There is an old saying, “You can’t just a book by its cover.” Whoever said that was not a book publisher. Book publishing is pure marketing.
You not only can judge a book by its cover, you have to be able to—for the book to sell well. Think not?
Imagine a hard-boiled detective thriller with a fluffy, flowery romantic cover. You think anyone who is interested in hard-boiled thrillers will even pick it up? Of course not.
Now think of a sweet, old-fashioned romance (barely hints at sex, innocent till marriage…Do they still sell those?) with a garish, words-only cover. Do you think a young girl looking for a blissful escape from reality is going to give that book a glance? Not even one.
Worse, if the romance reader buys the thriller by mistake, or the nonfiction reader accidentally buys the fluffy romance, they will be extremely unsatisfied customers. Angry customers. They will blame the publisher for misrepresentation—and rightly so!
The point of the story is this: Make sure your advertising and packaging appeal to the right market, and that the product matches the presentation.
I promise you it is well worth the effort. And misrepresenting your product is never a good thing in the long run.
[...] I wrote about how you can judge a book by its cover—and should be able to. At that time, I was talking about the appropriateness—or [...]
[...] back I wrote about how you can judge a book by its cover and the importance of book jacket design in selling books. (The same could be said for just about [...]