As part of the run-up to the annual meeting of the Association of American University Presses, the program committee is posting Essential Reading and provocative links for publishers. This link to BBC News struck me in particular because we have had several discussions about the effectiveness of our book jackets in recent weeks.
From BBC News:
Never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover is a cliche that has at its root an anti-superficiality message. But the truth is that publishers and authors do want us to judge a book by its cover, otherwise they would simply produce books wrapped in block colours to denote a genre.
Indeed, nothing in the production process is quite as tension-filled as the jacket design process (titles and subtitles do give jacket design a run for the money, though), but it is high on my list of key ingredients to a successful book. What do you think? Are there some recent books that really hit the mark for jacket design? Any PUP titles you like in particular? Sound off below.
Also, visit this link for some examples of the award-winning handiwork from our seriously talented jacket design team and here to vote on some of the new paperback covers for Spring 2010.
On March 10th, 2010 at 9:15 am emilio replied:
I think that the cover can make someone grab the book and check it out, or simply ignore it.
Once you are reading it, the cover doesn’t matter anymore, but it always helps to grab the attention so you actually pick up the book