Essay

The Under-Cover Book Guide
Secrets to Judging a Book without Ever Looking Inside

by Tracy Pomerinke

After months of jacket design negotiations and marathon marketing sessions, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of my new book: The Under-Cover Book Guide (tentative title).

Why me and why this book? It’s simple, really. I’ve been able to read for most of my life, and I’d always been troubled by the amount of time it required — one chapter after another, sometimes three, four, even five hundred pages to get through a single book. It just seemed inefficient. Then one day it occurred to me: the front and back covers have certain distinguishing marks and artistic features, which, if properly interpreted, can give you a pretty good sense of what’s inside.

I like to think of it as reading the body language of a book. We know that more than 90 percent of human communication doesn’t come from the words we use but from our facial features and hand gestures, all those complex visual cues that embody a person’s actual message. Well, I think the same can be said for books.

Image collage, cover graphics, and an endless array of typefaces. Author photos, corporate brands and ambitious book blurb claims. ISBN, UPC and endorsements by VIPs. The jacket of every book is, in fact, a glut of information waiting to be decoded. But you need to be a sleuth, pay attention to clues, and know what to look for. The Under-Cover Book Guide can help.

Here’s what people who read the book’s jacket are saying:

"A tour de force … this book could do for literature what Einstein’s relativity did for the privileged frame of reference in modern physics." (not immediately intelligible, but makes the book sound important, almost revolutionary)

"A staggering exposé!!" (arousing, yet sufficiently vague)

"A modern-day approach to an age-old dilemma." (things are so much better these days, aren’t they?)

"Fresh and bold … reminiscent of an early Michael Myers." (reference to somebody famous, preferably with a name that is unknown, controversial or that can be wrongly attributed)

"Should be required reading for _________" (insert target market here)

With such kind words, I was moved to include a few on the back cover as "Advance Praise." And believe it or not, that’s how the jacket design began. Starting with the acclamations for my work, I developed some ideas for the surrounding text and graphics — paying due attention to details such as type size and font — all to communicate my core thesis: that "reading" a book is possible without ever having to look inside. I soon realized The Guide is actually a working model.

I’ll include these features on the cover:

1. An attractive body design

Publishers and in-house sales reps have known this for a long time that the most powerful communication with a potential buyer is through the book’s front cover. It’s the hair and make-up, the body and clothes. Physical attraction is its raison d’être. The successful book cover must stand out in the crowd, get noticed, and ultimately get the book off the shelf and into the readers’ hands.

Special features like embossing and die cutting are like plastic surgery to the book. Raise the letters a little to accentuate the title, remove a piece of the cover to add drama and make the buyer look twice. Simple operations that give a book an immediate facelift. For The Guide I’m thinking of a weight management program. I’ll keep the volume thin (no more than 150 pages) and produce a more pleasing, streamlined look.

2. Appeal to a target market

The Harry Potter books achieved record sales and a global audience by targeting different cultural tastes with different cover designs. Every country gave Harry a different face (or no face at all) and in the UK, the publisher even offered "adult" covers, so people who are embarrassed to be seen with a "children’s" book could opt for a more mature packaging alternative. (See http://www.openflame.com/harrypotter/book_covers.shtml for a collection of Harry Potter covers from around the world — incidentally, author J. K. Rowling’s favourites are from The Netherlands.)

So who would be interested in my book? Well The Guide is really intended for everybody who can read (and especially those who would prefer not to). Its message is timeless and without borders. The techniques for judging a book by its cover can be applied to fiction and non-fiction alike, and can be modified for use by any age group. With this kind of rare market appeal, a single cover design should suffice, and I’ll include a tag line to alert buyers that this book is especially meant for them. I’m thinking of a helpful prompt on the front, like, "For everyone who’s ever looked at a book and wondered ‘What’s really behind that cover?’"

3. A recognizable motif

Many unknown authors have launched lucrative careers by capitalizing on the phenomenon of series recognition. The quickly identifiable formatting of a series makes these books appear as a dependable choice, part of an ongoing tradition of quality. Buy a "Dummies" book, for example, and you know what to expect.

As a promising young writer, I could make a positive contribution to such a series, and at the very least, I’m sure to benefit from joining an established team of "Dummy" authors. I could call my book The Dummies Guide to Book Covers. Then, if you wanted to buy the book but couldn’t remember whether it was called The Dummies Guide to Book Covers, or The Dummies Guide to the Covers of Books, or The Dummies Guide to Books and Covers — you could still find it easily enough by browsing the floor dedicated to Dummies guides in your local bookstore. If you happened to forget the name of the series, you could just look for the sea of alternating yellow and black, like a lighthouse beacon in the pitch of night. It’s just one of the ways publishers are making the job for book buyers easier and easier.

4. Author photo

I’ve hired a professional photographer for my portrait, because I believe a good quality picture has the power to create a genuine human bond with the reader. Well, that’s what my publisher said anyway.

Apparently it’s important for readers to be able to connect a face with the name, and make a judgement about what kind of person I am. That way they can better understand what I’m trying to say. A good portrait will reassure readers that they can trust me, but it won’t be so spectacular that it detracts from the real message of my work. I think I’ll put on glasses for the photo (to show I take my work seriously) and I’ll wear something comfortable and breezy (to show I don’t take myself too seriously). Above all, I want it to look natural.

Maybe an image consultant could help?

