Titles and Covers and Sales, Oh My (Rerun)

Again, due to meetings and required reading, we've got a rerun here at PMN today. I'll be back with new content tomorrow; try to soldier on without me for another 24 hours! — E

Episode: "Titles and Covers and Sales, Oh My"
Originally aired: Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Guest post submissions are in, mes auteurs, and now the time-consuming (yet thoroughly enjoyable) task of selecting five of them to run the week of Monday, June 28th falls to yours truly. Results will be in soon!

In yesterday's comments, the question of how titles and covers play into the sales discussion came up. Let me, for educational purposes, present the following (entirely fictional) one act play featuring sales rep #1, sales rep #2, marketing guy, and art guy.

sales rep #1, sales rep #2, marketing guy, and art guy are all gathered around the conference room table with myriad other publishing professionals.

sales rep #1: I don't know, art guy. This cover just screams romance to me, and Dudes and Bros and Explosions is a thriller.

art guy: True, but one of the main characters is a woman who tries to be "one of the bros" but then falls in love with the protagonist, yeah? We figured it was more of a romantic suspense.

sales rep #2: No, we're aiming for a male audience. We need to take the clinch off the cover and throw in some dudes. Maybe some bros.

sales rep #1: And some explosions.

sales rep #2: Definitely some explosions.

marketing guy: Also, what about the title? I mean, yeah, it's kind of intriguing, but what about the title we launched with?

sales rep #1: You mean The Huzenlaub Effect?

marketing guy: Yeah, that! I'd pick that up in a book store.

sales rep #2: We thought it sounded too academic. Plus, it turns out it's pretty similar to the Huzenlaub process, which is...

sales rep #1 (reading from BlackBerry): "...a form of parboiling designed to retain more of the nutrients in rice."

sales rep #2: Yes. That.

art guy: Okay, we stick with Dudes and Bros and Explosions. But I'm not sold on cutting the clinch. I mean, hot women on book covers sell. And the dude has one arm around her and he's holding a grenade in the other. I don't see what's not to like.

sales rep #1: You made the protagonist look like Fabio. He's described in the book as more of a Kiefer Sutherland type.

sales rep #2: With an eye patch.

sales rep #1: Yeah, an eye patch.

marketing guy: Eye patches don't sell.

sales rep #1: Eye patches totally sell. Boy Wizard with an Eye Patch sold three million copies in hardcover.

marketing guy: Boy Wizard with an Eye Patch was written by J.K. Meyer. She could have written the character with two eye patches, leprosy, and a daytime job on FOX & Friends and it still would have sold.

sales rep #2: All right, what if we foil emboss the title? Shiny things sell.

art guy: Too expensive.

sales rep #1: What if we make it a trade paper original and drop the price point to $16.99?

sales rep #2: That might work.

marketing guy: You know what? I think I like Bros and Explosions and Dudes better.

The curtain closes as everyone at the table tries to speak at the same time.


fin

The Year in Review: Part 2

Today: covers!

As I've mentioned before (and once or twice or thrice since), cover art is important for your book. Yes, we've all heard that age-old adage about judging a book by its cover, but really, who doesn't do that? I don't know about you, but I go for that foil-stamped hardcover at the front of the store every time, and I'm inundated with the marketing back-and-forth that got it there on a daily basis.

To briefly rehash my initial post on the subject, a good cover should do at least three things:

1. Tell us what the book is called and who wrote it;
2. Give us an idea of the book's genre (thereby already telling us whether we're likely to enjoy it);
3. Provide an iconic, interesting image, so as to—as Seth Godin puts it—"tee up the reader so the book has maximum impact."

Occasionally you can break a rule or two; for example, it's not always a cardinal sin to omit the author's name from the cover of the book (assuming the cover image is sufficiently arresting). But a major misstep here (such as broadcasting the wrong genre or creating an easily forgettable cover) can tank a book's sales.

I'd like to add two more items to the List of Three (rendering it now, I suppose, the List of Five):

4. The cover should "pop" on a large display table;
5. Don't forget about the spine.

In yesterday's comments, Adam wondered whether thicker, fancier spines might be good investments for publishers. While thicker could be a problem (shelf dimensions are pretty standard, meaning the book would either become too tall or too wide for regular bookstore shelves; additionally, thicker books tend to warp more easily), I'm all for more eye-catching spines. It's tricky work, but if you're stuck without co-op, a unique spine design can get you off the shelf and into readers' hands.

As for "popping" on a display table—well, I look for our front-of-store titles on a pretty regular basis, and there have been a few that I've missed that were right in plain sight. If I can't find them when I'm looking for them, how are you, the consumer, supposed to find them when you're just casually browsing? Successful books stand out from the crowd, and the only way many books will get into browsers' hands in the first place is for them to distinguish themselves through eye-catching, unique cover art.

What can you do if your cover doesn't blow your mind? Again, rehashing an earlier post:

• Tell your agent as soon as possible. (Preferably during business hours.) He or she will be able to discern whether your concern is 1.) appropriate and 2.) something that can be addressed/fixed by the publishing house, and will then do everything he/she can to communicate the problem to the editor/publisher and get it fixed.

• If your agent is temporarily unreachable, write an e-mail to your editor. Please calm yourself down before you do this. Don't send an e-mail or make a phone call in anger or panic. This is never a good idea.

• Look on the bright side. Best case scenario: the publisher eats the cost of a cover adjustment and all is well. Worst case scenario: nothing changes and your sales may suffer as a result, but it's very unlikely your career will be seriously damaged. Most likely, some in-between scenario will occur, and you're likely to emerge from it relatively unscathed. And if your book is coming out in hardcover, remember—there's always the paperback.

I'll also add:

• There's always the e-book. The cover counts here, too, but not as much as in the world of physical books. It's far from optimal, but you can still see good digital sales numbers with a bad cover.

Monday: comp titles, revisited!

Titles and Covers and Sales, Oh My

Guest post submissions are in, mes auteurs, and now the time-consuming (yet thoroughly enjoyable) task of selecting five of them to run the week of Monday, June 28th falls to yours truly. Results will be in soon!

In yesterday's comments, the question of how titles and covers play into the sales discussion came up. Let me, for educational purposes, present the following (entirely fictional) one act play featuring sales rep #1, sales rep #2, marketing guy, and art guy.

sales rep #1, sales rep #2, marketing guy, and art guy are all gathered around the conference room table with myriad other publishing professionals.

sales rep #1: I don't know, art guy. This cover just screams romance to me, and Dudes and Bros and Explosions is a thriller.

art guy: True, but one of the main characters is a woman who tries to be "one of the bros" but then falls in love with the protagonist, yeah? We figured it was more of a romantic suspense.

sales rep #2: No, we're aiming for a male audience. We need to take the clinch off the cover and throw in some dudes. Maybe some bros.

sales rep #1: And some explosions.

sales rep #2: Definitely some explosions.

marketing guy: Also, what about the title? I mean, yeah, it's kind of intriguing, but what about the title we launched with?

sales rep #1: You mean The Huzenlaub Effect?

marketing guy: Yeah, that! I'd pick that up in a book store.

sales rep #2: We thought it sounded too academic. Plus, it turns out it's pretty similar to the Huzenlaub process, which is...

sales rep #1 (reading from BlackBerry): "...a form of parboiling designed to retain more of the nutrients in rice."

sales rep #2: Yes. That.

art guy: Okay, we stick with Dudes and Bros and Explosions. But I'm not sold on cutting the clinch. I mean, hot women on book covers sell. And the dude has one arm around her and he's holding a grenade in the other. I don't see what's not to like.

sales rep #1: You made the protagonist look like Fabio. He's described in the book as more of a Kiefer Sutherland type.

sales rep #2: With an eye patch.

sales rep #1: Yeah, an eye patch.

marketing guy: Eye patches don't sell.

sales rep #1: Eye patches totally sell. Boy Wizard with an Eye Patch sold three million copies in hardcover.

marketing guy: Boy Wizard with an Eye Patch was written by J.K. Meyer. She could have written the character with two eye patches, leprosy, and a daytime job on FOX & Friends and it still would have sold.

sales rep #2: All right, what if we foil emboss the title? Shiny things sell.

art guy: Too expensive.

sales rep #1: What if we make it a trade paper original and drop the price point to $16.99?

sales rep #2: That might work.

marketing guy: You know what? I think I like Bros and Explosions and Dudes better.

