book cover
On (Book) Covers & Controversy
January 27, 2010
Add new comment
by Auburn Rutledge
Everyone loves a good book cover. That’s indisputable—good covers catch our eye and drawn us in. Every good cover requires hours of work by the designer as part of a painstaking process to accurately reflect the content while appealing to the tastes of the target audience.
To see book covers come under fire is a truly fascinating look into what we have come to expect from a cover. Last summer, Justine Larbalestier’s YA novel Liar was originally featured a young white girl with long, straight hair, while the protagonist is clearly described as a black girl with short, textured hair. Jaclyn Dolamore’s Magic Under Glass has just been released with a cover featuring a young white woman, whereas the protagonist has dark skin and ‘exotic’ features. As Mitali Perkins described it in “Straight Talk on Race,” publishers want the cover “to sell more books, [so] the main character may be portrayed on the cover as less foreign or ‘other’ than he or she is in the actual story.”
Teen book reviewer Ari pleaded with publishers to consider the audience they alienate: “Do you know how much that hurts? Are we so worthless that the few books that do feature people of color don't have covers with people of color?” Bloomsbury changed Liar’s cover prior to its official release and is re-issuing Magic Under Glass with a new jacket design. Their original response to the controversy mentioned that the covers were “intended to symbolically reflect the narrator’s complex psychological makeup.”
Book buyer Catherine Linka of Flintridge Bookstore reveals the intrinsic difficulty of chalking this up to discrimination or carelessness: “The cover works symbolically… [but readers want a cover to give] an honest representation of the experience that they will have with [a book].” And therein lies the rub: what was in dispute was not the stylistic choice, but rather the audience’s expectation that the cover should more literally match the inside the story.
Different designers approach the process in different ways, but generally they read the book or have a detailed synopsis. They aren’t designing blindly. Choices are being made all the time between what is obvious and what is complex. There is a certain level of independence, but the designer will still ultimately be answering to the publisher.
What may come as the bigger surprise is that the author rarely has any say in the book cover design. Traditionally, design lies solely in the hands of the design team, perhaps with some input on behalf of the editorial or marketing department. But the author does not factor in, as is obvious from Larbalestier’s response to her book’s cover design.
There are some smaller and independent publishers who offer a more collaborative design process, with designers and writers working together toward a final cover design. Open communication between the two can prevent many of these issues by allowing each to explain their process to the other. But even this presents its problems—an author may have his or her own artistic vision and not always understand what types of covers sell, which is the ultimate job of the designer: to make a cover sell. That is not a particularly romantic view, but it is a realistic one. Still it is important to remember that the design is still art. It’s merely art meant to encourage a purchase. And as an author, you must be prepared to deal with the ramifications of having other people interpret your work.
If you do find yourself in a more collaborative environment with a designer or team, remember that their experience in the field may give them a different vision than your own, and it is important to respect some of their more unconventional suggestions or design ideas. It’s all a part of the process.
A selection of fantastic book cover design blogs:
- faceout Books
- the book cover archive
- Book By Its Cover
- Judge a Book By Its Cover
- The Book Cover Archive
- Color + Design Blog’s article on Best Book Cover Palettes of 2009
- The Book Design Review (indefinite hiatus, but a wonderful archive)
Tags:
Submit and Get Noticed: Advice from Greenleaf's Review Desk
January 20, 2009
by Katie Steigman
Tip #1: Tweak Cover Design Conventions—But Don't Discard Them Entirely
Business books don’t look like self-help books don’t look like fiction. This may seem obvious to some, but it is a common problem I see when we're evaluating new books for publication or distribution. When consumers want to buy a business book, for example, they expect certain imagery, fonts, colors, and layout styles, whether they realize it or not. The best-selling business books often use large, simple fonts and bright colors to keep the focus on the title (like this or this).
If your book cover or layout doesn’t make sense for its genre, it could hurt your sales.
That means that it might be a better idea not to make the cover of a book about investing neon pink with pictures of your dog, no matter what your artistic sensibilities are. Now that’s not to discourage innovation—there is always a new and better way to do things. The mold can be broken, but for new authors this can pose a risk (although sometimes ugly covers work). Whatever the case, choosing a genre-appropriate cover will signal credibility and familiarity to customers, which can translate into more sales.
A quick way to get some ideas is to go to Amazon or your local bookstore to check out titles similar to yours that are selling well. Notice the styling of other books, what imagery they use, and what that conveys to you as the reader. If you like what you see, figure out a way to adapt those principles to your cause. A book can stand out to buyers by employing creative cover art and a well-thought-out interior while staying within the bounds of the genre.
—
Katie Steigman reviews Greenleaf’s submissions for market viability and helps determine what books to take on as projects at GBG. She reads everything—the good, the bad, the ugly, and all genres from personal finance to cookbooks.
