Cover Art
I think book covers do (often, not always) give a useful indication of the character of the book. Some are lurid, some busily cluttered, some cutesy psuedo avant-garde. I try not to waste time looking at them. It generally pays off. All that attention-grabbing stuff on the front almost always points to a disappointing lack of anything much inside the book.
I suspect there could be something freudian going on in publishing houses: cover designers can't help letting you know in advance that the book is not much good.
Back cover blurbs give a better indication of what's inside, but need to be taken with a grain of salt. After all, who wrote them? Someone trying to sell you something, is who. As Hillary McPhee says in her very ordinary book, "Other People's Words", the modern publishing industry's philosopy is to promote the hell out of it and sell ten thousand copies before everyone wakes up to the fact that it's lousy.
More disturbing to me is what the critics say. Are publishers paying them, or what? They describe a new book in glowing terms, use words like "original" and "thought-provoking" or something, and it turns out to be just another same-old same-old, forgotten by tomorrow sort of book. Has anyone else found that?
I think book covers do (often, not always) give a useful indication of the character of the book. Some are lurid, some busily cluttered, some cutesy psuedo avant-garde. I try not to waste time looking at them. It generally pays off. All that attention-grabbing stuff on the front almost always points to a disappointing lack of anything much inside the book.
I suspect there could be something freudian going on in publishing houses: cover designers can't help letting you know in advance that the book is not much good.
Back cover blurbs give a better indication of what's inside, but need to be taken with a grain of salt. After all, who wrote them? Someone trying to sell you something, is who. As Hillary McPhee says in her very ordinary book, "Other People's Words", the modern publishing industry's philosopy is to promote the hell out of it and sell ten thousand copies before everyone wakes up to the fact that it's lousy.
More disturbing to me is what the critics say. Are publishers paying them, or what? They describe a new book in glowing terms, use words like "original" and "thought-provoking" or something, and it turns out to be just another same-old same-old, forgotten by tomorrow sort of book. Has anyone else found that?