Katie Roden - AKA: Julia

When fixabook was launched, the founders  kept their identities secret in order to give the site time to stand on its own two feet. Now that it has established itself as the foremost blog on design strategy, the moment has come for them to reveal themselves.

Katie has taken part in over 1,000 covers meetings during her twenty years as a publisher – and only remembers a couple where no one got cross.  She has worked on some of the book trade’s biggest brands.

Katie is passionate about the importance of good covers and – most importantly – the way they make the reader feel. She knows how hard it is to get it right when designing by committee… and how easy it is to lose sight of the consumer when every department is clamouring for a say.

Fixabook will help you to get back in touch with your readers and rediscover the art of persuasion.

Ultimatum

ultimatum-1As regular visitors to Fixabook will know, we despair at missed opportunities on hardback covers. So often we see back covers with anodyne review quotes, meaningless author pictures… or just nothing at all.

So it is fantastic to see this — a hardback blurb that acts as an advert — a trailer — for the book. It doesn’t bombard you with a synopsis or exhaustive character list; nor does it try to impress you with reviews. It just heads straight to the heart of the action.

What’s even better is that Century have resisted the temptation to stick a long plot summary on the inside flap. Once again, the copy takes you immediately into the book’s dilemma and makes you want to read on.

ultimatum-front-flap-1

At a time when money is tight and hardbacks are increasingly expensive, it is even more important to apply this sort of thinking across all genres and to make our back covers work as hard as they possibly can.

comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

The Goldfinch

goldfinchThere will have been a lot of attention paid to this cover, and it shows.

It is fresh, confident and memorable.

Given the title, plot and genre it would have been so easy to end up with a beautiful but boring painting of a bird. (All very arty but it would have added little to the overall communication.)

Instead, by using the rip device to reveal the bird behind it, the publishers have created something all together more graphic and intriguing.

The rough paper, taped edge and handwritten type create the sense of an intensely personal story. Interestingly, they also make the package peculiarly tactile.

We quibble, however, with the words ‘A novel’, as we have done many times before. How many people won’t be able to work this out from the Amazon description, the signage on the bookshop shelf or the blurb on the back? It feels like an industry practice that is maintained out of fearful habit rather than genuine need.

comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

Ratburger

ratburger-1This cover merits close attention by any of you out there with authors who are genuine brands in their own right. Of course, the main text is a guaranteed child-pleaser, full of bogies, bullies and spit. But it’s the first-person approach that we find really intriguing.

The author’s voice adds warmth and confidence. For children who know Walliams in a range of guises — author, actor, presenter — it is exciting to be spoken to in this way.

Now think about the possibilities for other genres. How about a crime author using their blurb to describe how they construct their plots? A historical novelist exploring their favourite character? This is an opportunity to speak directly to readers, to give them an insight into the mind of their favourite authors, and to do something very different.

(As an added bonus, underneath the jacket is a great Tony Ross illustration — another example, like My Time, of a designer doing something extra and special and thus making the overall package irresistible.)

comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

My Time

wigginsThis whole cover is a stunning piece of book design. Tactile, clean and simple, it’s a truly lovely object to give a cycling fan, or to treasure for yourself.

But what we love most is the attention to detail under the jacket — the yellow board, the repeated images and, particularly, the spine. It’s a witty surprise for anyone who takes the time to look.

Random House didn’t have to do this. But the fact that they did shows true empathy with their market. For cycling fans, this is more than just an autobiography. This is about treasuring and savouring a truly astonishing moment in British cycling — and the love and care lavished on this book reflect that perfectly.


comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

The Fixabook Charity

Mirror Theory states that somewhere in the world, all of us have someone who looks, behaves and feels just like us. They are commonly referred to as our spiritual twins. In reality it is very rare to find your mirror image, but it is said that when you do, you suddenly feel an inner peace that transcends all the stresses and imbalances of everyday life. Fixabook is launching a charity to help books find their mirror images. Not simply a copycat, but a version of themselves that is so pure and exact that it transcends anything as seedy as one publisher trying to copy another’s success. If you would like to join our cause, please send donations of other mirror images that you may have encountered around the world. Thank you.


