Pet peeve - book covers

[Just RY]

If a paperback book doesn't have a description on the back cover, then I won't buy it unless I was specifically looking for that title/author.

I hate the way that some books just have newspaper reviews instead: "A thrilling read" - AnywhereVille Chronicle. (Since when would a publisher put a poor review on the cover anyway?). Utterly pointless.

If any authors are reading this, you are losing my business, because I will not (out of principle) go searching for the book description on the inside of the book. Probably my loss, because I am sure I have missed out on good writers and books because of this, but it's your fault! So there!

Am I the only one who feels like this? Any other pet peeves out there?

[Adrian]

I hate those stickers on book covers that say "As read by blah blah book club" or "3 for 2" that won't come off cleanly. You start to peel them off and they tear and you can't get the last bits off. And you can't take them off before you buy the book; shopkeepers think you're trying to stick it onto a book that isn't included in the promotion...

[megustaleer]

Just RY,
'Don't judge a book by its cover'! Even if there is a synopsis on the back, that, in my experience, does not necessarily give an accurate snapshot of the contents. Sometimes I'm not even sure that the writer of the 'blurb' has actually read the book....you might just as well believe the picture on the front!
I prefer to read books that are recommended by someone who has read them, such as a member of BGO.

[lucyb]

I hate the way you start collecting a series of books and halfway through they change the cover design on you.

[Tess]

I hate the way you start collecting a series of books and halfway through they change the cover design on you.

This is very irritating, don't they realise how important it is to have a matching set!

[Darkstar]

But you're supposed to buy all the ones you've got already in the new design. ;)

[Adrian]

That's why I stopped trying to buy a set of P.G. Wodehouse. They'd release a few and then stop and later start with another batch in a diferent design. Now a publisher is supposedly doing a full set but I don't believe them. No doubt they will and I'll have missed my opportunity to buy the first editions :mad:

[Cathy]

The wrong edition can be so off-putting… when I was a child I had all the Narnia books in one type of edition, except the Silver Chair, which was in an annoyingly slightly larger edition so it didn't fit properly on my shelves, plus it had photos from the BBC version which was for some reason too distracting, and its the only Narnia book I never read! How fickle are children?! I am sure I must be the shallow-est book buyer ever, I love Generation X for its bright pink cover, and liked Donna Tartt's Secret History except the scary cover, which I couldn't look at. I'm also sure I only bought the Best of James album because of the lovely cover, luckily I like the music too. Excellent marketing move then...

[happyfriday]

"A thrilling read" - AnywhereVille Chronicle.[/I] (Since when would a publisher put a poor review on the cover anyway?). Utterly pointless.




I'm with you on this one, it drives me insane!! :mad: I just can't see the point in it, and it looks really bad when they have reviews from newspapers or mags that nobody would ever have even heard of, it gives you the impression that it the book is not going to be the best, sometimes i think that they make them up (which i'm sure is not the case) i just never buy these kinds of books!!

[Grammath]

One thing that annoys me when it comes to putting reviews on back covers is not quotes from obscure journals but back slapping ones from other authors. Stephen King and Bret Easton Ellis are two who are especially guilty of churning these out.

Every Xmas, "Private Eye" has a round up in its "Literary Review" section of who's provided puffs for their mates' books by including them in their "Books of the Year" lists for the weekend broadsheet papers. These can be quite eye opening as to how untrustworthy these quotes really are.

[lucyb]

That's why I stopped trying to buy a set of P.G. Wodehouse. They'd release a few and then stop and later start with another batch in a diferent design. Now a publisher is supposedly doing a full set but I don't believe them. No doubt they will and I'll have missed my opportunity to buy the first editions :mad:

Exactly! That's why our bookshelves currently have the Horse Lords series by Peter Morwood in two different sizes. Grrr! I have to say that whoever publishes David Gemmell at least sticks to the same kind of style for the covers.

[Adrian]

Another award goes to Penguin for their Modern Classics. They used to be a distinctive shade of pale green, but no, they had to go and "update" the cover design. I hate marketing people.

There hasn't been an Iain Banks novel out for a while, but they might even have changed his distinctive covers too.

I'd better stop fuming now before I blow a gasket.

[Just RY]

Just RY,
'Don't judge a book by its cover'! Even if there is a synopsis on the back, that, in my experience, does not necessarily give an accurate snapshot of the contents.

But that is the crux problem. There are times, when all I have available to me to make a decision about purchasing a book or not is the blurb on the back. If I have never heard of the author, or never heard of the book, then there is no alternative. It is easy to choose a book via amazon, mainly because they have such a vast choice and because of reviews from other readers etc etc. As someone who travels a fair amount, I speak from bitter experience of having just a few moments to pick a book from sparsely stocked aiport bookstores on many occasions.

