Why do publishers change book covers

It falls on the wrong side of that nostalgia line. That a jacket should reveal something about the content is often the beef authors have with designs, which explains why many seem more relaxed with their US covers than their UK ones. By telling the story — or at least hinting at it — there is less likelihood the jacket will be interchangeable with everything else in their section of WH Smith. Mick Herron , whose Jackson Lamb novels were first published by Soho in the US before becoming a word-of-mouth hit here, says the US design clearly positions the books for US readers whose knowledge of British spies might only extend to James Bond.

Not everyone is so laid-back about covers, and with good reason. As the novelist Jane Harris explains, gender can make a huge difference to how a book is packaged on both sides of the Atlantic. Her publisher, Faber, delivered: in the UK the books has an abstract design of sugar cane in eye-popping black, red and gold. But Harris is not hopeful the design will be taken up in the US. In recent years in the US and UK, the people with most influence over a book jacket have been those who choose stock for supermarkets and chains such as Waterstones and WH Smith.

An order from the chain could propel the book into the Top 10, but there was a problem: they hated the jacket. The publisher returned to her art department and commissioned a second design. The colours pop out of the oage and draws me, as a reader, to the book…. Thanks, Noelle — yes, I know what you mean. There are so many crime thrillers using this colour combination at the moment that I feel are similar in storyline to Look Closer, I was compelled to make the change.

Great strategy, Rachel. There are actual marketing hazards to making your book look too enjoyable—I wrote sixty-thousand-some words of prose, but because I threw in half a dozen cartoons and put a funny drawing on the cover, my would-be literary essays often get shelved in Graphic Novels or Humor. Two irreversible trends are at fault here, neither of which can be altered by even a really persuasive essay.

One is that the illustrated book cover, like painted movie posters or newspaper comics, is pretty much dead. Fonts, stock photos, and Photoshop are cheaper than commissioning illustrations. As the adage has it, the golden age of science fiction was twelve. My youthful capacity for wonder at any form of art may have been permanently deadened by age, education, and one too many competent, forgettable literary novels.

Even the best-designed fonts look sterile and corporate compared to the vivid, expressionistic hand-painted titles of the first half of the past century. Of course, you can always find examples of excellence with which to argue that artistry survives in new forms. But these exceptions are conspicuous against a bland, indifferent background of conformity, standing out as starkly as those isolated objects on white fields. Further reading: Free Book Cover Creators. My days are spent writing and blogging, as well as testing and taming new technology.

I hate the whole idea of changing covers with a vengeance. Is it the damned cover, or the story? Your email address will not be published. Save my name and email in this browser for the next time I comment.

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