#4 from Guest Blogger Barry Eisler - How to Package Your Book

While you’re writing your novel, you should think of yourself as an artist and craftsman, with your book as your work of art. But once the book is done and you aim to sell it, your book is a product. Products sell better when they’re properly packaged. So how should you package your book?

Let me pause to acknowledge here that of course your publisher will make most of the packaging decisions. But publishers don’t always follow the right principles and they don’t always achieve the right outcome. You’ll have a much better chance of persuading your publisher of the merits of your point of view if you can describe not only what you want, but why you want it – that is, if you can articulate the principles behind your plan. So even if you’re “only the writer,” you should understand the principles behind effective packaging.

When we talk about a book’s packaging, generally speaking we’re talking about the cover (there are other elements – tangible, such as paper quality and binding, and less tangible, such as placement in stores and avenues of advertising – which, though related, are largely a separate topic). So the first question to ask is, what is the purpose of the cover?

Many people will answer, “To get store customers to pick the book up.” That’s partly right. But what if the potential customer picked up the book, started reading the jacket copy, and realized that the title and cover art had nothing to do with what the book is actually about? Correct: a moment later, the book goes back on the shelf. So yes, you want the cover to entice a customer to pick up the book, but, just as in romance, picking someone up is the beginning of a process, not its consummation. So let’s say this: the full purpose of the cover is to get people to: (i) notice the book; (ii) pick up the book; (iii) buy the book; (iv) read the book; (v) talk about the book; (vi) listen to the talk about the book; and (vii) repeat for the next customer.

Let’s keep this purpose in mind as we break down the elements of the package. There are six: (i) author’s name; (ii) title; (iii) cover art; (iv) jacket copy; (v) blurbs; (vi) author photo; (vii) author bio. We’ll talk about the first three together, because these elements are always present right on the front cover, and therefore the first elements a potential reader is likely to see and respond to.

If you’re Stephen King, your name will be a significant part of the package and will sell a lot of books. But let’s assume you’re just starting out and no one knows your name. In this case, your name adds little value to the package. The title and cover art alone will have to carry the day.

Where do you start? Pretend you’re explaining to someone why she would like your book. What’s in the book that will appeal to her – that is, what elements or “hooks” will make readers want to buy it? What does the book stand for, what makes it special, what makes it tick, what is its core? What market and submarket is the book geared to? Articulate those elements and distill them. They are what should be reflected in your title and cover art. (It’s not a coincidence that this exercise ties in with the elements of a good pitch, which I’ve heard described as “Who, What, Where, and Why Should I Care.”)

Note the word “reflect.” As with good writing, the combination of your title and cover art shows rather than tells. It’s a tease, not a full frontal. You want to convey some degree of dry information – the book’s genre, for example, a bit about the who, what, and where – but the ultimate purpose of the information is to precipitate an emotional response (does this sound familiar? It’s also a principle of good writing). Look at book covers, and you’ll see an infinite variety of designs. But the ones that work will all provoke an emotion. How? By hinting at something – in thrillers, it’s usually sex, danger, violence, loneliness, exotic locations – that causes people to feel a certain way.

How can a title provoke emotion? One route is association. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s books (“Out of the Deep I Cry,” “A Fountain Filled With Blood,” etc.), are from Christian hymns (see also the discussion on secondary meaning and branding below). Cormac McCarthy’s latest, “No Country for Old Men,” is taken from the first line of Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium.” Joe Konrath’s books are each named after a well-known drink – “Whiskey Sour,” “Bloody Mary,” “Rusty Nail.” The phrases are familiar enough to evoke, but not so familiar that they can be ignored. They have resonance. They also powerfully relate to key elements of the books themselves: for Fleming, a Priest protagonist and themes of faith; for McCarthy, an aging cop confronted with a young, virulent form of evil; for Konrath, a protagonist nicknamed Jack Daniels and stories that are like alcohol itself – fun but also dangerous. There are many other approaches and countless examples. The best discussion of titles I’ve encountered (along with a lot of other good stuff) is in Sol Stein’s “Stein on Writing.” I recommend it.

