Beware the COVER LOVERS

 "You're so wrong. You CAN tell a book by looking at the cover" (they say)

 

My mother had a saying, ‘You can’t tell a book by looking at the cover’, which seems like a sensible enough phrase or saying, and something that mothers might quote at regular intervals and hand down to their children. Unfortunately, she was wrong, dead wrong, and there a million people in Britain, for instance, who would stand up and disagree with her totally, (if she was here). How do I know? Because they are the people who go to an on-line book-store like Amazon and choose their ‘next book to read’ by looking at the picture on the front, first. How do I know that? Because Amazon gives people like me - an author and a self-publisher - that very advice: “Make a big effort to design or commission a striking cover or you may struggle to make sales”. That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? You can’t argue with that. However, it begs a question: who are these stupid people, and why do they behave so nonsensically?

 

You see, I’m not a philosopher, but even I can spot a False Association when I see one. What does ‘great cover’ have to do with ‘great contents’? Are people seriously saying that they believe that the artist who prepares the cover design has some kind of telepathic link with the author of the story that forces them to make a a top-flight product? One inspires the other (or vice versa). What universe does that happen in? Not this one! Most writers produce a manuscript and have it prepared for publication by a traditional publisher (self-publishers are still in the minority). So the reality is that the person who organises the cover designer is not the creator of the written work but the desk-bound organiser of printing and distribution. No, if you’re really interested in what ‘reality’ looks like, then you’ll soon be able to appreciate that the two things - cover and contents - may or may not both be wonderful, and the chances are that one of them is not so good, (and that could be either). So, if you actually look at the books on your shelf for one minute, you will soon find a great cover/poor story combination just as readily as you will find the opposite, poor cover/great novel, and that the winning team - great cover/great novel - are actually quite rare.

 

Sorry to be such a downer. But then, reading Fiction is all about inhabiting worlds of fantasy, so why not invent an alternate reality where covers and contents have a mystical link that has a causal effect: writing a marvellous manuscript will instantly create the conditions where the artist will move to the top of their game, and come up with the goods, a really nice, thrilling cover. Or maybe, it isn’t either of those two that makes such a miracle happen. Maybe the real Wizard is the publisher. Perhaps the sequence is - publisher discovers absolutely impressive story and goes out of their way to commission the best artist to give that work the launch it truly deserves, with a cover that matches the genius of its printed words?

 

Yeah, I agree. Unlikely. No, much more possible is the reality of the False Association. You’re given a really nice wine, it has a picture of a cottage on the label, and after that, you assume that all wine with rustic scenes on the bottle will taste good. Sound familiar? Maybe yes, once upon a time, you picked out a book featuring a man with strong arms riding a horse and, surprise, surprise, the story inside swept you off your feet. You seriously think that the next book with a picture of man and horse will be equally as thrilling? Why? Got any logical reason for assuming such a weird combination? No, what we’re really dealing with here is the way that Modern Life works. We watch television and see advertisements where glamorous models put gunk on their faces to make them attractive. We copy them, in the hope we’ll look good too - ignoring the fact they looked good before the make-up. We didn’t. After the mascara, they still look good. We don’t.

 

Or, we spend our time in the outrageously named ‘Reality Television’, where famous faces pretend to be camping out in the jungle, or pursuing romance with each other in Chelsea and Cheshire. This is actually a new genre, created in the last twenty years, called ‘Semi-Scripted Improvisation’. It certainly isn’t ‘real’, but we choose to believe it. We believe what we SEE. The pictures are there, and we accept - without question - the story they tell. So, it’s no surprise then that a glossy picture on the front of a book should be broadcasting a message that says, ‘This book is in the wonderful world of ‘Excellence’. You like the pic? You’ll love the tale’, and we choose to swallow the sales pitch whole, without question. Just like a pair of jeans wrapped in a celebrity endorsement, it’s much more fun entering into the make-believe existence, than having to walk the streets in plain old trousers. It’s much more exciting to accept that ‘good cover EQUALS good insides’, than having to live in a world where books are random, some good, some bad, and the only way to actually distinguish between them is to try them. That would be too personal. After all, how many people KNOW what they like? It’s simpler - and that’s the bottom line - to have guidance, and a striking cover is just that. It says: ‘Hey, Reader, pick me. I look good, but that’s not all - I taste good too’. Sure you do, Mr Book Cover. Sure you do.

