Don't judge a book by it's cover??

I have to confess to being a cover girl. No, not the kind you see on tv, obviously. I'm a Book Snob cover girl - and I must confess that I regularly judge a book by it's cover. In fact, the only time I don't judge a book by it's cover is when I've read and loved the author for so long that I stop caring what the dust jackets look like on their new books. But that's rare for me.

Even though I'm a confessed cover girl, I also acknowledge that this process for choosing new books is severely flawed. I didn't know this until I started writing myself, but it's extremely rare for an author to have any input when choosing the cover for a book. I can assure you that this would kill me if I were an author with a traditional publishing house! The cover says in one glance what the synopsis of a book should tell you - and some of those covers say "Use this instead of a Tylenol PM."

An interesting fact about dust jackets is that much of the value of a book hinges on their condition. You've likely heard about how much a "first edition" book from a famous author can sell for, but did you know that the dust jacket makes or breaks that value? For example, you can buy a first edition of The Great Gatsby with no dust jacket for $10,000. The same book with a dust jacket that's even in moderate repair will jump that price to $80,000! My friend, Annelle, confessed at Book Snobs one night that she throws away all her dust jackets. I choked on my pasta dish, fell to the floor in full cardiac arrest and they had to call the ambulance. WHAT??? Keep those dust jackets, people! Even if you don't care about them, your children will care about them when they go to sell your book collection after you've kicked the bucket.

One of my favorite shows, CBS Sunday Morning, did a segment about books and dust jackets a few weeks ago. Mo Rocca (who totally cracks me up!) walked the viewers through the process of how a publisher/editor chooses the cover art for a book. Evidently, when you see an awful book cover on the shelf in a bookstore you can know that someone thought about it for more than 2 minutes. I know, hard to believe in so many cases. But for the great ones, it's obvious that the publisher took the time to tell part of the story on the dust jacket and knew people like me would buy it just because of that!

Here are some examples of horrible book covers from the New Releases page on barnesandnoble.com:
I heard about this book on the news and it actually seems kind of interesting. It's supposedly about how Chinese mothers raise their children more strictly than moms in other cultures. The author was engaging and upbeat in her interview. But this book cover is b.o.r.i.n.g!

Can't you imagine how fabulous this cover could have been with a colorful Chinese image of a tiger - like something you'd see at Swen? This book cover is an epic FAIL in my opinion.




Here's another thing I hate: Book covers that have the author's name 10x larger than the book title. At first glance, it looks like the title of this book is Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I don't understand this at all.









And check this one out! This is not a textbook - it's a new release on BN.com. Thomas Sowell is a syndicated columnist and has now published the 4th edition to this book. It's supposed to be a book for the common folk so they can learn about economics in a "relaxed and even enjoyable way." Well, look, Mr./Ms. Editor, if you want people to think economics is enjoyable, find a cover for this book that does not scream, "This is the most boring book ever written!"



On the other hand, here are some book covers I love!

Cassandra King's Same Sweet Girls - you can tell a lot about the basic plot of the book just from this cover.
















Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants kept catching my attention in the book stores and I finally read it!











I think this is a great cover for Rick Bragg's Prince of Frogtown. I love "real" photos on memoirs and this one is perfect. You can almost see what kind of story Rick is going to tell about his dad.









And then there's my own book's cover. Is it terribly conceited to say that I think my book cover is gloriously beautiful?? (Yes, it's larger than the others so you can so how fabulous it is!) I had in mind what I wanted it to look like long before I had finished writing it. I spent HOURS paging through stock photos to find the right one. My friend and computer guru, Adam Miller, took the picture I had in my head and made it a reality. Check this out - Adam was even able to change a couple of the gems on this book cover because I didn't like how they looked. THAT's how much time and thought I put into my book cover. Surely other authors must do the same!

In my next life, I'm either going to be a country music diva like Faith Hill or I'm going to be a book cover editor. I'm thinking the latter is more probable. My mission in life would to be abolish boring book covers for all publications except textbooks - there's nothing you can do to make those more attractive.

In the meantime, this cover girl can be found browsing the shelves for the next great read - based solely, of course, on the cover art. It's worked pretty good for me so far!

Read on, Snobs!