On marketing and cover art at Tobias Buckell Online

Journal Entry

On marketing and cover art

February 8th 2007 at 7:08 am

Isaac Stewart mulls over recent cover art designs on books in his blog complete with side-by-side examples:

Art, Design, and Marketing are the major pieces that go into the cover that’s staring back at you from the bookshelf. If the Art is beautiful to you, and the Design strikes your fancy, then you might hear the book calling to you, “Buy me! Or at least pick me up.”

If you read the book and like it, then the Marketing of the book was dead on.

Each of these pieces—Art, Design, and Marketing (which influences Art and Design)—can make or break a book.

Disclaimer

Let’s take a look at a few of the latest science fiction and fantasy book covers. As taste in Art and Design is highly subjective, keep in mind that these are just my opinions. There are covers I love that other people hate, and vice versa. But hopefully I can give sound reasons as to why these covers fly or flop.

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5 Responses so far

1. Shara on Feb 8th, 2007 at 8:52 am

Very fascinating article. I’m still pondering what was implied about your two covers, though.
2. Steve Buchheit on Feb 8th, 2007 at 8:57 am

Excellent essay. He distills the most important issues, that art, design, and marketing all need to be spot on to work and when they aren’t it’s either obvious, or at least annoying. He also talks about how something may work for one person, but may have the opposite affect on another person. My only critique of his essay is using the caps for Art Design and Marketing. For me, “Art” and “art” are two different things (this is a gross oversimplification, “Art” and “Illustration” aren’t interchangeable for the most part), although the finished product (mostly what the definition of “art” is) looks the same. I understand how he’s using it in his essay, though.
3. Betsy Whitt on Feb 8th, 2007 at 9:30 am

Interesting article Some of my favorite covers are Carol Berg’s - found at http://www.sff.net/people/carolberg/darnath.html and http://www.sff.net/people/carolberg/raikirah.html, so I do like the UK cover for Transformation better than the original…

I find it just as interesting that the author has little say in what goes into the cover art - after all, we’re not marketers, are we?
4. tobias s buckell on Feb 8th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

At Tor they’ve been great, and I trust that as an author I know less about what makes a great cover and more about what makes a great book. Irene Gallo knows her stuff and how to catch people’s eyes, which if you read her blog you can see where she explains about the differences in my hardcover vs paperback book covers.

But it is scary, once a book is written you join a collaborative team to help push the final product. Cover copy, cover art, book presentation, editorial feedback, and salespeople all get involved. It’s no longer just your gestating child, but now the village is getting involved
5. Jim Hall on Feb 8th, 2007 at 8:24 pm

I have always thought that a great cover can help grab a potential reader. For well known authors, the book should generate a lot of sales simply because of the authors name. For new authors a great cover can get a potential new reader to pick up and maybe try his or her book. Toby I certainly think your fantastic cover has gotten a lot of people to at least read the dust jacket, and I think that’s a big part of the battle.