The curtain closes as everyone at the table tries to speak at the same time.


fin

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

I'll be responding to your questions over the next several posts, mes auteurs, but I thought I'd start off with the topic of book covers and—in a rare two-for-one!—how covers are/may be affected by The Rise of the E-Book™.

As I've mentioned before, the process of designing a book jacket is largely beyond the author's control (especially if you're a debut or mid-list author) and you'll have relatively little input. It's unlikely that a cover you absolutely loathe will be selected, but it does happen and you'll need to keep the lines of communication with your agent (and, by extension, your editor) open so that any problems you might have can be identified and dealt with as soon as possible.

There are a few systemic problems in the art of cover design that invariably rear their ugly heads (for instance, the fact that they are occasionally super racist), and in the event you encounter one of these issues, I strongly suggest you talk to your agent and editor immediately. A bad cover may hurt your sales but probably won't seriously damage your career; a brouhaha over a racist or offensive cover could be a total disaster. (There is such a thing as bad publicity.)

On the e-book front, it turns out the cover question is a little more complicated than you might think. I generally find Motoko Rich's e-book articles douchey and annoying, and while this one is no exception, it does elucidate some of the issues endemic to e-publishing (namely, when you're reading your Kindle or Nook in a public place, no one can see what you're reading/how high fullutent you are). This doesn't spell the end of the flashy book cover, however: as the article itself notes, these covers 1.) are still used on the print versions of the books, 2.) are effective at catching the eye of both e- and p-book browsers on websites like Amazon's, and 3.) will be just as (if not more) effective in e-venues like Facebook or the iBookstore as/than their print counterparts are on store shelves and in subway cars.

What do you think, gentle readers? Are you as enamoured of e-book covers as you are of the "real" ones?

Prithee, Inform Me: The McTitle

The Memory Keeper's Daughter.
The Bonesetter's Daughter.
The Heretic's Daughter.
The Calligrapher's Daughter.
The Hummingbird's Daughter.
The Concubine's Daughter.
The Gravedigger's Daughter.

Are we perhaps seeing a pattern?

I'm not sure whether this is something authors are unconsciously doing (due to their constant absorption of contemporary fiction), something agents and publishers are purposely doing because it's the new "[Insert Adjective Here] Wife," or both, but it's an interesting trend and I'd like to get your take on it. Have you noticed this before, or with other title "templates"? Do you think it's a sign of homogenization within the industry?

Have at it!

Power to the People: Cover Art

So in an earlier post and its follow-up, I discussed the topic of cover art and its (potentially disastrous) effect(s) on book sales. Over at PubRants, Kristin has written a post on the agent/author cover review process and Brenda Novak's recent experience with cover art gone bad.

Now, while an agent is certainly not your personal genie (remember Disney's Aladdin? "Poof! What do you need? Poof! What do you need? Poof! What do you need?!"), remember that once you have representation, your agent's job is to do everything in his/her power to sell your book and make it a success. So, as I've said before and I'll say again, if you review your book's cover art and are displeased:

• Breathe. The following steps will be of no use to you if you don't continue to do so.

• Tell your agent as soon as possible. (Preferably during business hours.) He or she will be able to discern whether your concern is 1.) appropriate and 2.) something that can be addressed/fixed by the publishing house, and will then do everything he/she can to communicate the problem to the editor/publisher and get it fixed.

• If, as in Brenda's case, your agent is temporarily unreachable, write an e-mail to your editor. Please calm yourself down before you do this. Don't send an e-mail or make a phone call in anger or panic. This is never a good idea.

• Look on the bright side. Best case scenario: the publisher eats the cost of a cover adjustment and all is well. Worst case scenario: nothing changes and your sales may suffer as a result, but it's very unlikely your career will be tanked. Most likely, some in-between scenario will occur, and you're likely to emerge from it relatively unscathed. And if your book is coming out in hardcover, remember—there's always the paperback.

Better Late Than Never

First, RIP, Frank McCourt. You'll be missed.

Remember our discussion on book covers? Well, looks like Bantam changed it up this time around:



(The cover for the mass market edition.)

Many of you mentioned in your comments on the original post (see link, above) that your books (or books you had heard of) had terrible covers for the original hardcover that were rectified in the later trade paper/mass market incarnations. Looks like this happens to everyone—even Dean Koontz.

So I suggest the following: first, check out Sonya Chung's recent post on what jacket design is like from an author's point of view, and then (to borrow from Nathan), you tell me: Why do you think publishers (occasionally severely) misjudge their cover art? Why do they suffer the same pitfalls over and over?