Tags:
comment 4 Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

The Teleportation Accident

teleportation-1Here at Fixabook, we’re often to be found bemoaning the lack of time and effort publishers seem to give to their back covers, even on books with wonderfully designed fronts.

So it’s a real pleasure to find a fabulous exception — The Teleportation Accident.

Sceptre’s designers have created a rich, tactile and utterly desirable hardback, with beautiful colours and finishes. What we love is the fact that they have lavished as much care on the back as on the front, with a really pleasing result.

True, the quotes chosen aren’t particularly special… but the design actually makes you want to read them. Even the barcode has been placed carefully to add to the sense that this is something unusual and special. Overall, the design works hard to make the mysterious title appealing rather than off-putting.

It’s a book you want to pick up, stroke and explore — front and back. Lovely…

comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

Guest Post: Mark Ecob on Mastermind: How to Think like Sherlock Holmes

mastermind-front-ukEverywhere I look there is fantastic book cover design in a discipline I’m very proud to be a part of. But we often overlook the simplest and most effective of designs in favour of cloth-bound touchy-feely hardbacks that we all like to pick up and fondle.

So here I am championing a cover that a friend of mine at Canongate Books tweeted about. It’s Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova (Published by Canongate, designed by Jamie Keenan and Art Directed by Rafaella Romaya).
You don’t have to be a super-sleuth to see why this works. The typographic device is an elegant solution to a brief that could have easily been a lot safer, like the US edition:
mastermind-us
It’s well executed whilst being commercially savvy for the UK audience. The crisp photograph of London at night echoes the feel of the recent series from the Beeb, and it even works well as a thumbnail. Oh, and the Publisher/Designer/Art Director were smart enough to lead with the subtitle rather than the name of a quiz show.
I can’t wait to pick one up and fondle it…



comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

Wreck This Journal

wreck-this-bookThis post is less of a critique than an idea…

There’s something so deliciously anarchic about asking readers to scribble on the cover of their books that it must be worth considering for other titles. We all know that books are precious and beautiful… but to subvert this will shock and intrigue book buyers.

There’s a fantastic confidence about this approach, too. It says that the publisher knows the reader will want to keep, use and personalise the book.

Readers could be encouraged to write the page numbers of the most inspirational passages in a self-help title, for quick and easy reference; to buy a work of fiction as a present and write their dedication on the back rather than the title page; to scribble the most-used ingredients or the most successful recipes on the front of a cookery book.

When we reveal so much about ourselves online, why not do it in print, too?

Worth a try, don’t you think?

comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

The Duff

the-duffThis is one of our favourite sorts of jacket — ugly… but very, very effective.

What we love about this cover is the fact that the title is allowed to do all the talking. Very few people are likely to know what it means at first glance, but its brashness forces you to pick up the book and find out more.

The use of a very understated font to spell out the meaning of DUFF is absolutely brilliant, too. It takes the reader from the big, confident statement of the title to a sudden anticlimax and a sense of something shameful, brilliantly mirroring the arc of the story.

The natural image is also really well considered. In a market swamped by Photoshopped partial faces, this makes a refreshing change. Its downbeat style actually gives the book far more shelf presence than many of its stylised — and generic — competitors.


comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark

Feminist Pink

Actually, this is really depressing.

Pink must have seemed like a good idea at the cover meeting for each of these books. “Let’s subvert the Barbie stereotypes…” — that sort of thing.

But put them all together and these covers do nothing new at all. In fact, they make each book look far less important than it actually is — just another title in a rather unimaginative genre.

When even the iconic cover of The Female Eunuch has been recoloured, you know you’re in trouble. No wonder Caitlin Moran has sold more than anyone else — grey is now the most subversive colour in this section.

Tags:
comment No Comments
  • Share/Bookmark