The same principles apply to cover art. Allow me to make an example of one of my own books. Recently, I had a long discussion with my UK editor about what makes the Rain books tick. We came up with: (i) Rain himself (realistic, dangerous, multifaceted killer); (ii) exotic Asian urban settings; (iii) action and martial arts; and (iv) romance and sex. So a good Rain package will reflect some combination of these elements.

Now take a look at the Italian cover of “Hard Rain,” the second book in the series. I think it’s the best Rain cover ever – not just because it’s beautiful, but because of the striking way it emphasizes the heart of the books:

What do we get from the cover above? An Asian metropolis (probably Tokyo, even if you can’t read the Japanese building signs, and even if there was any doubt, the title clarifies it), large, impersonal, vaguely intimidating and even threatening. Above it, a beautiful geisha, implying again the exoticism of the setting, and also hinting at romance and sex. And ambiguity – is the woman, who is looking down at the city, an angel? Or somehow malevolent?

One of the things I love best about this cover is how personal it is. There is a human being in the picture. There’s something intimate, alluring, even arresting about this.

And, of course, the composition plays beautifully with the title: “Alba Nera su Tokyo” (“Black Dawn Over Tokyo,” if my Italian can be trusted). Garzanti, the publisher, is emphasizing the setting on three levels: the image of the city, the image of the woman, and in the title itself. This is a strong, unambiguous statement: we have a book set in Tokyo. Certainly, like all sound branding, this brand will not be for everyone. But the point is not to try to appeal to everyone (such attempts, which in the end always wind up standing for nothing, tend to fail); it is to appeal powerfully to an approachable core constituency from which we can build by word of mouth.

So: “Alba Nera su Tokyo” accurately and elegantly emphasizes setting, suspense, and sex – at least three of the four elements my editor and I keyed on. The hinted-at information makes you feel a certain way about the book. No wonder the cover works so well. Bravo.

I’m glad to say that the Italian design seems to be influencing the efforts of some of my other publishers, including Putnam in the US. Putnam and I have been discussing the US packaging approach, and agree that it hasn’t adequately reflected the core of the series. The principles my UK editor and I distilled are now becoming more prominent in the US approach. (By the way, if you’re trying to assess whether your publisher is right for you, an important question to ask is: do they continually assess the results of all their marketing efforts and adjust as necessary? Do they abandon what hasn’t worked, emphasize what has worked, and continually innovate? If the answers are yes, you’re working with good people. I count myself lucky in this regard.)

Most discussions I’ve heard about book packaging focus on getting the book to “pop” or “stand out” or “jump off the shelf.” (Some of the phrases in question are clichés; others are jargon. Beware of both, and especially of jargon. It’s almost always a substitute for thought and you should immediately be suspicious when you hear someone lapse into it). But the common focus on eye-catchiness is misplaced. Eye-catchiness is helpful, but not fundamental. It can add to the essential qualities of the cover by getting more people to notice it, but it can’t substitute for those qualities if they’re absent. Eye-catchiness might get a passer-by to see a book on a shelf, but it won’t – without more – cause her to pick up the book and look more closely. Only some reflection of the book’s “hooks” can reliably do that.

Bear in mind that what works for a first book isn’t exactly the same as what works for a tenth, and won’t work exactly the same way. As an author’s star rises, her name will add more value, for example, and should therefore become more prominent. Also, over time, book packaging can develop what trademark lawyers call “secondary meaning” – that is, the meaning that accretes to a trademark in the public’s mind by virtue of long association with the underlying product or service, which is part of brand. Random House has done a nice job in this regard with Lee Child’s books, branding them with that bull’s-eye design. What do we associate with a bull’s-eye? Shooting, precision, pressure, danger – all appealing qualities of the Jack Reacher series, certainly, and therefore a sound approach even the first time Random House used it. But over time, that bull’s-eye design has come to stand for the Reacher books in much the same way a trademark stands for the underlying product or service.

Now let’s talk about the other elements of the package – the jacket copy, blurbs, author photo, and author bio. To understand these elements and how they work together, you have to understand the sales cycle I discussed in a previous article – that is, the steps the average customer needs to take en route from the bookshelf to the cash register. Here, the sales cycle means the reader notices the book’s cover (author name, title, and artwork) and picks it up. She reads the jacket copy and it sounds like it’s her kind of book. She reads the blurbs, and the New York Times rave increases her confidence that the book is good. The photo and bio indicate the author has credibility to write this kind of book. She starts reading the first chapter. Ten minutes later, she’s carrying the book to the cash register.

