Hey guys, it's Harmony! As I said in my In My Mailbox post, i'm out on vacation! I'll be back in a few days, so have no fear! Don't think you'll be without entertainment though, because you won't! Promise! I have a series of guest posts set up Monday-Thursday, with a finale of moi! I promised that every last week of a month, i'd do something special! So this month is:
BREAKING UP READING WEEK
This week, we're gonna break Reading for everything it is! Covers, plots, characters, cliches, and more! I have some fantastic bloggers all lined up for this week so may I introduce the first, Madeleine Rex! Maddy is awesome and one of my betas! And she's talking about........
BREAKING UP READING WEEK
This week, we're gonna break Reading for everything it is! Covers, plots, characters, cliches, and more! I have some fantastic bloggers all lined up for this week so may I introduce the first, Madeleine Rex! Maddy is awesome and one of my betas! And she's talking about........
~~~
(For those of you who thought I was going to talk about vampires, you're probably going to be disappointed.)
Though this little nugget of wisdom might have been affective a century ago, when book covers were primarily cloth and had little design, it’s a piece of advice that is more smirked at now than followed.
Publishers spend hours of time and many other resources to create covers that are alluring. In some cases that means misleading covers that readers find have nothing to do with the book at all. Why? Because we’re easily sold by pretty colors/people/glitter/fancy fonts. The appeal of anything pretty or mystifying, anything that begs the question Why?, or simply snags our attention while we’re glancing over bookshelves will, most likely, encourage us to pick the book up.
One of the reasons I assume publishers are dedicating more time, energy, and man-power t
o cover design is the absolutely astounding and overwhelming amount of books out there. We don’t have time to pick up every single one and read the first chapter, or even the synopsis. We’re busy people who are struggling to find time to read at all.
Book covers hugely affect our book buying and reading. Their purpose isn’t to protect the book from coffee stains, it’s to draw our attention, grab us, and entice us to pick the book up and read. The higher number of times a book is picked up, the more likely it is to be bought and read.
Many of the blogs I’m subscribed to have cover-related posts. Every week, they compare newly released book covers or covers that have caught their eye recently. Covers are distracting. The font on them is probably the biggest in the book. The picture the only picture. The color the only color. We say we’re done with picture books, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t susceptible to magic of pretty pictures.
On the other hand, book covers also enhance the reading experience. They can be misleading, but they can also serve as “warnings.” With covers that are done well and do say something about the actual story, we can tell that a book is for us. It’s our color of sparkle. Covers can speak to us on a subconscious level, remind us of things we’ve done or seen, or things we’d like to do. They can speak wonders for a book, or they can be a visual poem. They’re an art form. Images resonate with people. The smoking, blown-out candle on the cover of Looking for Alaska directly serves the book, acting as a beautiful metaphor. You can look at the cover, wonder, and yet never know that a significant facet of the story is staring back at you.
Glitter sparkles, catches our eye, and pulls us in. The synopsis determines whether or not we sign the contract, but the publisher already has us holding the pen.
--
Madeleine Rex
http://madeleinerex.com/
(For those of you who thought I was going to talk about vampires, you're probably going to be disappointed.)
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Though this little nugget of wisdom might have been affective a century ago, when book covers were primarily cloth and had little design, it’s a piece of advice that is more smirked at now than followed.
Publishers spend hours of time and many other resources to create covers that are alluring. In some cases that means misleading covers that readers find have nothing to do with the book at all. Why? Because we’re easily sold by pretty colors/people/glitter/fancy fonts. The appeal of anything pretty or mystifying, anything that begs the question Why?, or simply snags our attention while we’re glancing over bookshelves will, most likely, encourage us to pick the book up.
One of the reasons I assume publishers are dedicating more time, energy, and man-power t
o cover design is the absolutely astounding and overwhelming amount of books out there. We don’t have time to pick up every single one and read the first chapter, or even the synopsis. We’re busy people who are struggling to find time to read at all.Book covers hugely affect our book buying and reading. Their purpose isn’t to protect the book from coffee stains, it’s to draw our attention, grab us, and entice us to pick the book up and read. The higher number of times a book is picked up, the more likely it is to be bought and read.
Many of the blogs I’m subscribed to have cover-related posts. Every week, they compare newly released book covers or covers that have caught their eye recently. Covers are distracting. The font on them is probably the biggest in the book. The picture the only picture. The color the only color. We say we’re done with picture books, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t susceptible to magic of pretty pictures.
On the other hand, book covers also enhance the reading experience. They can be misleading, but they can also serve as “warnings.” With covers that are done well and do say something about the actual story, we can tell that a book is for us. It’s our color of sparkle. Covers can speak to us on a subconscious level, remind us of things we’ve done or seen, or things we’d like to do. They can speak wonders for a book, or they can be a visual poem. They’re an art form. Images resonate with people. The smoking, blown-out candle on the cover of Looking for Alaska directly serves the book, acting as a beautiful metaphor. You can look at the cover, wonder, and yet never know that a significant facet of the story is staring back at you.
Glitter sparkles, catches our eye, and pulls us in. The synopsis determines whether or not we sign the contract, but the publisher already has us holding the pen.
--
Madeleine Rex
http://madeleinerex.com/
