You Can’t Tell a Book By its Cover–Right?
I got an interesting email from a reader the other day. She’d originally emailed a couple weeks ago to tell me how much she enjoyed “Tombs of Endearment,” and since at the end of that book, Pepper (my heroine) talks about a cemetery conference in Chicago, the reader wondered if that’s where the next book would be set.
I told her it was, and I mentioned that after some back-and-forthing with the publisher, it looked like the book (scheduled for publication in January ‘09) will be called “Night of the Loving Dead.”
“Terrific title,” the reader wrote. “I can see the cover in my head.”
Little did she realize how timely that comment would be. It’s cover conference time, when editors and folks from my publisher’s art, marketing and sales departments get together to come up with just the right covers for upcoming books. Last week, my editor and I sent many emails back and forth with comments and suggestions. I had her checking out covers on amazon. She faxed covers that are currently in the works that she thinks are especially attractive.
So just how important is a cover to a book? And to sales of the book?
I think we all know the answer. Covers are what make us notice books. They’re what make us pick up books and often, they influence our decision to buy–or not to buy. A book’s cover, along with the back cover copy that tells us what kind of story we can expect, are vital to building books sales and careers.
Even before our books appear on bookstore shelves, covers are important. Publishing house sales reps carry “cover flats” (literally, the cover flattened out) with them when they sell our books to retailers and wholesalers.
How much influence does an author have over his or her cover? That’s a more difficult question to answer. Some authors are lucky enough to have an editor like mine who asks for my opinions and listens to my suggestions. But things haven’t always been this way. Back in the day when I wrote romance, I had more than a couple clunker covers. One even had my heroine’s name wrong in the back cover copy!
So what’s the secret to great covers and spectacular sales? I wish I knew, and I’ll bet everyone else in publishing does, too. A cover needs to be eye-catching. It needs to convey the mood of the book. It needs to grab a reader and not let go. As for quantifying what exactly that means, that’s a whole other story. Every reader is different, and each of us is attracted by different colors, different type fonts, different styles.
As for that reader who emailed me, I emailed right back and asked for her input. How does she see the cover of “Night of the Loving Dead”? It will be interested to get her feedback and see how it meshes with what my editor and I have decided we like. It will be even more interesting to see what the art department finally comes up with.