For me, No Blurb=No Buy. I spend a good deal of cash on books in any given year, writers are losing readership - and it would appear that I am not the only one - by this silly practice. What can possibly be gained by NOT writing a brief synopsis, and placing it where the majority of people would expect to find it?

[excalibur]

I agree with the idea of obscure newspaper or magazines (the likes of which have never arrested even the most hard-core magazine-browsers attention) not being desirable to give a serious opinion on a book, (although they do consistently seem to be from a publishers point of view) although disagree on principle, that all inside-leaf recommendations are an irksome irrelevance, whose purpose is to embellish the commercial attractiveness of the book.

Some genuinely respected book critique artists who regularly put forward recommendations for the latest-releases, do so merely as a basis of enriching the buyers satisfaction/interest in the work, some of whose opinions are invariably valued as being a credible indicator as to the general quality or 'un-putdownability', (if you will) of that authors work. (i.e.; Melvyn Bragg, Matthew Parris, Simon Hoggart, David Mellor, etc, etc…. who seldom have anything meaningless to say upon the manifestation of good, solid, thought-provoking literature.)

[megustaleer]

As someone who travels a fair amount, I speak from bitter experience of having just a few moments to pick a book from sparsely stocked aiport bookstores on many occasions.


I can see that would be a problem. Mine is that there are too many books and too little time, so I never find myself in that position.
If I travel (A rare occurrance) I carry a caseful of volumes from my 'to read' pile, plus a long list of 'must read one day' recommendations. Sometimes I think there should be a moretorium* on book publishing, just to give me a chance to catch up!
If I did find myself in that position I'd pick a nice juicy murder story...my idea of 'light' reading, and you usually know what to expect.

*can't think how it is spelled!

[Lei-Lei Jayenne]

I don't particularly like dust-covers on hardback books, they just get in the way when reading on the train, and they get torn and ruined when carried in my bag. I never leave them on.

[Cabrasopa]

You can always laminate hardback dust covers, save them getting torn, also nice and easy to wipe clean.

cabrasopa :cool:

[Beerqueen]

I sometimes wonder if publishers have read the book they are publishing (if it is them who choose the cover?). Our book group once read Have the Men Had Enough? which is quite a sombre book about the grandmother in a family who has Alzheimers and gets progressively worse as the book goes on. The cover showed a young girl in close up with bright red lipstick on - it looked like a very trashy chick-lit book and some of our members were really embarrassed (not me - I don't care what people think!). The publishers obviously just read the title of the book! I also have a thing about blurbs on the cover giving away too much of the plot - even if it tells me what happens in chapter two I feel cheated - as in "After the suicide of her husband, so-and-so discovers that he is bankrupt" when the books starts with said husband alive and well! I know resolve that if I know I'm going to read a book I won't even read the blurb hence it's a bit difficult choosing a book sometimes!! I usually go on recommendations.

[Broos]

If any authors are reading this, you are losing my business, because I will not (out of principle) go searching for the book description on the inside of the book. Probably my loss, because I am sure I have missed out on good writers and books because of this, but it's your fault! So there!

An author doesn't usually get much of a say as to what the cover looks like. The publisher might show it to you as a courtesy, but that's all it is. If you say anything other than, "Wow! That's great!" they just say, "Uh-huh" and do what they were going to do anyway.

I do hate it, though, when the blurbs are on the inside, especially if there are so many they go on for pages. The blurb is there to get me to pick the book up. Once I've picked it up, I don't want to see any more advertisements. My interest is already piqued. I just want to see the first paragraph. If that doesn't grab me, I'm gone.

[dumpling]

I hate it when the book cover picture is from a film based on the book. I really don't want the grinning face of Liam Neeson, Helena Bonham Carter or anyone else for that matter looking at me. Thank you very much. :mad:

[Hazel]

Interesting blog on book covers -

www.avclub.com/content/blog/judging_books_by_their_covers

[Hazel]

Fans of the lovely striped Penguin books, will be interested in the new collections -

www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/celebrations/index.html?id=email&link=H1celebrations

Is it foolish to want a book you already have, just because of these new and delightful face-lifts?

[David]

Is it foolish to want a book you already have, just because of these new and delightful face-lifts?
Well, it's shallow, obviously, but entirely understandable...

;)

I like the effect of all the spines together, though the front covers inevitably lack variety, so I wouldn't be tempted. There's also something deeply disturbing about seeing Jezza Clarkson in such a 'classic' format...

[Hazel]

Well, it's shallow, obviously, but entirely understandable...

As a puddle, me.

There's also something deeply disturbing about seeing Jezza Clarkson in such a 'classic' format...

That is really odd I grant you.

[Hazel]

I see the 'butterfly in a glass jar' image has popped up again on a Jodi Picoult book (below). Since seeing this image on A M Holmes The End of Alice, I have seen it on Barbara Gowdy's Helpless, and now this.