Let’s look at each item in a little more detail. The function of jacket copy is to tell the reader what the book is about more descriptively than the hints and implications of the title and cover art. In other words, to add to and reinforce the reader’s initial attraction to the book. The function of the blurbs is to convince the reader that, regardless of what it’s about, the book is good. In other words, the jacket copy and the blurbs answer two distinct questions: “What’s it about? And is it any good?” I’m of the opinion that using the jacket copy to persuade the reader of the book’s merits is silly. Your (or the publisher’s) claims to terrificness aren’t credible. Only disinterested third parties (reviewers) have credibility for that. Of course, you can go in the opposite direction, using some description from blurbs in conveying what the book is about, because there’s no credibility problem there. But bear in mind the separate functions of jacket copy and blurbs so you can use them with maximum impact.

The function of the author photo is to enhance what you’re trying to establish with the other elements of the package. If the book is comic, the author should look fun and light-hearted. If the book is literary, a look of gravitas is probably good. You get the idea.

The same applies to the bio. I grew up in New Jersey. But that’s not in my author bio because it’s not relevant to what we’re trying to establish about the Rain books. The time I spent in the government and in Japan are relevant because they tend to establish credibility for the things and places I write about. Not a coincidence that those items are prominent in my bio.

If all the elements are properly in place, the package will both distill and amplify the “look and feel” of the book inside. The package will then prime the book’s passage through each of the seven steps of the sales cycle described at the outset of this article.

Now that you know the principles, try them out. Look at book packages that work for you and ask yourself why they work. Are they distilling and then accurately, attractively, powerfully presenting what’s most appealing about the book? Do the same for packages that leave you cold. Is your lack of interest subjective, or is the package failing on some more objective level that you can articulate? (By the way, this is the same kind of exercise as learning writing craft by rereading books you love and asking what the author is doing that’s working so well). When you can start answering these questions reliably, you’re well on your way to helping your publisher design the best possible packages for your books – frames for your works of art.

Good luck!

Barry Eisler is the bestselling author of the John Rain series.

Comments

[Jozef Imrich]

Your series have been spiced with many flavors of creativity, Barry

Indeed, to put your eyes on a thought-provoking book (package et al) is to feel the chords that bind the earth together ...

CODA: The case for hiring biased book reviewers http://www.slate.com/id/2124361/ [ Fair Is Square]

[Barry Eisler]

Thanks Jozef -- the Slate piece was thought-provoking and worthy of more discussion. And the obit the author linked to was terrific!

BTW, if you want to see an example of perfect packaging, check out David Morrell's forthcoming Creepers, a thriller/horror/fear book about a group of "creepers" -- urban adventurers who infiltrate abandoned buildings to explore the past preserved there. The word "creepers" has so many associations perfect for the story: creepy-crawlers, jeepers creepers, creepy, heebie-jeebies... and of course it also names the protagonists and activity at the heart of the story. The cover design is of an old door, cobwebs, a "Do Not Disturb" sign... all emphasizing the title's promise of lots of fear, a promise the story then fulfills. Really fun book (if you think being scared is fun, which I definitely do...)

:-)
Barry

[JA Konrath]

Your post is dead-on in describing the elements of an effective cover.

But while I agree 100% in theory, I can't help but disagree somewhat in practice. Allow me to explain.

One of the things I'm often chided on is the fact that I think all authors should learn to become marketers and salesman. We should be able to handsell our books, even if we're shy and withdrawn.

Public speaking is something that can be learned. It is a craft.

Some authors say they simply can't do it. I say they should try anyway.

Creating a cover is more of an art than a craft. The axiom "I don't know about art but I know what I like" allows for unlimited interpreations of what folks will find asthetically pleasing.

As such, art is best left to the artists, not the writers. A writer might describe the elements that he wants on a cover to his agent or editor, but it's the putting together of those elements that make the cover sink or swim.

Also, unless you already have a certain degree of success, or if your contract says you have cover approval (most writers will have 'cover consultation' in their contracts, which means you can suggest, but not demand) it's unlikely your suggestions will be given serious weight.

Some examples:

I had a very specific cover concept for the Jack Daniels books--the covers would be dark gray, like a chalkboard, and the title and author name would be written in slightly psychotic chalk handwriting; scary but eye-catching. The center image would be the chalk outline of a body.

I wanted to use handwriting because I use that in Whiskey Sour---the serial killer writes notes to the police. Chalk outlines are immediately identifiable as police procedural. Plus the stark black/white handwriting would set the book apart on the shelf.

I was emphasizing the dark, scary, gritty aspects of my books.

My publisher completely disregarded my suggestions, and instead went with something bright, colorful, and fun, downplaying the scares and playing up the humor.

The result? The Whiskey Sour cover was nominated for an Anthony Award for best cover.

In my case, my publisher did know best.

But my publisher has made mistakes. In the first four books in the "Hearse" series by Tim Cockey, Hyperion created some of the most garishly ugly mystery covers ever. By the fifth book, they got wise and stopped it, opting for something pleasing, but the fifth book also happened to be the last one ever in that particular series.

Robert W. Walker, who has had a certain degree of success with his forensic "Instinct" series, thought that the last book should have an X-ray of a spine on the cover, because his killer ripped out the spines of his victims. Berkley agreed, and out of Rob's 40+ published books he hates that cover the most. "Too damn dark," he says, even though it was his idea.

Libby Fischer Hellmann, also at Berkley, writes the Ellie Foreman series about a Chicago videographer. Her first novel, An Eye For Murder, is contemporary, but a few scenes flashback to WWII. Libby assumed her publisher would make a decent cover. Her only suggestion was, "Please don't put a swastika on it. This is a female amateur sleuth, not a men's war novel."

Naturally, her cover art was graced with a giant swastika--a concept they might never even have considered if she hadn't mentioned it.

Your publisher has more experience than you do with cover art, but they still might screw up. At the same time, unless you really understand the principles of what makes a good cover (and reading about the principles doesn't necessarily mean you can incorporate them into something striking), writers would be wise to be careful what they suggest, and be careful what they allow.

In truth, writers have very little say-so. It's hard, even for bestsellers, to get a cover changed. And what a writer believes is an effective or ineffective cover might not be the case for the reading public, because art is subjective.

For example, with your latest, Killing Rain, your publisher is moving more toward the asthetic established in the Italian cover shown above.

Personally, I preferred the monochromatic color trend of the previous Rain books to the new, urbanesque look. As a reader of thrillers for 25 years, I find the cover of Rain Storm (your previous novel) to be more compelling than the cover of Killing Rain.

That said, I know that Killing Rain has already outsold Rain Storm in hardcover. Was this because of the cover choice? Or because of name recognition? Or because it's a better book? Or because people got hooked on the color schemes of your previous paperbacks?

Final thought--when talking with your publisher about cover design, be wary. Realize that they may know better. If you're going to suggest something, be sure it's what you really want and why. If you're going to make demands, be prepared to possibly piss your publisher off.

It's important to realize what works and why. But it's also import to realize that you might not really know what works and why, and maybe you should stay out of it.

[Barry Eisler]

Hey Joe, great thoughts, as always. I don't think we're really disagreeing all that much. I'm not advocating that authors perform the actual cover design, just that they understand the objectives the cover is trying to achieve and the princples that make a cover effective. In other words, that authors understand the craft so they can assess and thoughtfully comment on the value of the art. Armed with that understanding, I believe an author has a better chance of influencing the cover design of her books for the better, contract or no. Of course, one might be better off just "leaving things to the experts"... but, speaking just for myself, for better or worse trust in the experts seems not to be in my DNA. After all, I'm an entrepreuner, so my writing is literally my business, and my business is ultimately my responsibility. (I know I'm preaching to the choir here.)

You make a good point about the merits of Putnam's previous and most recent Rain cover approaches. Certainly there are people out there who found the previous design more appealing. But I would argue that there will always be a percentage of people who like a given design -- after all, taste is idiosyncratic. I like the new approach better not because of my aesthetic sense (I'd hate to have to rely on that), but because the new approach fulfills the principles of what a good cover should accomplish (distill and represent the book's "hooks") better than the previous. It's a numbers game, and I prefer to play to the principles, which I think are nearly universal, rather than to the vageries of taste, which vary widely and unpredictably. After all, what makes the Jack Daniels covers work so well isn't just their eye-cathchiness, but the way they represent key qualities of your books: the light-heartedness and humor mixed with danger, Jack Daniels herself...

