Judging An E-Book By Its E-Cover

With the rise of self-publishing in today's digital marketplace, one of the most important aspects is cover art. This is nothing new or earth-shattering. An attractive cover will, in theory, attract readers, hence give the potential for more sales. Obviously, the work itself is the most important thing, and there are times when a really great cover can't hide the fact that the book is a dud. Sometimes it happens, just as sometimes really awful covers almost shoo potential readers away from a really great piece of art. Such as:

This cover is designed by Chip Kidd, and while I like a lot of Kidd's work, I'm split on what he did for the hardcover design of The Road. It almost seems like after much thought and consideration, he said "Screw it" and drew the design using a paintbrush program on his Mac. Either that or he woke up one day, realized he'd missed the deadline, and knocked it out in that before-mentioned paintbrush program.

And yet ... I do sort of like it. It definitely sets the tone of the novel, though I think this is one of those instances where Cormac McCarthy's name is what sold readers on the book and not the design. Or, to say it more bluntly, had this cover been given to any other writer, the book probably would have failed. Of course, that's just my opinion, but here's what Kidd had to say in a 2007 interview:

"I piggy-backed my career on the backs of authors, not the other way around. The latest example of that is The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I'm lucky to be attached to that. Cormac McCarthy is not lucky to have me doing his cover."

Another cover Kidd is famous for is the original Jurassic Park novel:

Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures had the foresight to buy the rights to the design, which was eventually plastered everywhere when the movie came out. It is, quite simply, iconic. Of course, Kidd didn't think so:

"Jurassic Park would absolutely have sold a similar amount, whether it had my cover on or not. I'm very much against the idea that the cover will sell the book. Marketing departments of publishing houses tend to latch onto this concept and they can't let go. But it's about whether the book itself really connects with the public, and the cover is only a small part of that."

A year or two ago I would have agreed with Kidd, but nowadays I think a cover is so much more important, as many potential readers are browsing these covers on Amazon or on their Kindles or iPads or whatever other e-readers they might have. A reader can no longer pull a book from the shelf and flip through the first couple of pages to decide whether or not they want to purchase it. Well, okay, a reader can still do that, but as we move toward more and more e-books becoming available, what happens now is a reader looks at the cover, description, possibly reviews, and then decides whether or not to spend the extra second to download a sample. Do they then immediately read that sample? Perhaps. Or maybe the sample goes unread. It's impossible to say. I know personally I always download the sample before I purchase an e-book, because sometimes the formatting is wacky, and if that's the case then I'm not going to bother.

But the cover is what is becoming more and more important in this digital age. And it's not just a cover so much as a thumbnail. That's basically all potential readers are going to see anyway, so I always find it odd when authors want to add small text to their e-book covers, like a blurb or "something-something award winner" because, as a thumbnail, that text becomes gargled.

But hey, to each his own. There are a lot of great graphic designers out there, and a lot of great book designs. If any (graphic designers or books) stick out to you, please let me know in the comments, maybe even include a link. For the time being, I leave you with some other of my favorite Chip Kidd designs.

The Worth Of Words

So last week I talked about how books are both physical and an experience and it got me thinking about how everyone doesn't want to pay too much for e-books. To their thinking, there is no printing costs involved, no shipping, so the e-book should be practically free. It made me realize that the physical connection is no longer there, just the experience, and somehow that lacks value. Such as:

Say a publisher is offering a chapbook containing a story between 10,000 and 20,000 words. You'd pay about $5 for that, right? I mean, that sounds somewhat reasonable. And depending on the author, you might even pay more. Why? Well because it's something, isn't it? It's substantial. You can hold it in your hands, turn the pages, and then, once you're done, you can pass it along to someone else or let it sit and accumulate dust.

Now what if that same story was available only as an e-book?

You probably wouldn't even consider paying $5 or more, not unless it was by someone like Stephen King, and even then you might have reservations.

Why?

Well, I'm not completely sure. This all really boils down to the worth of words. It seems now in the digital age, potential e-book readers are becoming more concerned with file size and word count than the actual work.

For an example:

A writer friend of mine told me a story about how an e-book of his (a 10,000-worder) was priced at 99 cents. Someone purchased it, read it, and reviewed it favorably, even going so far as to recommend it ... but said she thought some readers might be upset having to pay 99 cents for so few words.

Huh?

Again: she thought some readers might be upset having to pay 99 cents for so few words.

E-book price points are all over the place these days. Some writers offer a 2,000-word story for 99 cents, while others offer 90,000-word novels for the same price. The e-book readers, I think, are becoming confused. Or are they? It's impossible to tell. But remember that little sale I had after Christmas, where I was offering my three e-books for 99 cents each? I decided to keep them at that price for the time being. The truth is they were hardly selling at $1.99. And I don't think $1.99 was too unreasonable, especially for The Silver Ring which, along with the bonus short story, comes in at about 20,000 words. But since I've kept the price at 99 cents sales have been better. For now at least.

So what does this all mean for the worth of words in the digital age? At this point, I don't know. It's more of a guessing game now than ever before. But I am curious to know what others think. How much does the price really matter when purchasing an e-book, and how much is too much ... and how much do you focus on the file size and word count?

Thoughts On Theft

For the sake of argument, let's all agree that stealing is wrong.

Only thing is, what exactly is stealing?

A simple definition would be taking something that's not yours, right? I guess. But think about this:

You walk into a bookstore, pull the Hint Fiction anthology off the shelf (or any other book), hide it in your jacket (for the sake of argument let's assume you're wearing a jacket. why? I don't know, maybe it's cold outside or raining. just go along with it, okay? sheesh), and then walk right out of the store.

So that would be stealing, yes? You took a physical item that did not belong to you and left the store without paying. Okay then. What about this:

You walk into a bookstore, pull the Hint Fiction anthology off the shelf, and begin reading it from front to back. It wouldn't take you very long, which is why I'm using it as an example. But if you'd like, say it's a comic book or some other book that's short enough to read in an hour or two. You read the entire thing, place it back on the shelf, and walk out of the store.

Now was that stealing?

Obviously nothing physical was stolen from the bookstore. What was stolen was the experience of the book. If that makes sense. Listen, I'm not saying that necessarily is stealing, but with the recent hoopla about e-book readers and how writers are going to have their books stolen (blah blah blah) it made me realize that a book or story isn't so much an object as it is an experience. If someone wants to go into the bookstore and read the entire anthology, that's fine by me. Nothing I can do about it anyway. Sort of like people loaning books from the library ... only the books at the library have been previously purchased. Anyway, do you see what I mean? I think when people start realizing that a book isn't an object but an experience, they'll start to understand there's nothing scary or wrong with e-book readers.

Except, you know, that hackers are eventually going to steal all our books and make them free to everyone in the world and we will all die penniless and alone. I guess that is kind of scary, huh?