If you were to put Jhumpa Lahiris’ latest book, The Clothing of Books , to a literary criticism class, they’d pick out irony and paradox without difficulty. Lahiri begins by declaring that all she wants is a naked book, sans its cover, so that the content emerges the hero. Somewhere towards the end of the work, she is also perfectly comfortable with her own picture appearing upfront.
“My first reaction to the idea of having my picture on the cover was negative. I was afraid that it would be judged as an act of vanity, a brazen way to market a niche book. I later reconsidered… In the end, the author is the book and represents the work directly, also sincerely. Better a photo of me than an annoying, irrelevant image,” she states.
In an age when authors are far more involved in the creation of the book cover, we take a look at other factors that are ensuring it is changing, slowly but surely.
Sharpened marketing tools
When Penguin, UK, released the cover of Arundhati Roy’s new book, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , in February, they published a detailed interview with the designer. Art directors, previously background people who seemingly stayed in a creative cocoon, were never celebrities. Today, both David Eldridge and Mayank Austen Soofi, the photographer who provided the image of the marble gravestone, are in the news (Roy herself only gave an interview about a week ago). By giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at the cover production they encouraged involvement, and eventually, a purchase.
Anuj Bahri, who runs Delhi’s 64-year-old Bahrisons bookstore, which now offers literary publishing services, is sure that Roy’s Booker-winning The God of Small Things will come back with a new cover soon. “People will buy it just for the cover, even though they’ve read it,” he says. The perfect way to re-create a market.
Art director in focus
Traditionally, the editor would send a brief to the cover designer on receiving the manuscript. Today, a brief may be sent out even before the manuscript has arrived, because a quicker turnaround time is needed and experienced art directors instinctively know what works.
Fussy fonts don’t, perhaps because people simply haven’t the time to figure them out. “Colours do. There’s a myth in the UK that green covers don’t work, so you may find publishers steering clear of it. Purely type-led covers again aren’t a big draw when it comes to fiction in India. People like to see a strong visual,” says Gavin Morris, art director at Juggernaut Books, who has worked across the US, the UK and India.
In fact, the strong visual almost gives the cover a gender, says British author Jeffrey Archer, who publishes in 38 countries. “Covers used to be just beautiful lettering, but now we have a scene to suggest what the story is going to be. I think 60% of people who read my books are women. This has softened covers considerably,” he says. So while the first of the Clifton Chronicles series, Only Time Will Tell , seemed a man’s read, the course was corrected in the following books.
Team synergies
Today, sales and marketing is a part of the process, though Morris admits they’re much more involved in markets outside India. Often, there is a dialogue between the designer and the writer, breaking the traditional approach of the editor being the one-point contact.
Anjali Joseph, who is published both in India and the UK, interacts frequently with her cover designer and often gives feedback that will tweak the cover ever so slightly – like the little red pom pom on the Kolhapuri chappal in The Living .
An expanded India visual
Most covers, even internationally, steer clear of Indian stereotypes, because the lexicon of visuals related to India has grown. “We’re less likely to use bindis , mehndi and veiled women to symbolise the East. Really everyone who uses veiled women as shorthand for “the Muslim world” should be put in book jail now,” says Faiza Khan, Editorial Director, Bloomsbury India.
Authors mean business
Somewhere around the mid-2000s, there was the rise of a new kind of professional: someone who had gone through the 9-to-5 grind, and was now looking to write. Their trades seamlessly blended with what they were doing now – selling books, not just writing them. Anuja Chauhan, for instance, was an advertising pro. She worked on her first book, The Zoya Factor , alongside her job.
“Publishers trusted me with more than just what was inside the book because of my training. I’m manic about my covers, and I believe they shouldn’t give everything away – they must tease,” she says. Initially, her books were bold graphics. Later, as she found greater commercial success, budgets grew. “We could then do a shoot.” But a sense of economy was also appreciated. “For Those Pricey Thakur Girls , I got my daughter (who was doing her board exams then) to pose, and we shot it on a balcony of a Vasant Kunj house!”
There’s no shame to adding a website, and standing firm on the book’s name ( Those Pricey Thakur Girls may have just been ‘Those Thakur Girls’, if the publishing house had had its way).
The internet way
Has online reading changed the book cover? A study done in Hyderabad (albeit with a small sample size of 80), showed that 47% preferred e-reading. But online book shopping still came in at no. 2, with buyers preferring a brick-and-mortar store to looking at thumbnails.
It’s not just the shrunk cover, though. “My cover has to work across multiple platforms: online retail, where it is a thumbnail; websites and social media, where it could be a low resolution image; events and festivals, where it may be used on a poster or backdrop; and the bookstore, where it jostles with hundreds of other titles,” says Ashwin Sanghi, author of Private Delhi , co-authored with James Patterson.
Namita Gokhale, author and festival director, who has been on the jury of the Oxford Book Cover Prize, feels that evolved design technology software can do so much more for a cover, “because it is much easier to play around with images”.
Reader goes beyond reading
Amish Tripathi looks to symbolism to engage the involved reader. He put the photograph of a recreated Pashupati Seal — one of the earliest discovered representations of Shiva, where he filled in the missing part with his own interpretation — on the spine. It is one of the most important aspects of a book, as they are often stacked rather than sold face-forward. Today, Tripathi has people tattooing the symbol on their bodies!
Seeing this reader involvement, the writer threw open a book cover contest with his next book, Sita - Warrior of Mithila . Through a YouTube video, he gave out three clues, and readers sent in designs. Five people will have their covers unveiled at the launch event that’s being planned.
Gokhale feels that social media, like Instagram, has also contributed to the way the cover is evolving. “We are returning to a visual culture again, a culture that is more democratic in terms of an appreciation of the visual art, because of the sheer volume and quality of images available to everyone,” she concludes.
