Greetings, readers!
Since I advertised this blog on my Facebook page, I can only assume there are one million people reading it now. Which is great! Welcome, one million people, to the House of Bognanni. Make yourself at home. The bathroom is down the hall on the right (yeah, you have to jiggle the handle).
So, as my first post shamelessly mentioned, I have a novel coming out early next year ($). Right now we’re in the final stages of cover art. Because of this fact, I have been looking at more book covers than any human being should ever look at, ever. I’ve looked at books I love with terrible covers. Books I didn’t really like with awesome covers, and everything in between. But after all of this, when my retinas were seared out of my head, I had to ask the cold hard question to myself: How much does a cover really affect which book I buy?
The answer, if I look at my recent hardback purchases, is a tad embarrassing. First case: 2666 by Roberto Bolano. Admission: I never finished The Savage Detectives. But, did I purchase the thirty-some dollar, totally rockin’ three-paperback version of Bolano’s second book? Hell yes I did! I marched it right up to the counter and bought it without much thought. Why? It was really cool (a note: now I’m reading it and loving it, but still). So, it seems I am attracted to nicely-packaged attractive things. And will even read hundreds of pages of them.
Case two: Olive Kitteridge. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A handful of smart people recommended I read this. I like novels-in-stories. Did I buy the hardback? Nope. Why, you might ask? Too girly. That’s the truth. I have also since read this and loved it, but I read a free galley copy. It has a repeated picture of Random House’s logo on it in a maddening pattern. But it won’t girl up my bookshelf, now will it?
So, more to come on this later. But in the meantime, I ask all of you House of Bognanni guests: what book have you purchased purely for the cover? No lying or cheating!
hmm, can’t say i have bought a book purely because the cover looked good- scratch that- i did buy phillip roth’s The Breast because of the cover. What can I say, he has good taste. But on a side note, can you think of one discernible, or good memory of what the cover of The Catcher in the Rye looks like? I only remember it is burgundy on most paper backs, and you know it’s kind of popular. So don’t sweat it (although it sounds like a fun dilemma to have maybe) the proof is always in the pudding. Otherwise, put some nude pics on the cover man, or put like one of those “contains explicit lyrics, words, stories” on it.
Don’t know if you’ve seen this already or not, but I thought it was interesting given you both have your first novels coming out in March ‘10 and both blogged about book covers on the same day. Freaky. http://www.themillions.com/2009/07/funny-thing-happened-on-way-to.html
Scott Heim’s Mysterious Skin–the cover is basically a picture of a giant pile of Froot Loops. I was in college. Never was a big fan of eating Froot Loops, but looking at them was surprisingly pleasing, as was the book.
Do people buy books based solely on their cover? Oh hell yes. At least that’s what I gathered from 4 years at Barnes & Noble. I do it too. It’s your first novel, and people are going to cold-buy your book based on two things, the cover and the blurb*. Trust your instincts, Peter.
*This is just my opinion, of course.
I bought “The Killer Thing” because there was a robot with lasers shooting from its eyes on the cover. Also, the guy told me he recently spilled beer on it and gave me 75¢ off the outdoor sale price.