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Why Book Covers are So Important
The landscape is so competitive and every little advantage can be the difference in getting your book into a readers hands. But that isn’t really the main reason a book cover is very important. A book cover is a representation of you and an extension of your work. That’s the main reason you should put as much effort into what goes on the outside of that book as to what’s on the inside.
First, let’s examine the capitalistic incentives.A book cover is like an album cover. If it’s cool enough you might get someone to buy it just based on the cover. More importantly, it could be cool enough to get put on a shelf somewhere as a form of decoration or a humble brag. Go down to any random block in Silver Lake, here in Los Angeles, and you will find at least a few apartments with Andy Warhol’s bruised banana cover for The Velvet Revolver & Nico cover. Since word of mouth is the best way to push your book, a great cover can really help get you noticed and recommended.
A book cover is a first impression and it’s also a lasting impression. The Great Gatsby (the novel not the film) is remembered for its poignant portrayal of reckless youth and wealth and for having some of the best closing lines in literature as it is for its iconic book cover. I can still see those eyes, as indelible as Fitzgerald’s description of St. Paul and as vividly as I can hear Daisy Buchanan’s voice. Even more recent books have left impressions. The Perks of Being a Wallflower immediately comes to mind. That book cover almost looks like an album cover. It’s so bright and simple and still gets the through-line of the book across. And that brings me to the final and most important point.
This is all about you. How do you want to be perceived? What is your through-line? Stephen Chbosky’s almost secretive cover tells me that he’s got something of a secret. There’s something about him that makes him interesting. And that’s the through-line of Perks and of Chobsky. He’s cool. He’s simple. He’s kind of retro. He gets it. I don’t know if any of that is true but it sure helped sell that image to me. And that image paired with the writing style, voice and subject matter, make for a complete storytelling package. David Sedaris is another good example of this. His book covers are not only complementary to the text, but they are pretty good reflection of the writer as well. They show his humor and his self-deprecating elegance. I mean, maybe I am reading too much into the covers, but that’s the point.
Society, today more than anytime after the invention of written words, is very visual. People will remember your cover, at least you better hope so. They will make assumptions based on your cover. And it will be part of the whole overall experience of buying your product. It’s up to you to make sure that it adds to the experience in way that is positive and an accurate representation of your work and your personality.
A winner of the Hollywood Book Festival, So Go On and Live poignantly and bitingly captures the angst and restlessness of modern American youth. Pedro “Pete” Salcedo, a young but worn down journalist, is on a figurative and metaphorical journey through the absurdity of life, America and beautiful women.
After accepting a prestigious job in Washington, D.C. and subsequently losing the love of his life, Pedro loses himself, first to his work, then to the road and eventually to the apathy, alcohol and cynicism that permeates through youth culture. Pedro struggles, like many of his generation, to get his life in order and hang on to love, sanity and pathos in this modern world, where women, relationships and sexuality are constantly evolving.
So Go On and Live is a wild and emotional expedition into the existential and farcical perspective of a drunken, Mexican-Irish, would-be poet offering a new breed of optimism that comes with a nihilistic twist.
After accepting a prestigious job in Washington, D.C. and subsequently losing the love of his life, Pedro loses himself, first to his work, then to the road and eventually to the apathy, alcohol and cynicism that permeates through youth culture. Pedro struggles, like many of his generation, to get his life in order and hang on to love, sanity and pathos in this modern world, where women, relationships and sexuality are constantly evolving.
So Go On and Live is a wild and emotional expedition into the existential and farcical perspective of a drunken, Mexican-Irish, would-be poet offering a new breed of optimism that comes with a nihilistic twist.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre - Literary Fiction
Rating – PG-13
More details about the author
Connect with Erick Galindo through Twitter
Website http://www.erickg.com/contact/
