Across the pond, The Financial Times is running a periodic “check in” with current book covers. They’ve only picked 4 so far, but the insight from the news staff as been fairly good. They actually take the time to discuss some of the designers influences and frames of reference for each of the covers. I hope they keep it up.
What’s fun is that they are not just reviewing the covers of new releases. So you never know what might turn up. So far, the Molloy cover is my favorite. Very Alvin Lustig. And they say the spine has no title, author or publisher emblem, which would seem to make it one of the more useless jackets designed.
Nick Basbanes’ latest ‘book about books’ is out today. It’s titled Editions & Impressions: My Twenty Years on the Book Beat and is a collection of essays written by Basbanes over the past 20 years. There is a hb trade edition available. But you can also get the Deluxe or Limited editions straight from the folks at Fine Books, if you have the cash!
According to the press, most of the articles here have been expanded upon and updated since they first ran. This one seems to have a pretty large global scope too. Could be a good one.
The NY Times ran an article on blogs/sites moving into printed products. Pretty interesting though nothing really new is mentioned. They don’t even mention the word “blook“. Which is a book mainly consisting of blog posts (and one word I hope never makes it into the dictionary). Basically some marketing folks look at a blog’s traffic stats and see dollar signs, but over the last two years, publishers have realized that a high number of unique visitors does not always translate into dollars.
Though it seems that comics and illustrations do seem to do better than fiction and narratives.
Basically, Frank Warren (of Post Secret fame) summed-up the whole business model when he is quoted in the article saying “I don’t think there is a formula,” Mr. Warren said. “There is a bit of magic there that can’t be replicated.”
So now you can self-publish a book with them and they’ll help broker ad deals, kinda like you would for placing ads on your blog, I think. I guess book publishers got tired of seeing all the rich folks sitting over at the magazine publisher’s table and decided to hop on the train.