Tags:
How to Make Your Book Cover a Knockout
June 15, 2006
by Lisa Woods
If you want your book to be a contender, don’t underestimate the importance of your cover—more than any other single factor, it determines whether or not your book sells. The average consumer spends just eight seconds looking at a front cover; consider that your book's "standing eight count." Printing technology gives a cover a potent visual punch. Read on to find out how you can use special effects in sharp, non-tacky ways that will make consumers see stars all the way to the cash register:
Embossing
Embossing is the process by which a die is used to raise an area of paper to create letterforms, shapes, and textures. There are several types of embossing, including sculptured, multilevel, chiseled, platform, and dome.
- Lightweight Use: Use embossing to emphasize the title.
- Welterweight Use: Emboss images to give them dimension. Or try embossing the edges of faux stickers for a more realistic look.
- Combination Punch: Combine embossing with foil stamping to give a more "finished" look to the foil. (Using foil stamping and embossing together is called “stamp and bump” in printer jargon.)
Ringside Tip:
- Don’t emboss spines or back covers. Embossing really only packs a punch on the front cover.
- If possible, only emboss areas that are close together. This reduces the size of the embossing dye and consequently reduces the printing cost.
Hall of Fame: The Loch by Steve Alten (the title, monster, paddle and boat are embossed)
Foil Stamping
The foil stamping process covers paper with a super thin, flexible sheet of metal. The foil comes in a range of colors and levels of sheen. Mirror foils are the most reflective, while dusted foils are more subdued, and nonmetallic foils offer shiny solid colors that look a little like plastic. The foil is carried on a plastic sheet and during the printing process, stamping separates the foil from the plastic and makes it adhere to the paper.
- Lightweight Use: Use it to emphasize the title. Foil can also be used in decorative elements.
- Welterweight Use: Printing ink over foil is a very dramatic effect. "Ink on foil" can be done on a small area or over the entire cover. For more information about ink on foil, check out Cutting Edge Technology Guaranteed to Make Your Book Cover Pop.
- Heavyweight Use: Foil stamp the entire cover and print on top of the ink.
Ringside Tips:
- When using foil over the entire cover, use opaque white ink to cover the foil in specific areas where you don't want the foil to show (for example the area for the ISBN barcode).
- Foil stamping is the most effective way to achieve a metallic look on uncoated paper. Do not use metallic inks on uncoated paper stocks. The rough texture of the paper absorbs the ink and eliminates the metallic look.
Hall of Fame: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling, The Lost Van Gogh by A. J. Zerries
Holographic Foils
Holographic (or diffraction) foils have a "rainbow" or patterned light reflection.
- Heavyweight Use Only: Use holographic foils with caution. Holographic foils can overwhelm a design and look tacky fast! However, used in the right way, they can be show-stoppers.
Hall of Fame: Spook by Mary Roach, Confessions of an Heiress by Paris Hilton
Uncoated Specialty Stocks
Uncoated paper is usually rough to the touch and is manufactured in a great variety of finishes, colors, and weights.
Ringside Tips:
- Use uncoated papers to create eco-friendly, historical, literary, journalistic, or nostalgic looks.
- Use a photographic texture that mimics a textured or antiqued paper to get the specialty paper look without the cost (example: Season of the Snake by Claire Davis).
- Due to its rough and absorbent surface, uncoated paper becomes dirty more easily than a coated paper. If you opt for a white or light-colored cover design on uncoated paper, be prepared for more damaged/returned books. (Note: That didn’t stop Blink!)
- Remember, metallic inks on uncoated paper lose a lot of their sheen. Opt for foil stamping instead.
Hall of Fame: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Blink by Malcom Gladwell, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Follow these guidelines and your contender will have more than just a fighting chance.
For more information about printing technology, see Cutting Edge Technology Guaranteed to Make Your Book Cover Pop.
Tags:
Judging a Book by Its Cover: A Case Study
March 30, 2006
by Lisa Woods
I don't know about you, but gasoline prices have been on the forefront of my mind these days. So I've decided to take a look at books currently on the shelves about the coming oil shortage.
My favorite in this category is The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg.
This is a perfect marriage of title and image. The dark humor is shocking yet completely appropriate for the dire subject matter. The type is well-placed and does not deter from the powerful image.
Now, compare the revised and updated cover to the original:
It is clear why this cover needed a redesign. The typography used is almost identical, but the image is so much less effective. It took me several minutes to even realize that the illustration is a tipped over wine glass. This is not a horrible idea, but it is undeveloped.
Now, compare these two covers:
The photographs used are very similar, an oilfield during sunset. But in Twilight in the Desert, the image is reduced to its bare essentials: a single tower and the setting sun. The Twilight in the Desert cover succeeds where Hubbert's Peak fails because Twilight's title and the image on the cover work together and all the design elements are clean and simple.
I have two final covers:
Both of these covers work. The words of the titles are reinforced visually, and the type is handled well. For example, on The Bottomless Well’s cover, the title is slightly obscured by the gasoline and the pump. This overlap serves to marry the image and the type. In Out of Gas, the subtitle visually completes the trajectory of the drop of oil. If I had to choose, I prefer the more contemporary approach of The Bottomless Well, but both designs are truly well executed.
Tags:
