# Attention Book Marketing People **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 11, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466 "2009-06-11T17:51:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/1 "2009-06-11T17:51:39Z")
This just seemed too weak for the Pit so here it is: Hello Book Marketing/Design Folk. I am a purchaser of history books, and I have noticed as of late that in a misguided attempt to seem hip and relevent and whatever else advertising types like to go on about there is a trend to printing book covers that look dirty or stained or gross or smudged in order to heighten the “old” feel of history. This must cease at once. I have actually felt compelled to explain to someone that the book I was sending them was not dirty but that the crud was printed on the cover on purpose. The book I bought for myself today had the same “design”. If I want coffee stains on my book covers, please allow me to at least have the pleasure of spilling the coffee myself. Thank you and more books please. Nice clean ones. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/2 "2009-06-12T03:57:09Z")
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, he’s looking at you. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/3 "2009-06-12T06:06:58Z")
I hope that you have success in getting this notion across to the design folks. I, personally, have no desire to see a book cover perform an interpretive dance by using cutouts, embossing, glitter, and other design elements that detract from the cover’s main purposes of identifying the book, protecting the book, and looking attractive. If I feel that my books need that distressed look, I can either distress them myself or I can subcontract the job to my cats, who frequently will add their own little artistic touches to any book that happens to be in their reach, whether I have asked them to or not. I enjoy some comic books/graphic novels, and I hate it when the artist feels the need to obscure the text with the background graphics. The text should be clearly legible, and if the graphics MUST be placed JUST THERE, then the text should be moved to a clearer spot. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/4 "2009-06-12T10:37:56Z")
Attention book marketing people: If all you include on the cover is blurbs about how great the book is - no idea of plot - I’m going to assume the book sucks. I need to know what I’m buying and telling me that a magazine has declared this the “best new author in years” won’t cut it. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/5 "2009-06-12T11:15:13Z")
I think all the Dopers who read books are in Cafe Society, so I’m gonna move this yonder. 😉 twicks MSPSIMS mod ---
**Author:** ![anya\_marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@anya\_marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anya_marie)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/6 "2009-06-14T07:28:37Z")
Hey book marketers : Stop making titles and author names take up more space than cover art! ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/7 "2009-06-14T07:46:47Z")
I love the helpful little placement of “A Novel” in small letters under the title – you know, in case you thought it was a toaster. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/8 "2009-06-14T17:31:14Z")
Once, while browsing in a bookstore, I ran across a copy of _Venus on the Half-Shell_. I had seen the book before, but had never read it. This edition, however, was special. According to the blurb on the cover, it was “published for the first time without lurid cover art”. Such a remarkable achievement almost persuaded me to buy a copy. But not quite. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/9 "2009-06-14T20:00:19Z")
mbh, you do realize, don’t you, that that is a joke? _Venus on the Half-Shell_ is a novel by Philip José Farmer written under the pseudonym Kilgore Trout. Kilgore Trout is a character in several Kurt Vonnegut novels. He was described as being a science fiction author whose novels got so little respect from the publishers that they decided that the only way to make sure that they would sell enought copies was to put lurid covers on them. _Venus on the Half-Shell_ was one of the supposed novels that Trout wrote, according to Vonnegut. Farmer thought it would be fun to write a novel pretending to be Trout. > **[Venus on the Half-Shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_on_the_Half-Shell)** > > Venus on the Half-Shell is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip José Farmer, writing pseudonymously as "Kilgore Trout", a fictional recurring character in many of the novels of Kurt Vonnegut. This book first appeared as a fictitious "excerpt"—attributed to Trout (though written by Vonnegut)—in the ninth chapter of Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965). With Vonnegut's permission, Farmer expanded the fragment into an entire standalone novel (including, as an in-joke, a scen... ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-book-marketing-people/499466/10 "2009-06-15T01:54:53Z")
Book marketers are bloody-minded idiots. _All of them._ If they weren’t, they wouldn’t last long.