Judging a Book By Its Cover

Before I started working in sales, I did a brief stint in library and academic marketing. Anyone who's ever spent much time around librarians—especially school librarians—is familiar with the old adage, "don't judge a book by its cover."

Alas, this is what consumers (including you and I) do every day.

Book covers do a number of things for us, but in my opinion, the three most important are (in no particular order):

1. Tell us what the book is called and who wrote it;
2. Give us an idea of the book's genre (thereby already telling us whether we're likely to enjoy it);
3. Provide an iconic, interesting image, so as to—as Seth Godin puts it—"tee up the reader so the book has maximum impact" (see below).

Human beings are visual creatures. This means that any factor that interferes with the above three points can literally tank a book's sales.

A couple of examples.



The above image violates the first "rule" I outlined, namely that the book's cover should communicate the book's title and author. In this case, does that matter? I don't think so—it's clear (at least, to me) that the book is fiction, probably literary fiction, and so I'm likely to pick it up. (This may be an artifact of my having worked in the industry, though, so I won't assume everyone makes my intuitive leap.)

The more important point is that the cover is striking, iconic, simple, and somewhat mysterious. This is the key to driving sales, as noted by the inimitable Book Ninja (who is, in turn, quoting this original post by Seth Godin). Both Seth and the Book Ninja correctly point out that the book's cover is designed to drive readers to the story—front cover to back cover to flap/jacket copy to book—and a stumble in this first step (i.e. a bad cover) can translate to very poor sales.

What about this cover?



In my opinion, this one doesn't follow the second "rule"—communicating genre to the consumer—and may have cost the publisher sales as a result. If you didn't see "DEAN KOONTZ" emblazoned in forty-eight point font across the cover, would you identify this book as horror/thriller? I doubt it. I, for one, would immediately mentally classify it as contemporary romance and never give it a second look, since that's not a genre that interests me. I mean, even if you do read Dean's name on the cover, you may assume he's jumped ship and written some kind of romance novel—quite an assumption, I think, but I couldn't blame you for making it.

The cover is fairly striking, but you can tell that's not enough; it's also got to appeal to its target audience. I'm sure you've all seen the cover trope commonly called "the clinch," the hallmark of a romance novel, and this post over at Jezebel explains the intimate relationship between cover and genre. Consumers interested in romance buy romance and pick up anything that looks like romance; the same goes for consumers of children's books, literary fiction, business books, and so on. You can't swap Harry Potter's cover art with that of Freakonomics—even if you properly label each with the correct author and title—and expect sales not to be impacted.

While we shouldn't judge the content of a book by its cover, the fact is, we can and we do, and publishers are betting on the fact that we do. So, once you've sold your book to said publisher, how can you make sure your book isn't tanked by an inappropriate or boring cover?

Well, to a certain extent, you can't. While there are certainly authors (mostly hot shots and celebrities) who have significant say in terms of their cover art, the vast majority of book covers are engineered in the publisher's art department with little or no input from the author. (You may begin to suspect as I explain the industry more and more that, once you've sent your MS off to the agent, fewer and fewer things are in your control. If so, you are correct.) It's also worth pointing out that Koontz is one of said hot shots and still is not immune to the occasional bad cover.

However, he has dozens of books to his name, and this could be your first one.

The good news is, I've very rarely heard of an author who absolutely loathed his or her cover and whose book went to print regardless. While no one from Big Name Publisher is going to come to your house with color palettes to have you pick out the color scheme for your next book's cover, they will run the cover by editorial, sales, marketing, publicity, your agent, and you, and they will most likely be willing to hear you out if you have a major grievance.

In a nutshell, then:

• People pick up, judge, and occasionally buy books based on their covers.
• Publishers assume this.
• Good covers communicate data to the consumer—author, title, genre—as well as excitement/intrigue via the use of iconic, generic (generic meaning expected/familiar, not boring), and interesting images. This is one of the major factors that translates to good sales.
• You want good sales. Therefore, you want a good cover.

If your publisher is showing you cover proofs for the first time, look for these signs. If you would pick it up off the shelf based on the cover alone, that bodes well for you and your book.

I leave you, then, with these: the best book covers of 2008, as judged by the New York Times Book Design Review.