Do Book Covers Matter? NYT Article

In a New York Times article today, they ask if book covers still matter in the age of the ebook?

I assumed they would be talking about attractive graphical content on online store views and whether or not attractive graphics still matter to sell books.  Of course they do.   In fact, book cover graphics matter even more, because you need to capture attention within these online stores often with just a thumbnail. Attractiveness in products always matters.

They brought up an interesting point, it’s more difficult or not possible to know what someone is reading in public. So if you are a curious people-watcher like most of us, you won’t have a visible book cover to read from if somebody is entranced in their ebook. They are staring at a screen and all you can see is the device.  Of course you can always just ask somebody “what are you reading?” or any of the hundred other icebreaking conversation starters and eventually find out what good book might be out there waiting for you.

But both with an ebook and a printed book, of course that person could certainly tell you to buzz off.  Just because somebody’s book cover is visible doesn’t mean they are looking for new like-minded friends or asking to be interrupted. The point was though that a person in public is no longer free advertising for books.

Here’s what I didn’t read in there. We have a fantastic replacement for this book covers in public problem. People have been giving away their “What I’m reading right now” status on their blogs, and on their “slice” of the social websites they belong. Sometimes they do this manually, sometimes automatic.  And here’s the big thing. The reader devices can transmit this information to share it.  If you open a new book, it might ask you, “Would you like your friends to know you are reading this?”

And if you say yes, it can publish it to twitter, Facebook or your blog ALONG with embedding the thumbnail and links to the store. If you’re smart, it will be your store affiliate link so if your friend or a stranger clicks and buys from there, you can get a cut.  If that same transaction happened because of an encounter on a bus bench, you’d never get anything.  Plus as these devices are more popular, there could easily be an app running that can transmit and receive (anonymously and by opt-in only) what people around you are reading.  You don’t even have to ask.  Problem solved… BIG problem solved.

Back to graphics now. In order to win a lot of sales in the ebook market, having author and publisher power will matter, but so will having great supplements, animations, videos, and a microsite. Anything that will pull a potential reader into the story just like and better than a cover graphic would. If it’s a Freakonomics or a Columbine kind of book, you can expect, at least for the interactive versions, to see animated graphs, emotional movie-style trailers and a lot of humor. These things like video trailers and commercials existed already for some books, but you’re going to see a lot more.  Many books will have an interactive team behind them, along with the editing and proofing and sales teams that publishers currently have.

My advice to authors, keep your eyes open for a technical agent e.g. somebody with a website / SEO / SEM background, because your books will need to surf the social channels and exploiting all of them the best way you can.