What’s in a cover?

Putting Kindle arguments aside, there is something egalitarian about electronic reading. A book loses its genre straightjacket when you are taken immediately into its pages: bypassing any cover and arriving directly at the first page of chapter one.

When I was a child, my parents had shelves of penguin originals. I used to pull books off the shelf to read without actually knowing what type of novel they were – they were simply orange-and-cream, or green-and-cream stripes. I still have some of these books, they now have an antique charm. But in terms of the cover, there’s nothing much to choose between authors as different as Daphne du Maurier, and Aldous Huxley.

Contrast this with today where genre is king. We do judge a book instantly by its cover, and women’s commercial fiction gets the short straw. I read my first Victoria Hislop book recently – on a kindle, so without the benefit of cover art. I found the writing good, the story serious, and the outcome for some of the major characters brutal and bleak. Later browsing online I was surprised to discover Hislop referred to as chicklit. Really? Perhaps because they hadn’t looked further than the covers of her six novels – all swirly-girly lettering and island seascapes (probably not her doing).

Hannah Beckerman, author of ‘The Dead Wife’s Handbook’, recently started a pitch to help women writers get reviewed, particularly commercial fiction, under a new hashtag, ReviewWomen. She says that the only genre not currently being reviewed in the heavyweight press, is women’s commercial fiction. With light, bright covers and easy prose, it is overlooked.

Many serious minded reviewers will not consider women’s commercial fiction at all. But women certainly read it. Perhaps this accounts for the rise of the book blogger, who isn’t so prejudiced. We are told that the fiction book industry is kept alive these days by women readers aged between 16 and 65. Why then are so many authors men? It seems that men want to write books but aren’t so keen to read them. Perhaps if they did, we'd have genre officially termed bloke-lit. Wonder what those covers would look like?

Are books the doughnut authors give away?

As books go plummeting down in price and author events go up, I’m beginning to wonder – are books becoming the doughnuts we give away with an author profile these days? Recently I bought 'The Luminaries' by Booker prize-winning author Eleanor Catton. It cost £1.19. I committed the sin of purchasing on kindle, but was shocked nevertheless. All that effort for less than a chocolate bar?

Much like a free doughnut with your coffee, authors now give away online short stories at launch time, to encourage interest in their new book. They also write blogs, tweet, appear at festivals, review other books and generally give away words for free. It’s required.

Author events on the other hand are becoming ever more expensive. I went to one not that long ago for Sarah Waters. Thirty two pounds bought me an advance copy of The Paying guests, and my ticket to the swanky London Rosewood Hotel, where waiters were circling with wine before we were ushered into a moodily lit seating area, and Ms Waters appeared. I enjoyed it, and so did the other hundred plus fans. As they say, 'you do the math'.

Perhaps authors are like rock-stars now. The wisdom goes that bands now make more money on their merchandise than their music. After all Rock band U2 gave away their last album to everyone with an i-tunes account, to get bums on seats for their global tour: something which was unthinkable at the band’s height. What next? T-shirts at author events, or perhaps a branded purse or make-up bag. Lingerie in fifty shades of grey?

In this brave new world of digital freedom (and everything free on digital) it’s all about building a profile, getting clicks, retweets, getting the name out there. Marketing lore tells us that a reader has to hear the name of a book three times before they decide to purchase. But authors themselves are now being marketed as celebrities. Gone are the days when a favourite author would finally stray onto the TV screen and we’d think ‘OMG is that what she looks like? Thought she was blonde.’

But to be a celebrity you need to be famous for something. And so we are back to the writing. All that crafting of words, editing, shaping, finessing, has to keep going regardless of whether it’s free or not. I know most authors don’t expect to make money from books alone these days, but at least they’d like to be able to earn enough to buy an ice cream at the end of the month. Or a doughnut…