In the end, of course, these are personal decisions, and every author has to decide how much to try to get involved in the packaging process. But better informed should make for better such decisisons, even if the decision is to leave the packaging entirely to someone else.

Cheers,

Barry

[Randy Kraft]

Eisler makes many good points, but I fear that writers put too much credence on the cover to sell a book. Placement is perhaps more important, particularly for books that defy simple categorization. Books have been printed and published in the same way for eons, and tend to ignore basic market segmentation, beyond mystery versus romance. Some of the best books on the fiction shelf these days are an amalgam of genres, and that makes them ever so much more interesting. Bookstore workers often have no clue where to shelve, even the best read may have difficulty with placement, and if not placed well, the cover means nothing. On line bookseller do a better job with their lists, and B&N is doing more grouping of books that are related, but it's still confusing to the buyer, and they can't stand around all day reading flaps. So perhaps it's time for publishers to do a better job of categorizing their books, with a back-cover description beyond Fiction or Memoir. Perhaps a boxed description - not the plot, but the elements. Take Nelville's The Eight for example, a wonderful read, filled with mystery, adventure, history, philosophy... Stick it on the mystery shelf and it fails to compete with Grisham or Patterson, but in fiction it's lost, and won't work with historical fiction either. Same goes for Eco's Name of the Rose. Even Shadow of the Wind has multiple elements. Literary adventure doesn't do it justice. So perhaps we need to consider new and better ways to market the content, not just the story or the writer.

[Jozef Imrich]

Once again, your suggested example was dead-on, Barry

Fear helps us to appreciate life; just like rain helps us to appreciate sunshine ;-)

By the way, Seth Godin came up with a daring marketing concept and uses his blog to market his new book
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/08/will_you_help_u.html

[THE BIG MOO: Will you help us?]

[Barry Eisler]

Randy, good point, placement in bookstores is also critical to success, and another area that I would argue an author will be better positioned to influence if there are principles behind his opinions.

Jozef, thanks for mentioning Seth Godin -- I read his book Permission Marketing and a lot of what I know about sales cycles I learned from him.

Here's another example of a package that works: Mary Roach's "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers." With an image of a toe-tagged, sheet covered pair of feet. Perfect combination to reflect Mary's irreverent-yet-reverent approach to her subject: what happens to our bodies after we die. What her upcoming book, "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife," with a pair of legs ascending to the heavens, arguably lacks in original shock/comic appeal, it makes up for in tying in beautifully with its bestselling predecessor to build Mary's brand.

-- Barry

[Louise Ure]

Thanks, Barry. Your comments and suggestions are dead right.

I think I was incredibly lucky with the cover for my first book, Forcing Amaryllis, partially because I did participate in the cover design from a marketing perspective, but mostly because my publisher, Mysterious Press, made it such an easy, collaborative process.

They asked me for my ideas early on. And, since I'd spent my entire career in advertising and marketing (think Dancing California Raisins), I wrote pages and pages of thoughts for them.

* What I thought a cover should do and not do (suggest content and tone, not tell the story)

* Examples of covers I'd thought were well done

* My preferred art style, but only for tone, not as a mandate (I recommended a montage of photographs rather than illustration)

* A suggestion on color treatment (hot, passionate, anything suggesting the heat of the desert Southwest)

* And a "whatever you do, please don't give me" suggestion. (I didn't want the stereotypical saguaro cactus and coiled rattlesnake that so many Arizona books get.)

They listened, and they heard me. And I think the cover they came up with meets many or all of your criteria.

It does help for an author to participate in the packaging, just like every other part of the publishing process.

Louise Ure
FORCING AMARYLLIS

[Sally]

Thanks. Great information, Barry. Question: why are foreign book cover designs nearly always more compelling than US cover designs? My published friend showed me the Italian, French, Japanese and Danish covers of her books, and they are stunning. Works of art, really. Here we seem to get modified stock photography, and/or just plain garish design with little relation to the themes of the novel. Why are American covers often so insipid?