Passing Judgment

They say not to judge a book by its cover, but everyone knows that we do it all the time.

It's hard to avoid, as long as the book is an object to hold in your hands. There is something repellant about an oversized paperback with a cheezy image and a bad title font. And there is something comforting about the feel of a faded cloth binding against your fingertips.

Every time I see the boxy covers of a Norton Critical Edition I flash back to freshman-level literature courses in victorian fiction. Anna recently confessed to purchasing a book exclusively because the cover reminded her of the cover of her copy of Auntie Mame

In this case, Anna says, the book lived up to its cover. The humorous social commentary inside the book (like that inside Auntie Mame) is just what the cover promised.

This is why with our books, cover art can become war. Many authors, exhausted and proud of their literary achievement, burnt out on copy edits and typesetting, throw their hands in the air when the cover question comes their way. Not us.

Even as pub dates approach and new projects build up, we stubbornly resist anything that evokes the 1980's. We are staunchly opposed to images that are reminiscent of romance novels, of clip art, or of Twister. (Unless it's on the cover of Gary Shteyngart's dystopian fiction, of course).

Speaking of Shteyngart, we are enamored with the book trailer he posted online to generate energy for his book. We like the idea of book trailers in general, which, like movie previews, offer a glance into the experience to come.

Everyone knows that in hollywood, a movie is never better than its trailer. (Just like they say that a book is never better than its proposal - but that's another story). I wonder: as the book-as-object becomes obsolete, will book trailers replace covers as the go-to indicator for snap-judgements and spontaneous purchases?

And what will that mean (or will it mean anything) for the words inside?