Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

I think about the number of times a day I pass judgment based on appearance. While it’s not something I’m proud of, it is something that advertisers and marketers hone in on to get their product out there to the consumer. Let’s just face it, if we live by the proverb Don’t judge a book by its cover, it would be free sailing in the supermarket. How many companies whose products sit on supermarket shelves spend countless hours and dollars changing packaging, paying for space on the shelves, and setting up the obstacle course known as the endcap? (One precariously placed endcap of paper towels was unceremoniously removed by my brother and me about 30 years ago in a horrible shopping cart mishap. I think, in fact, we’re still grounded for that one.)

Publishers are quite aware of human nature as well. The newsstand is the most obvious choice and one of the worst places when it comes to people judging text by its cover. The worst place for this, though, is on the bookshelf – IMHO.

How many times have I picked up a book because it sounded like a great read, only to realize that I read it before – with a different cover? The realization that once again I’ve wasted a morning on something I’ve already read when there’s a stack of new friends waiting to be made moves beyond annoyance to anger (and before you vilify me, I’m a staunch proponent of rereading books). My anger stems from wasted time, wasted money, and wasted intelligence – at least on my part. I hate being duped by the publisher.

I also hate when book covers are changed from hardcover to paperback. Most of the time, the hardcover covers are way better than the paperback covers. I applaud those publishers who keep them the same – especially publishers of YA. While I know that authors have limited say over their covers, there are some really great covers out there.

Here are some of my favorites of the past year:

I think my biggest pet peeve is the movie book cover. This is even worse than the Oprah’s book club seal on the cover.

I read Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen this fall. A bit late to the party I know since the book was published in 2003. The novel has probably been sitting in my TBR pile for about 5 years. Admittedly, I read the book because I saw that is was being released as a Rob Reiner film this fall. I fell in love with the book. It reminded me of Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, and like Stargirl, Flipped has a great cover. It’s simple, it’s clean, and it’s representative literally and figuratively of the novel. How great is that?

Then about a week ago, I was trawling my local bookstore, spending some gift cards and buying more YA books, when I was stopped dead in my tracks. There it was. The greatest travesty to hit YA lit since the popularity of vampires (I jest, of course). The cover of Flipped had been transformed to simple white background and photo of fluffy chick to <gasp> a still from the movie. WHY? I shook my head and wandered away.

But really – why? The cover was fine. Are the book-marketing people and the movie-marketing people so stupid as to think that readers won’t connect book and film that they have to create the link themselves? Overall, I would say that the American consumer is not necessarily the swiftest creature on the planet, but readers as consumer fall into a different category. Yes, you could say I’m biased. Maybe I am. But here’s what I know. I know that Readers will read the book before they go to the movie – so the movie book cover isn’t really needed. I know that this is true of adult Readers and teen Readers. Why do you think all my boys read the Twilight series a few years back? They hastily were trying to get Twilight read before they had to go to the theatres to see the film with their girlfriends –that’s why. And Twilight is one of many examples. My Readers will read the book. Then go see the film. Then come back in on Monday and tell me everything that is wrong with Hollywood’s version of their favorite book. And that being said, I think we can start talking about what’s wrong with Hollywood by talking about the change of the book cover.

Until next time. . . see YA.