Judging a book by the cover
Two catch phrases come to mind as I write this. Content is king and never judge a book by its cover. While the first one is true, in today's day and age, the second one no longer holds true to such a large extent. Even if your content is good, if your cover doesn't attract attention, it takes a longer time to get noticed and today, it's all about getting eyeballs.
If you were browsing at a bookstore and came across many titles that each looked like the other, no doubt your eyes will stray to the one that really stands out. Sometimes, you might pick it up, turn it over, read the blurb and if it further pulls you in, you might even buy it. But if the cover hadn't attracted your attention, chances are that you might have moved on to another book.
Some years back I had bought a book just because the cover stood out and it was one of those lucky chances that the book turned out to be simply amazing. It was a book called Madras on Rainy Days by Samina Ali and I enjoyed reading it, although it saddened me immensely too. It was that kind of a book.
The cover judgment doesn't hold true for well known and established writers because their books get picked up anyway – I mean, who even bothers with seeing the cover, right? Think Harry Potter, and I don't quite care for the illustrations on the cover with Harry and Ron and Hermione tackling a dragon. That's so not what the book was about, right?
Right?
Yeah. Unless it's James Hadley Chase or Ian Fleming, whose covers you might want to cover up with newspaper before reading, (because of all the semi-naked girls on it), I've actually never really given much thought to a cover.
But for us newbies, we need to get as many readers as we can and the only way we can do that is by having a kickass cover that really stands out on the bookshelf. When Kite Strings was getting ready, I came across a few covers from the publisher's end that didn't please me too much. They were taking the concept of the kite too literally and had splashed the cover with pictures of kids flying kites or a kite shop which were not very exciting. Thankfully for me, my friend Nusrat stepped in and designed an amazing cover which encapsulated what the book was about. The story of a young girl growing up.
For Blinkers Off, we tried doing something similar and I really like what he's done with it. However, we're still waiting for approval from the publishers and I hope they come through. I'd been deliberating about writing this post ever since the whole cover design thing started for Blinkers Off but I kept putting it off because I wanted the cover to be finalized before I wrote this. As of now, the cover is still not yet final but I might hear word today. So I'll keep you guys posted.