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(http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pdp/taf/0340935790/ref=cm_taf_dp_button_g)
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[Hazel]

This seemed like a good thread to start this discussion under. In Saturday's Guardian, William Leith (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/22/advertising), discussed the practice and effect of blurbing on books. You know, the hyperbole courtesy of another author, that has you reaching for your wallet. What do you think about it?

I used to pay attention to the blurbs, especially if it was from another author that I liked. Then I habitually scanned them and can't quite say for sure if they made me reach for my bank card. But for a long time now I have paid them no attention at all. It's clear that they are either from authors sharing agents/editors/publishers or they are friends/close associates or even genre bed-fellows. I am definitely with Alexander Waugh, quoted in the Leith piece as saying -

"I don't want a blurb on the cover of my book. It's distasteful and rather sickening. And I don't think it makes any difference to sales. When I see a blurb - 'A marvellous book!' - my thought is, 'Are they friends?'" Waugh thinks that being asked to give blurbs is "like being asked to be a god-parent". He says he wrote a letter to his editor "saying the whole thing was boring and embarrassing"."No, I'd say something stronger. It's nauseating and demeaning. I don't believe for a second that people don't know what's going on."

Waugh thinks blurbing doesn't fool anybody. Honestly, now I think blurbing is one step up from friends/associates of the author/agent/publisher reviewing on Amazon - with blanket 5 stars and no other reviews written save this one. Thankfully, buying from Amazon, you are pretty much unable to see the blurbing anyway.

[Stewart]

I skip straight past blurbing - no interest whatsoever in what whoever has to say about a book. In fact, I'd much rather the cover stayed virginal from blurbs and focused more on design. Rushdie and Coetzee, incidentally, are the biggest quote whores I can think of.

[David]

I never pay any attention to it at all. Clearly that's all part of the marketing and consequently to be taken with a tubful of salt. Even a positive comment out of context can be misleading.

The strategy I was always impressed by was with The Wasp Factory. Whilst not the blurby cover comments, just inside there were a couple of pages of short snippets from many different reviewers, some praising the book to the skies and others noting the likes of, "As a piece of writing, The Wasp Factory soars to the level of mediocrity," and "It is a sick, sick world when the confidence and investment of an astute firm of publishers is justfied by a work of unparalleled depravity."

Well of course the latter comment in particular will draw certain readers in, but still, I liked that approach!

Anyway, the blurby puffs from friends or other people associated with the publisher or agent has less effect on me than the cover.

[Hazel]

Rushdie and Coetzee, incidentally, are the biggest quote whores I can think of.King, Koontz and Patterson get around in their respective genres too.

I have noticed as well, for a number of years now, the trend to insert umpteen pages of blurbs into the book before the normal opening pages too. That drives me demented. You've already bought the book! What does it matter then?! Of course, many of these are for another book by the same author - or worse still, a bestseller from that author. I'll only buy a further book by that author if I like the damn one in my bleeding hand! :mad:

[Jenmcd]

I find this to be a particular problem with Irish writers, probably because the Irish literary community is so small and everyone knows everyone else. Irish writers all review each others books and are not prepared to criticise in any meaningful way. I'm not suggesting that they trash their contemporary's work but just be honest. If you read the reviews of, for example, Anne Enright's The Gathering you would think it was the greatest Irish novel since Ulysses. When you see the names of the people providing blurbs on her cover you just know they are all going to run in to each other at every book launch/reading/literary event going.

[megustaleer]

I never read the plaudits when I'm choosing a book.
Oh for the days when you could find a brief synopsis - or at least a hint of the content - on the back cover

[Hazel]

Oh for the days when you could find a brief synopsis - or at least a hint of the content - on the back coverI am with you there. Ideally, the front cover should feature an image, the author and the title. The back, a brief synopsis and the pricing details. That'll do nicely.

[Minxminnie]

I always thought the term "blurb" rferred to the synopsis on the back until I read that article on Saturday. :o

I don't much mind the praise from other authors, but, like meg, I hate it when it takes the place of a synopsis. Why would I buy the book if I have no idea what it's about?

[Stewart]

Why would I buy the book if I have no idea what it's about?I do that all the time. It may just be that it's a nice cover, or it's a new name to me, or that it's by a publisher I've come to trust for putting good stuff out there. The first edition of Boyne's The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas said nothing of the plot, preferring to give nothing away about its content, and Chris Cleave's The Other Hand takes a similar approach, declaring that it would spoil the book to tell you what it's about.

[Hazel]

The first edition of Boyne's The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas said nothing of the plot, preferring to give nothing away about its content, Hmmm, a marketing strategy of course, creating an air of mystery and just as corny as the 'mysterious' author.