5. Covers that disturb … but not too much

When Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word appeared in bookstores, it inflamed the debate over acceptable use of the "N-word." The book’s cover features its six-letter title in a white font set on a solid black background. A simple design, but an unavoidable magnet to the eyes. Upset book buyers criticized the author, Randall Kennedy, for attempting a vulgar marketing ploy. Meanwhile, bookstores were forced to confront the issue of how best to display the title: face-out to draw attention, or hidden in the back so as not to offend the casual browser?

To unsettle the book buyer is good; it wakes a person up from cultural numbness. But there’s a fine line between disturbing and utterly disagreeable. The British Amazon.com site went so far as to remove a book cover from its web pages after deciding the image was too offensive. The front cover featured a Saudi prince in traditional dress, Arabic script, and a plane flying through the top of a skyscraper. The book was supposedly about a building in Riyadh that has a top shaped like the eye of a needle, but upset customers weren’t buying it.

For my title, I could try something like "The Niggardly Book Guide." It sounds offensive, so it would get people talking and create a buzz around the book’s release. In fact, the title, though dubious, is an apt description of my frugal approach to reading. It’s apropos and benign, while sounding deliciously maverick. A market-winning combination.

6. Conformity to design standards

While a book must stand out artistically on ever-more crowded shelves, it’s wise to conform to certain technical standards of design.

For non-fiction books, a subject heading is typically listed on the top line of the back cover. The Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee has a list of 200 subjects (and many more sub-categories) to classify every book. This standardized system can significantly reduce the time required for a book browser’s decision-making process. If a book subject is labelled as "Spirituality," for example, and you don’t read "Spirituality" books, then there’s no need to look any further; you can safely put the book down. Subject headings can also facilitate proper shelving of the book, so you never have to venture to undesirable sections of the bookstore to find what you like.

For fiction titles, "A Novel" appearing on the front cover has become an increasingly popular means of eliminating any question over a book’s orientation. And for all books, the bar code and ISBN have become the industry standard for identifying the publisher, title author and edition of the book. The importance of these symbols becomes clear when a book fails to include them, and the book buyer has a sense that something is amiss. For the time-starved consumer, these subtle details help a book pass the glance test, making it look legitimate and primed for the checkout line.

7. The "Scarlet Letter"

The controversy with Jonathan Franzen and Oprah’s book club prompted me to do some serious soul-searching (see http://www.mobylives.com/Oprah_v_Franzen.html for a summary of their dispute). Has the once prestigious "O" become a scarlet letter?

It’s enough to give any serious writer pause. In the corporate world, the "O-factor" was highly esteemed (publishers love to see their authors succeed). But I’m thinking if I opt to pass on the "O" the first time around and then get Oprah to notice my book, say, a year from now, it would almost guarantee a second printing. Then I could meet the demands of a booming market AND satisfy the smaller population of literary elite (those people who want to buy the book but are loathe to the prospect of being branded with the stamp of mass media and mediocrity).

Of course, my publisher was of another mind. We’ve been arguing over the relative merits of corporate endorsement, and I’m getting to the point at which I just may branch out and publish on my own. Privately, I know Oprah would support my personal journey and quest for independence.

8. Promises and benefits

"But what can you do for me?" It’s a popular question these days, and a successful book cover must address the issue. Few readers want to start a book and commit their time without knowing what they’ll get by the end.

Authors just need to be careful that their jacket claims are justifiable. The Beardstown Ladies found themselves in legal trouble after publishing their Common-Sense Investment Guide, whose cover boasted the women made 23.4 percent annual returns in the stock market. When admirers applied the advice and obtained less stellar results, the ladies claimed the rate listed on the book cover was a computer calculation error. But angry book buyers launched a false advertising suit against the publisher. A flurry of suits followed against other publishers for other books, and all with the same issue at stake: is a book cover protected by freedom of speech or is it subject to the rules of advertising, as a poster to bolster sales?

While the jury’s still out, I’ll try to restrict myself to defendable claims. For The Guide, I’m thinking of something like, "You’ll learn the secret interior life of books, and never have to go beyond the cover!" Here’s another way to think of it: in oral presentations, a standard three-step approach is: 1) tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2) tell them, and 3) tell them what you told them. Well The Guide teaches you how to apply this method to reading, and then streamline the process by eliminating the middle step. No need to read the book when you can "read" the body language of its cover.

9. Reference to other media

Writing a book is no longer an act in and of itself, but a modest part (usually, but not always, the beginning) of an extensive media production. The book has become a poster for itself, a point-of-purchase marketing tool, and an advertisement for its author, whose appearance on the morning talk show circuit is conveniently matched to the title’s release date. It’s enough to make you wonder: what came first, the author or the book? But that’s another story. The fact is, a tag line like "Now a Major Motion Picture" or "New York Times Bestseller," even something like "As seen on The Today Show" helps sell books.

As for The Guide, it would be premature to include a reference to any sort of film adaptation (they don’t seem to be answering my calls). For now, I think I’ll go with a simple hologram sticker: "Companion Guide to the Hot New Video Game ‘Ninja Book Spy.’"

———

Now you know what to watch for the next time you’re browsing the bookstore shelves or surfing cover images online. Formatting, fonts and photos — these cover features may all be used to promote book sales, but I suggest they are also valuable content communicators, the body language of a book, encoding the bulk of its message. So take a look. The Under-Cover Book Guide just may be the best book you’ll never have to read.

Tracy Pomerinke is a writer based in Germany. You can reach her at pomerinke@t-online.de.