Is a book without a cover naked? Well, no, that’s just silly. Although any book that’s any good should tell you the naked truth about something. At least as understood by the author, who is quite aware the reader might disagree. But, be all that as it may, the text of a book, the thing itself, one might say, is certainly the body of the endeavor. And the cover is just, what? Skin dressed in clothes that both protect from the elements and if the author and publisher have any sense of style at all, makes a statement.
With the proliferation of ebooks—a phenomenon I, unlike some others, do not bemoan—there is no need for a digital book to have its own skin. Its body is, after all, just a gathering of zeros and ones arranged in a unique order and floating somewhere in the cloud or on a chip, free from degradable pulp and fading ink. Ethereal, even if with pretensions of the eternal.
But this does not end a book’s need for clothing, for something eye-catching to adorn it that makes a statement, speaks for it, reflects it, or teases potential readers about the wonders within. For although one may shop in a digital bookstore, such as Amazon, one still likes to browse, and the vanguard of browsing are, of course, the eyes. And eyes are not caught (a slightly gruesome idea, when you think about it) by the text of a book, but by whatever that text is clothed in, whether physically, as in a paper-based book, or digitally, almost then more like a poster than a cover.
Poster or cover the same task is at hand—to grab the attention and to intrigue. But, as the old saw goes: you can’t tell a book by its cover. Now why was that ever coined? Damnable truth, I would say. Only on rare occasions have I seen a book cover for a novel that truly—and fully—reflected the contents within. Most likely because single-shot graphics must be simple for effect, yet are trying to reflect something complex—a long, imaginative narrative of many parts. The task seems almost impossible. But still, a task worth doing with seriousness, creativity, a certain amount of faith, and, hopefully, some dumb luck.
Even understanding all the above, for a novelist to see for the first time the cover of his or her latest work is exciting. You desperately want it to be all dressed up with many places to go. And even if you fear no one will really be able to “see” what your novel is in its totality by just looking at the cover, you still hope that the cover has some accurate hint of the full revelation inside that is compelling enough for a deeper look leading to a purchase, leading to a read, leading to appreciation.
It is that same first impression thing you have to contend with when looking for a job, not to mention a mate.
All this rambling, of course, has spewed out of me by way of introducing the cover of my new novel, IMP: A Political Fantasia. So, Ta-da!
I came up with a concept for the cover, which David Dodd of Crossroad Press, the book’s publisher, executed, greatly enhancing and improving the idea into what you see below.
I hope you find it intriguing.
IMP, A Political Fantasia will debut as an ebook soon.
