from The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens - Scientific American
(This entirely piece is fascinating.)
I’m reading this great piece at The Millions about The Point of the Paperback, and I love the section about the transformation many books make between hardcover and paperback.
Some, like those at the top of this photo series, change a lot:
“It seems that almost every book these days gets a new cover for the paperback. It’s almost as if they’re doing two different books for two different audiences, with the paperback becoming the ‘book club book,’” says Melanie Benjamin, author of The Aviator’s Wife. Benjamin watched the covers of her previous books, including Mrs. Tom Thumb and Alice I Have Been, change from hardcovers that were “beautiful, and a bit brooding” to versions that were “more colorful, more whimsical.”
Others, like The Buddha in the Attic, play with original elements, or, like Wild, stay pretty much the same.
“Often by the time the paperback rolls around, both the author and publicist will have realized where the missed opportunities were for the hardcover, and have a chance to correct that,” says Simon & Schuster’s Sarah Knight. “Once your book has been focus-grouped on the biggest stage — hardcover publication — you get a sense of the qualities that resonate most with people, and maybe those were not the qualities you originally emphasized in hardcover. So you alter the flap copy, you change the cover art to reflect the best response from the ideal readership, and in many cases, the author can prepare original material to speak to that audience.”
The rest of the piece is really interesting — read it here.
Favorite Book Cover Designs of 2012 - New York Times
“Print is dead,” and nine other conversations the folks at Book Riot would just as soon, in a perfect world, never have again.
For more of our morning’s roundup, click here.
I agree with many things on this list, especially all conversations involving “end of __,” “__ is doomed,” and “___ is the end of civilization/the world.” I think we can all agree that very few things so far have resulted in the end of the world, civilized or otherwise. (Except for steamboats. Because seriously, they’re ruining everything.)
So true.
We’re gearing up for the release of Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies over here at Picador, coming May 8 from Henry Holt (one week!).
P.S. The New Yorker wrote a lovely review of Bring Up the Bodies that is definitely worth a read.
Can’t wait!!!
Special Treatment for Murakami Paperback…
“1Q84,” the 925-page Haruki Murakami novel whose translucent jacket dazzled design aficionados upon its release last year, will receive special treatment with its paperback publication next month. The book will be published as a three-volume set on May 15, a spokesman for Vintage said on Tuesday. John Gall, the art director for Vintage, designed the paperbacks to be visible through a clear plastic box, fitting together to create one image…”
Read more in New York Times.
