The Bridgerton books got a makeover inspired by the steamy Netflix adaptation-the latest in a long line of redesigns that show how tricky marketing romance can be.
Well, friends, it's been another tough year. But as we wind down 2021, it is useful to remember the good parts, the pleasures small and large that got us through. And yes, a beautifully designed book can be one of those pleasures-especially when we're still spending more time at home than perhaps we would like.
Last fall, the Codex Group, a book audience research firm, conducted an online test to gauge how effective different book presentations were at getting consumers to browse books. More than 50 new and upcoming titles were included as part of the test, and nearly 4,000 book buyers took part. Read more
Book designer and author Joel Friedlander takes a look at pitfalls self-publishers face when doing their own book formatting, and explains how to avoid these mistakes in the first place.
We all judge books by their covers. A cover is the most important piece of marketing for any book. Publishers know this, which is why they have entire departments devoted to the design of book covers. Art departments do tons of market research, A/B testing, and usually go through several designs before deciding on a direction for a cover.
If you're looking for the most anticipated books of 2019, chances are your search will start with Google and end at Amazon. Chances are even better that one book cover will consistently jump off the screen: Marlon James's Black Leopard, Red Wolf, its graphic white title entwining with a writhing, jewel-toned print of a shape-shifting beast. Read more
We often can't help judging a book by its cover - but author Jojo Moyes says cliched cover designs are stopping potential readers from picking up books they might like.
Books, on the whole, are designed so readers think they know what they're getting before they even read a word - especially when it comes to those by, or aimed at, women.
Covers sell books. But in the case of Hillary Clinton's memoir What Happened, you can't help thinking that the book's sales in the UK are despite the jacket treatment, not because of it. Whereas the US jacket oozes the gravitas you expect from the woman who stood up to Donald Trump, the UK jacket has all the power of a shrugged "meh".
Before I saw the cover of my second novel, I worried about it. My greatest fear was this: A woman, looking out to sea. Her back is to the reader. Her hair is thrown up in a vague style that if nothing else can be described as "timeless." Her stance evokes a wistful, feminine longing-for a man, perhaps, or for a dinner she doesn't have to cook.
Jason Aaron Baca is good-looking, not handsome like the Ryans (Gosling and Reynolds) or rugged like Daniel Craig, who is fetching in a tailored Tom Ford suit. But when Mr. Baca, 42, slipped on a pair of dark aviator glasses recently, he looked remarkably like Tom Cruise in "Top Gun." Read more
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up.
A survey of 787 members of the Society of Authors (SoA) has found that a third of translators and a quarter of illustrators have lost work to generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Translators are also more likely to use AI to support their work, with 37% of respondents saying they have done so, followed by 25% of non-fiction writers.
The author Lynne Reid Banks, known for her novel The L-Shaped Room and her children's book series The Indian in the Cupboard, has died at the age of 94.
I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech. Read more
Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readers
'The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.'