I get most of my books from the library and when I’m walking down the aisle looking at shelves of books, I’m looking at the spines of at least 20 books at any given time and the only thing differentiating them is the cover. So damn right I’m going to be judging the book by the cover.

The whole point of a cover is to make itself visually appealing and reach the target audience. Although covers do not determine the quality of a book, they are essential in regards to ensuring that it is sold and read.

What’s A Bad Cover

A bad cover isn’t just a cover with a faulty design, it’s also a cover that doesn’t attract the intended audience of the book.

A prime example of this is the cover of Isabel Wolff’s “A Vintage Affair”. From the colour scheme to the tag line to even the blurb, one would assume that this book is intended for young teenage girls who are into fairytales (most likely Cinderella). That it will likely explore the story of someone who is able to live a fairytale because of a dress.

All of that is completely wrong.

“A Vintage Affair” is a book that anyone who reads it will realise is for adults. It explores grief and guilt (Spoiler: One of the subplots is of a woman recounting her experience during the Nazi regime and her still feeling guilty for unintentionally reporting her Jewish friend who was in hiding which resulted in said friend being sent to a concentration camp).

Yes, the dress is kind of relevant as the protagonist leaves her corporate job to start a vintage dress shop. Yes, some of the people who buy the dresses have really good luck (spoiler: a woman who is struggling with fertility gets pregnant after wearing the store’s vintage lingerie) but it is a tiny aspect of the book and even these supposed “fairytale endings” are mostly adult in nature. This is absolutely not the type of book that a young teenage girl (or really anyone of any demography) who wants to read about modernised Cinderella would like to read.

And by being designed to promote itself to young teenage girls who read Cinderella rather than older readers who are interested in reading about the effect of grief and family breakdowns on the psyche, the cover fails its inherent purpose which is to attract the book’s target audience.

What’s A Good Book Cover?

A good book cover is a book cover that attracts the attention of the book’s intended audience. Regardless of how trashy or stupid or weird a book cover is, if it is attracting the right audience, it does not matter. It does not matter if 90% of the reader population hate a book cover if the intended audience consists of people in the remaining 10%.

Another book that has a very similar cover to “A Vintage Affair” is Maya Gold’s “Cinderella Cleaners” but this is a very good cover.

Why?

Because it is designed to catch the attention of its intended audience. The book cover makes it seem as though it is the story of a young teenage girl who cleans dresses (drycleaners). One would assume, from the cover, that she tries on one of the dresses and has a Cinderella like experience.

And they would be completely correct. Yes, there is more nuance to the story than just that but the cover is telling a passer-by the general storyline. The model is a young teenage girl so one would assume the audience are young teenage girls and they would be correct. It is.

What Really Matters When Designing A Book

You see, as important as it is to have a good design for book covers, that does nothing for an author if the book is unable to reach its intended audience. Because although incorrect book covers may draw more attention initially (if the cover is mimicking the design features of a popular genre / concept), it still damages reader engagement and ensures that books that are of high quality and well written remain unnoticed simply because the publisher and marketing team were bull-headed enough to market the book to the wrong audience.

There is nothing wrong with writing books targeted towards young teenage girls (obviously) and there are bound to be teenage girls who enjoy both contemporary stories about Cinderella and stories that explore grief and dysfunction (I am one of those people and that’s the only reason I even picked up “A Vintage Affair”) but they are such different types of books that it is unlikely. If the intended audience of the book reads it, it is purely a lucky coincidence. Everything about the marketing of the book and the way it is portrayed is designed to steer it away from its intended audience.

I would almost conclude that the people responsible for marketing “A Vintage Affair” had some sort of agenda against the author because they could not have possibly created a cover more ill suited towards the values and ideas conveyed and the tone of the story. Even a black cover with the title and name of the author would have been better than this.

And I find it disrespectful to do such a thing. It is a complete disregard for the weight of the topics discussed (spoiler: they’re talking about the Nazi regime – that’s the equivalent of marketing “The Diary Of Anne Frank” as a teenage love story) and the time and effort put in by the author.

Authors Have Little To No Control Over Their Covers (In Traditional Publishing) So Don’t Blame Them

Unless an author is world famous or has a large enough audience to have sway with their publisher, they do not control their book covers. At most, they can give comments and ask for specific things to be changed but the publisher has the ultimate say. If the publisher wants to make the book cover completely different to what the author envisioned and asked for, they can. And it is because of that reason that many authors absolutely hate their covers.

And to a certain extent, publishers also sometimes don’t have control over the final book cover. Whether this is because they are trying to utilise market trends (this usually only affects the book cover when it is first being made, it is highly unlikely that a book cover will be finalised and then has to be changed again simply due to trends) or the distributor has demanded a change in book cover. Sometimes even after both the publisher and the author agree on a cover, it may still get changed simply because the distributor demanded a change (if they have enough sway with the publisher).

Book covers can also be changed when it is being printed and distributed in another country. As market trends are different country to country, book covers may have to be changed simply to accommodate the needs of the market. In this way, a cover may be good in one country and bad in another, it all depends on the market and whether or not the copy a reader has is designed for the country they are residing in.

Why Does It Even Matter?

Other than the obvious reason of authors want to reach their intended audience. When a book is marketed towards the wrong audience, money that could have been used to attract the right audience is used attracting the wrong audience (who will inevitably not be as engaged in the book). Not only does that mean that a large portion of the limited amount of money that publishing companies spend on individual authors are wasted but it also means loss of engagement. Loss of engagement coupled with the intended audience not even registering a book as something intended for them results in an author not being able to sell books which means less royalty and that means less money.

I don’t know if many people realise but it’s actually very hard for most authors to support themselves simply with the money received from royalty. That rate is very low (especially in traditional publishing) and authors don’t even get any royalty until they have earned enough to earn out their advance (authors don’t just get to keep that pretty chunk of cash they receive for a book, they have to earn it before they get any more money).

A bad book cover could mean that an author does not earn out their advance (and many authors never do) and does not receive any money from royalty. That means that they can’t afford to be a full time writer meaning fewer books being published by them.

So something as simple as a cover can be the difference between being able to establish a career and having to put writing in the backseat cause authors need to eat too.

A Final Note On Marketing A Book

Marketing a book (like anything) is all about looking at trends and generalising the audience. So a cover being slightly different from the content is not a problem so long as it still represents the overall tone and themes conveyed in the book. The cover is only to attract the audience, the story itself will contain more nuance and distinguish itself. Same with the established target audience. Target audience merely looks at the demography of people that read in a certain genre or style the most. There are bound to be people who read books that are not aimed at their demography. Books (that are marketed well) will only target a specific demography as that is the most cost efficient way to reach the largest number of potential readers.

The Cursed Disclaimers and a Note

Although I used “A Vintage Affair” as an example of a bad book cover and also spoke of the little control authors have over their covers, I do not know what happened. For all I know, Isabel Wolff might have even wanted this cover (but I highly doubt it cause why). Please be aware that this is not the only cover for this book (there are many more) and for all I know, this might have just been a fumble. I stand by my opinion that this is a bad book cover and it is disrespectful towards the contents of the book but I am not bashing the publisher or whoever it is that chose this cover for a book like this. I’m simply saying it was a very stupid idea that most likely resulted in a lack of book sales for the author.

If you would like to learn some more about book covers or marketing a book or even just publishing, be sure to leave a comment. I have no way of knowing what you want me to write unless you tell me. And, if you are feeling a tad shy, you can always leave a message on my contact form. Those messages get sent directly to my email and I will never reveal that you asked for a specific blog post unless you want me to.