Cover Versions.

[rhythmaning]

widgetfox and I disagree about many things. But we have had one argument for as long as we have known each other, probably. It is as fundamental as "where the sun sets"; a difference which probably defines each of us: it makes me irredeemably shallow, and her delusional.

It hasn't cropped up recently (one advantage of not-being-talked-to), but once again she raised it today, on Facebook. So I decided to set out my case here.

It revolves around books. And at its simplest, the impact that book covers can have. I accept that book covers can influence my choice of books; widgetfox believes she is above and beyond the influence of designers, illustrators and publishers, and that their skillful manipulation of emotions and, particularly, purchasing behaviour have no effect on her. None whatsoever.

I think this is just bunkum. Even if she might choose to pretend otherwise, book covers must have some influence over her. It could be a negative one, determining her to ignore their impelling her to buy. But an effect they must have.

Worse, she is a psychologist. Her subject is about the working of the brain; and we know that the brain works in a very strange way indeed. Much of our decision making happens without us being aware of it; even when we think we make rational choices and decisions, we're usually fooling ourselves and really just going along with what our reptile-brains want to do anyway.

It is her wilful ignorance of this - her assertion that book covers make no difference to her at all - that gets me.

I think book covers can make a huge difference. When I go into a book shop - not a rare occurrence, I must say - and I'm confronted by the choice of thousands upon thousands of different books, of course the covers matter. If a book cover fails to catch my eye, I won't even be aware that I've not noticed it. If I like the illustration and the design, I might pick it up, look at the author, see what else they've written, and what the genre is (though I don't really get the idea of genre in fiction: a story is a story is a story).

If I don't pick up the book, I'm certainly not going to read the blurb on the back, the snippets of reviews (do I generally agree with the reviewer?) and the endorsements of fellow authors (do I like their work?).

It is particularly important for authors new to me. How else am I to judge whether I might like a book or not? I have nothing else to go on. The cover tells me a lot: it sends all sorts of signals. Even the publisher's imprint tells me a lot about a book.

Put simply, the cover has to attract me - and there are a huge number of ways for it to do so; but that is its job, and to pretend that it is possible to ignore all those messages is pretence.

widgetfox might want to believe that the art on a book jacket doesn't tell her something, that she never reads the blurb, that she doesn't look at the endorsements. Maybe she'd like to pretend she doesn't even buy books.

But I don't believe her.

Comments

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I pretty much buy everything on Kindle these days. I don't think I even see the cover art.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I've not been into a book shop in a couple of years now - I buy almost exclusively based on recommendations from friends/reviews.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I think that the source of new books is a factor here. Have commented below.

[white_hart]

Do you not see the cover art on the Amazon website? I end up buying far more Kindle books than I did paper ones because I browse the bargains on the site and click on the ones that look interesting, and then think that if it's only 99p I might as well take a punt on it.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Oh my God.

They've caught you!

You've all been digitised!

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

If it's there then I'm not aware of it. See comment below.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Presumably you have burnt your many thousands of books, in a great conflagration with the yards of bookshelves, and you have devoted the acres of wall space freed up to hanging works of avant garde art.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I already know what's in them. I don't need book covers.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

By that measure, you don't need to read them again, either. Though apparently you do.

[andrewducker]

I recently gave away 95% of my fiction to Shelter.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

This is what they could do with them!

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhythmaning/2817044583/)

[andrewducker]

Oooh, that's neat.

Although it means you can't see any of the covers!

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Damn! You're right.

More on it here... http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/inst/house_of_books.html

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

Where do you stand with wine/whisky labels? I ask because my bro-in-law says he won't buy anything too pretty because (he opines) that if they put that much effort into the label it must be because the contents don't stand up to scrutiny. I, however, am easily swayed by an attractive bottle.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Nearly all the whisky I buy comes from SMWS, and all their bottles have the same labelling.

I have bought two bottles commerically in the last year when I felt like trying a different distillery, and a took advantage of special offers in the supermarket both times.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I think there are some fundamental differences between us (no, really?) that lead to this:

(1) We read different types of book.

In the genres I read - primarily romance and crime fiction, although also SFF - the plots are generic. Consider romance. The covers of almost all romantic novels depict a man and a woman embracing. I knew before I started the book that there would be a man and woman embracing. Whether the picture depicts a dark man and a blonde woman is not going to affect my decision, because (i) I don't choose romances based on hair, and (ii) the hair colour on the cover is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the characters - in fact, it is likely not to be.

It is eminently possible that for literary fiction or general non-fiction, the cover conveys meaningful information about the book. I hardly read in either of those genres so I'm not equipped to comment.

(2) We choose what to read in different ways.

You (appear to) like a wide range of books. You (appear to) look for books that are in some ways different from what you have read before. It is eminently possible that book covers help you to glean information that helps you make useful decisions, and it is eminently possible that if I too were looking for a range of new books, then the cover would convey information to me (although I think it's unlikely - see below).

I am basically looking for books that are as like as possible to the books I already read. I'd estimate that about 70% of my reading is rereads. Of the rest, about 80% of new books that I read come from recommendations from Virginia or Ros.

I look for new books in two ways. One is by browsing Amazon reading cover descriptions. (I think it's possible that they display thumbnail cover art, but it's too small to see clearly.) The other is by browsing bookstores, and I think it is eminently possible that spine colours or typefaces draw my attention, so if you are counting this as part of cover art then you're right. In essence, though, what I am doing is pattern matching against previous books that I have read and cover art doesn't convey any information about similarity to previous books that I have read, perhaps because (1). Only the blurb, and ideally a look inside the pages, will do that.

(3) We take in information in different ways.

I don't notice visual things. You know this. I think you are genuinely not comparing like with like because you assume that I observe all the information on the book cover that you do. But I don't. white_hart asked if I am not given book cover information on Amazon, and it turns out that the answer is that I don't know. If it is there, then I don't see it. I can't use information to inform my judgments about something if I don't actually see it. As per (1), this might be different if I had a reason to believe that cover art conveyed information to me about the book.

(4) We have different views about what the cover conveys.

I think it's possible that this is a direct consequence of (1). This might be as simple as "you read books where the cover conveys information and I don't". But all of the above, although true, is arguably irrelevant, because the bottom line is that I don't believe that the cover tells me anything of value about the book. I just can't get past the idea that the cover could be anything, anything at all. The same book could have a completely different cover, but what's inside it would still be the same. That's not true of the blurb. There is variation in blurb, and I'm sure I'm sometimes pulled by blurb into books I don't like or away from books that I would have. But ultimately if I'm reading crime fiction then the blurb is going to tell me it's crime fiction. It will give me some more details that will help me judge whether this book is my cup of tea, through my pattern matching process. Is it set in Scandinavia? Is there a romantic sub-plot? How much blood is there going to be? The cover will either tell me generically that it's crime fiction - which I knew - or it won't tell me anything at all.

I hear you when you say "The cover tells me a lot: it sends all sorts of signals." I'm sure that's true for you and I'm sure it works. But I literally cannot imagine what those signals might be.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

God I love Twitter.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Just because you are not aware of it doesn't mean you are not influenced.