Wednesday Cover Story: The decision about delicious cover finishes…
22 September, 2010
In the office earlier today Christina (Art Editor) and I we were discussing the Ebury press publication Eat Me, by Xanthe Milton, and what finishes it had been printed with. It’s a regular conversation between Christina and I as we battle it out trying to decide on foils, embossing, spot uv and coloured end papers […]
Wednesday Cover Story: V&A Book Cover Award Winner
15 September, 2010
Today’s confession: I judge a book by its cover. No, retract that; that’s not a confession. That’s a statement of the obvious. A book’s cover is (I have no need to tell you, rational blog-readers), what draws us to that particular book out of the hundreds of others flaunting their vibrant front faces in bookshops; […]
Wednesday Cover story: 'Like stuffing a rottweiler in a dress'
8 September, 2010
Lionel Shriver presented a no-holds barred argument for less girly covers on her books in the guardian on Friday. Read article here… She maintains that publishers are underestimating women readers, cutting off potential male readers with soft-focus designs, and worst of all by dressing up hard-hitting novels in pastels and giving them weak titles, preventing […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The four covers to Under the Dome
2 September, 2010
These are the four different covers to the book Under the Dome, by Stephen King – depicting each of the four main characters in the book. As book covers go, these covers do look odd, with the title and author name pushed to the bottom of the image, almost as though the designer wished he […]
Wednesday Cover Story: C is for Creative and Clever Cover
25 August, 2010
It is an obvious fact that book covers follow certain trends with new books mimicking the look of the current bestsellers. It’s a way of helping readers recognise a similar kind of book, or indeed (for the more cynical of you) a way to encourage them to think “I’m going to be getting something similar […]
Wednesday Cover Story: Innocent
18 August, 2010
I can’t make my mind up as to whether I like this cover or not. It is certainly eye-catching and original with the 3D effect of the lettering – it certainly stands out. However, whilst I can appreciate the design concept in itself, I’m not sure I actually like it as a book cover for […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The Very Many Lives of Pi
11 August, 2010
Not long ago I wandered into Waterstone’s on Gower Street over lunch and lo and behold, who was sitting there merrily signing books, but Life of Pi author Yann Martel. Admittedly, Beatrice and Virgil has not set the publishing world alight, but the author looked unperturbed, happily watching customers stroll past, seemingly unbothered by the […]
Wednesday Cover Story: Petition to change a cover
4 August, 2010
Some book covers delight readers, others disappoint, and more often than not there are mixed views on the same one – some like it, some don’t. It’s par for the course. What you don’t expect, is for readers to reaction so strongly to a cover that they set up a petition to change it! but […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The Crash of Hennington
28 July, 2010
An example of a book I picked up solely because of the cover. It lept out at me – how could anyone miss these big and bold colours? The bright pink, offset by a softer band of blue, plus the contrasting yellow of the title – it all works brilliantly together. And then, once your […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
21 July, 2010
I can’t get on the tube these days without spotting a poster for the new DVD release of the film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And of course, you will also find the obligatory film tie-in version of the novel by Stieg Larsson in bookstores. The film poster makes an equally effective cover to […]
Wednesday Cover Story: Hang some cover-art on your wall
7 July, 2010
Do you have a blank wall in the house needing a bit of colour? Do you balk at the idea of another samesame ikea flower print or lighthouse scene? Then check out Art Meets Print, a one-stop shop for iconic book cover designs that would make stunning artwork. For example… I know we’ve been harping […]
Wednesday Cover Story: Do you see a trend here?
30 June, 2010
January 2007 August 2008 April 2010 June 2010 The success of The Interpretation of Murder (one of Richard & Judy’s Summer Reads) certainly has spawned similar cover designs on subsequent books. That publishers look to ride on the success of a previous titles by evoking similar designs on their new books is standard practice, but […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The new look for Mary Russell…
23 June, 2010
There’s a little frisson of excitement in the office this morning, as the new titles in Laurie R King‘s bestselling Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series have arrived from the printers…sporting the new cover design which we all adore. I can tell you the screen shots do not do them justice. In fact, I wasn’t […]
Wednesday Cover Story: In a Strange Room
16 June, 2010
The Hidden Dance – the debut novel by actress Susan Wooldridge – was recently reviewed in The Lady magazine (25th May). I’ve already raved about the cover to this book here, so I’m not about to repeat myself. I mention this because I was immediately intrigued by the cover of the book featured next to […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The age-old issue – UK v US covers
9 June, 2010
It seems this is a recurring theme – the comparison between UK and US covers. The Book Butterfly blogger recently featured a post which compared UK and US covers for various hit vampire series. Read the post here. We’ve certainly had plenty of comments about our new look for the Morganville Vampire series with the […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The Stephenie Meyer Effect
26 May, 2010
In a recent issue of The Bookseller an eagle-eyed Bookworld buyer wrote in noting the striking similarity between Stephenie Meyer’s The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine book. From vampire to viticulture, glass of red anyone? Any other glaringly similar covers taken you by surprise? Lara Crisp, Managing Editor Want […]
Wednesday Cover Story: Air Kisses
19 May, 2010
Air Kisses, by Zoë Foster: This cover makes me want to stare at it for hours. It’s an extremely pretty design. Addicted to Books Blogger Want to flag up a cover for our Wednesday Cover Story? Write to chiara@allisonandbusby.com with your thoughts
Wednesday Cover Story: How hard can designing a book cover be?
12 May, 2010
Many of you may have asked yourselves the above question, and perhaps felt inspired to take a shot at it. And this is exactly what Penguin proposed readers do when they offered up a chance to have people design their own covers to a Penguin Classic. The results have been posted here – some better […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The Hidden Dance
5 May, 2010
We’ve had so many compliments about our paperback cover to The Hidden Dance, by Susan Wooldridge that I had to highlight it here for this week’s cover story. We love the image so much we chose it as the cover to our new catalogue too. Are you as enamoured by it as we and others […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The Boys in the Trees
28 April, 2010
I was on Dovegreyreader‘s book review blog the other day, and was scrolling down the list of books she has featured under her 2010 reads when one cover caught my eye – even as a thumbnail. It was The Boys in the Trees, by Mary Swan. Those daubs of red stood out against that emerald […]
Wednesday Cover Story: The Hungry Ghosts
21 April, 2010
On the platform of the northbound Northern Line at Waterloo (where I spend a minimum of a minute every morning heading into the office) there is a poster for The Hungry Ghosts, by Anne Berry (basically the book cover blown up to poster proportions). I have spent the last few weeks admiring this image, so […]
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