How important is a Book's Cover?

[blazeofglory]

The cover contains the title and the title at times say lots of things about the book itself and the artistic looks add flavor to it

[Red-Headed]

I think some cover-art can be superb, particularly with many sci-fi illustrators, but at the end of the day it is just an advertising gimmick.

[kasie]

I wonder if the book cover - with alternative media now available such as the kindle etc - will go the way of vinyl record covers? It is likely I think.

I've just bought my first two books for my Sony Reader - - and what a pantomime installing them was for the technologically challenged (ahem) 'older generation', as my grandson so delicately puts it, but in the end, success - and Page One is a reproduction of the book cover, so maybe cover art will not fade away just yet.

I think covers are important - there are a lot of books out there and the publisher and by extension the author want you the book buying customer to select their book in preference to any other. The covers are designed to catch your eye, give you a tantalising clue to the contents, draw you towards it. Perhaps it is of less importance for established titles which have received critical assessment, attracted learned dissertations and are generally known to the customer, but something needs to attract him/her to the new title/author.

I bought Sea of Poppies by Amitar Ghosh because the cover caught my eye sufficiently for me to pick it up, read the blurb, try the first few pages and decide this looked interesting enough to take home. (No doubt a technologically more able person could find an image and transfer it but I'm afraid that one is beyond me - e-books, yes, pictures, no, not at the moment. )

[Hank Stamper]

i definitely agree with the movie cover thing - although i quite like my copy of one flew over the cuckoos nest with jack nicholson on the cover.. but that is an exception to the rule!

[Annamariah]

When randomly looking for new things to read in a library a nice cover is often the first thing to catch my eye, so in that sense a book's cover is an important thing. If I already know what I'm going to read, the cover isn't as important, but of course I prefer a pretty cover to an ugly one. If I'm going to buy a book and there are several different covers available, I might pay a bit more to get a copy with a better cover.

I don't mind movie covers, if the movie poster is a good one. If it's not, I'll rather have the original cover. My copy of "Perfume" doesn't have any cover picture (it might have once had a paper cover, but as I got it for free from a recycling center, the cover that might have existed was long gone), but I wouldn't mind this movie cover:

[Helga]

when I buy hardcover books I usually take the paper cover off so the books are just black or you know just one colour.. paperbacks I really don't care except if I find the book looking like some series I already have a few of... but the cover dosen't do much for me...

[Red-Headed]

when I buy hardcover books I usually take the paper cover off

Yeah, I regularly do that. I always find it easier to hold a large book without the dust-jacket sliding around. Especially with dictionaries & reference books.

[Emil Miller]

Interestingly, hardcover books in France are usually monochrome with just the title and author's name. The French eschew multicoloured dust jackets as a frivolous adjunct to serious writing although paperbacks normaly have a picture on the cover. I don't bother too much about the cover picture on a book although it's nice to have a uniform set of an author's work with similar cover design's from a single publisher.

[stlukesguild]

I wonder if the book cover - with alternative media now available such as the kindle etc - will go the way of vinyl record covers? It is likely I think.

Last I looked there was just as much effort undertaken in the visual presentation of CDs as there was for LPs... the only difference being that the LP offered a much larger format within which to work. I will build upon this thought and note that the last technological invention of the scale of the computer (and related digital media) must have been that of Gutenberg's movable type. Movable type led to an incredible change in how books were produced... for better and worse. As a result of the printing press we no longer had books that looked like this:









As a result of the printing press, letter forms or type were standardized in the West. With the innovation of the typewriter... and eventually the word-processor and computer... handwriting declined and calligraphy became a forgotten art in the West, where in the East and in the Middle-East it has long been recognized and still stands as the highest art form. It was understood that the visual aspects of calligraphy were a key element of the expressive capabilities of the written word. Most poets were commonly master painters and/or calligraphers... or worked in close partnership with such masters:







In the West the appreciation of the visual aspects of the book (calligraphy or letter types, illumination, covers, etc...) was often limited to a few sophisticated connoisseurs and a few rare artists/writers such as William Blake, William Morris, Mallarme, and Apollinaire:





With the development of the computer and attendant technologies such as the e-book I suspect an even greater standardization of text and loss of other elements of the book... this in spite of the fact that the possibilities for the e-book and computer are overwhelming in terms of a merger of text with image, video, sound, music, ad interactive elements that could push the experience of reading in unsuspected directions.

[Paulclem]

I've just bought my first two books for my Sony Reader - - and what a pantomime installing them was for the technologically challenged (ahem) 'older generation', as my grandson so delicately puts it, but in the end, success - and Page One is a reproduction of the book cover, so maybe cover art will not fade away just yet.

I think covers are important - there are a lot of books out there and the publisher and by extension the author want you the book buying customer to select their book in preference to any other. The covers are designed to catch your eye, give you a tantalising clue to the contents, draw you towards it. Perhaps it is of less importance for established titles which have received critical assessment, attracted learned dissertations and are generally known to the customer, but something needs to attract him/her to the new title/author.

