -- trying to covertly see what everyone else is reading? Smiling if it's something you've read and enjoyed (and restraining yourself from going over, like a crazy person, to talk to this complete stranger about where they are in the book and what they think so far) ... shaking your head in pity if it's "50 Shades" ... making a mental note of something to add to the TBR list?
Hey Ashley ~ Always happy to have a new victim, I mean reader here at Writer Off the Leash. Thanks for stopping by!
And a huge YES to book-spying. That's one of my favorite pastimes. Stupid, stupid ebook devices.
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