Always Judge a Book by its Cover?
The story of my second book's ill-fated jacket design, and why I rejected it.
In July 2014, in Harrogate, England, I had a meeting with my then publisher at the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. He excitedly showed me the proposed jacket for my upcoming second novel, Second Life. My reaction was visceral. I f**king hated it. But, of course, my impostor syndrome reminded me that I am not a book jacket designer, plus I could totally see why they’d gone for the design they had. So, what came out of my mouth was, ‘Brilliant, I love it.’
Here is the story of that jacket and how we eventually got it changed.
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What makes someone pick a book off the shelf, or click on a particular title in an online store?
The publishing industry is obsessed with this, of course. They want to make sure the next book you pick up to buy is one they're selling, after all. A great deal of research has gone into this, as it has in all industries, I suppose. Why this washing powder, and not that one? Why that car and not this one? That's capitalism for ya, after all.
This can lead to some depressingly obvious trends in the publishing industry. My first book, Before I Go to Sleep, did pretty well. When it was first published, it had this jacket (in the UK, at least).
What followed? Over the next couple of years, there was a huge proliferation of books with eyes on the jacket. (There were also quite a large number with the word "Before” in the title, and a not insignificant number of authors chose, or were persuaded. to use their initials around this time).
It's important to note here that I'm not complaining about any of this. How can I? It's the nature of things, and besides, I didn't design the jacket, and neither was it the first to use an eye in such a dramatic way. See, for example, The Beach, by Alex Garland, which came out in 1996.
So, no sour grapes here. (And anyway, success, like love, isn't a pie. Someone else, having a slice doesn't mean there's any less for me).
But why does the industry pay so much attention to the design of a book? If we exclude people picking up novel of the shelf because they know the author is one they want to read, most people will go through the following stages before committing to buy:
Pick up the book. Read the blurb on the back. Read the first few lines, or sometimes a few lines from a page in the middle.
Put it down, or put it in your basket.
And what makes someone pick up the book in the first place. Yes, you got it. The jacket.
And so, on a swelteringly hot day at the Theakston’s Old Peculier crime writing festival in Harrogate, England, I was excited to have a meeting with my publisher at which he was going to show me the proposed jacket for my new book, Second Life. We sat down, ordered coffees (okay, okay, it was probably wine), and after exchanging pleasantries he began to explain, in great detail, why they'd gone with the jacket image he was about to show me.
‘It’s a panther,’ he said, as if that made a difference.
Now this should've rung alarm bells, of course. I'm not a design expert, but even I know that a design has to work independently. If somebody needs to be on hand to explain it, then surely by definition it doesn't work.
Nevertheless, I nodded excitedly. Once his explanation was over, he reached into his bag and proudly showed me this:
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