I bought Sea of Poppies by Amitar Ghosh because the cover caught my eye sufficiently for me to pick it up, read the blurb, try the first few pages and decide this looked interesting enough to take home. (No doubt a technologically more able person could find an image and transfer it but I'm afraid that one is beyond me - e-books, yes, pictures, no, not at the moment. )

I didn't realise that, not having used an e-reader. I'm pleased - I like book covers. They do attract me.

With the development of the computer and attendant technologies such as the e-book I suspect an even greater standardization of text and loss of other elements of the book... this in spite of the fact that the possibilities for the e-book and computer are overwhelming in terms of a merger of text with image, video, sound, music, ad interactive elements that could push the experience of reading in unsuspected directions.
STLukes


I think the e-book could offer a lot of interactivity. I cetainly hope the art aspect doesn't go. Who knows, it might even expand if e-readers become console like in the future and offer the aspects you suggest like music and games.

[mortalterror]

I will build upon this thought and note that the last technological invention of the scale of the computer (and related digital media) must have been that of Gutenberg's movable type. Movable type led to an incredible change in how books were produced... for better and worse. As a result of the printing press we no longer had books that looked like this:

As a result of the printing press, letter forms or type were standardized in the West. With the innovation of the typewriter... and eventually the word-processor and computer... handwriting declined and calligraphy became a forgotten art in the West, where in the East and in the Middle-East it has long been recognized and still stands as the highest art form. It was understood that the visual aspects of calligraphy were a key element of the expressive capabilities of the written word. Most poets were commonly master painters and/or calligraphers... or worked in close partnership with such masters:

In the West the appreciation of the visual aspects of the book (calligraphy or letter types, illumination, covers, etc...) was often limited to a few sophisticated connoisseurs and a few rare artists/writers such as William Blake, William Morris, Mallarme, and Apollinaire:

With the development of the computer and attendant technologies such as the e-book I suspect an even greater standardization of text and loss of other elements of the book... this in spite of the fact that the possibilities for the e-book and computer are overwhelming in terms of a merger of text with image, video, sound, music, ad interactive elements that could push the experience of reading in unsuspected directions.

Don't be so dramatic. We'd all like to turn the clock back to the good old days, when children worked in factories, but the fact remains that book arts exist on roughly the same scale they ever have. What you are really complaining about is that mass production of that kind of work isn't cheap. Even the Kelmscott Chaucer was never printed in very large numbers. I've seen lots of finely bound gilded book covers with elaborate designs, they are just too expensive for anyone to afford. And I've even seen pictures of people imitating the medieval book art style online. My point is, they are scarce, but they exist.

Illuminated manuscripts! That's the phrase I was searching for. They thrive in the genres of Manga, Comic books, and children's literature. Then again, I've seen a number of Dante's, Milton's, and Cervante's works interspersed with the paintings of great artists who took the fictions for their theme. Doré and Picasso are often inserted into such texts. If those don't count to your mind then would you be more explicit as to what you consider proper book arts?

Another thing, would you consider books like House of Leaves, where the author messes around a lot with the font visually artistic? It seems as innovative and experimental as Mallarmé and his Un Coup de Dés Jamais N'Abolira Le Hasard, which you've already used as an example.

[stlukesguild]

Unfortunately the traditional visual art forms... including the livre d'artiste... have long been a very costly commodity. This is true whether we are speaking of the Lindesfarne Gospels, the editions produced by Aldus, the books of William Blake, Morris' Kelmscott Chaucer, or even something more recent like the Raphael Alberti/Robert Motherwell collaboration on El Negro:



On the other hand, modern lithographic, photographic, and digital technologies have made it more than possible to mass produce high quality books in which the text and visual elements co-exist beautifully. Certainly the examples of Picasso's books or more commonly seen, those of Dore are prime examples. Unfortunately, these remain quite rare. Yes I would count The House of Leaves among such books... along with a number of other books. What I find unfortunate, however, is that the merger of text and image is most commonly to be found among two bodies of literature that are quite often not taken seriously: the graphic novel (comic books!) and children's books. Outside of these two sub-genre the book which merges text and visuals (or even other aspects such as concern for the quality of paper, use of inserts, etc...) is most found among high end livre d'artiste... which are commonly seen as a sub-genre of the visual arts... a field known as "book arts". This field includes not only expensive, limited edition hand made books which include actual artists prints:



... but also works of art made from books:





Personally, I'd like to see the e-book evolve into something more than merely a more efficient and less expensive means of transmitting and storing texts. Accessibility and aesthetics have not exactly gone hand-in-hand.

[blazeofglory]

The beauty within should be mirrored by the beauty without in point of fact.

[Red-Headed]

...it's still an advertising gimmick no matter which way you look at it. It is saying "BUY ME!"

[mal4mac]

Here's a useful page on the inadequacy of the latest Kindle for (even) simple textbooks and newspapers. Don't expect print quality versions of Blake any time soon!

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/kindle-dx-comments.html