 

Alternatives to 'News'

ALTERNATIVES TO MEDIA ‘NEWS’

The media in Britain don't do complicated.

In the summer of 1999, the then British Home Secretary visited the derelict area of Langworthy in Salford, North West England. He was shocked by the appalling conditions, the boarded up houses, the residents with no hope. Local people, angry and frustrated, shouted at him to 'do something'; six months later, it was announced that thirteen million pounds of government grant was heading their way.

Did it work? Has the area improved? More than a dozen years later, I wanted to know, so. I asked local people, and their answer was clear: 'Yes and No'. Yes, they said, some of the houses had been improved, the area was tidied up, most of the boarded-up houses had gone, a new primary school had been built, and the small local park was greatly improved. No, they said, the shops looked better but had no parking; the biggest bar in the area had been planned to be renovated but instead, was being demolished; the streets that had their houses demolished were now just empty patches of grass, waiting for the economy to improve before anyone could afford to build new properties.

It was a confused picture. Unfortunately, the media can't handle that. The local newspaper is still using pictures from its archives of derelict houses to represent Langworthy, or pictures of the new empty plots as representing the whole area and talk about 'failure' and 'broken promises'. They can't discuss good and bad - at the same time. They can't do both. They can't say, as the local people are telling them, that there have been some good things coming out of all the grants put in and the works done, but there have also been some real disappointments. In particular, the Press simply fails to understand that a hefty proportion of the original, dissatisfied residents of Langworthy have simply moved on, sold their houses, maybe, but relocated anyway, setting up home in a new area, with fresh challenges and new rewards. They aren't there to comment. How do those particular people feel about what was done to their neighbourhood? We'll never know.

The media prefers simple. It wants to see some simplified 'before' and 'after' pictures, and come to a hasty conclusion. It doesn't really want to hear what ordinary people say, unless they can keep it short and keep it simple. If they try to seriously express themselves, the reporters can't cope and the camera people turn off their cameras. They want sound bites: they don't want explanations.

In 1999, we should have seen it coming. That year the BBC sent a film crew to explore the area and discuss the issues for its 'Newsnight' programme on BBC2, (a supposedly 'serious' news show). The first film that went out, in November 2000, showed some shocking footage of boarded up houses and dereliction. They showed deprivation. For instance, poor old Mrs Herring had a coal fire in her lounge, and had to struggle to carry buckets of coal up from her cellar several times a day to feed it. People who saw those images told me they cried. Salford City Council was distraught too, rushed round to her house and organised the funds to pay for a new gas-fired boiler for her, complete with a brand new radiator for each room. (This was at a time when the grants hadn't even started – but they found the money from somewhere.) Poor Mrs Herring had central heating by Christmas.

But in January of 2001, the next episode of the 'Report from Langworthy' used the same footage of a dear old lady struggling up cellar steps. And in April. And in July. It wasn't true, but it was such a good image. The TV continued to use it, even when it was out of date and, to be honest, a complete lie. Obviously, the BBC2 people had their own agenda, and their own point of view, so they simply used something that was instantly recognisable, tragic and moving. It didn't actually say anything about the plans for regeneration that were being put together, or even if they were working or not. But it sure as hell made the viewers feel bad, about the area and about the residents.

Even more telling, the TV people had taken shots of boarded up streets in October 2000 which they were still using in their broadcasts a year later. If they had checked the footage against reality, they would have seen that some of the houses featured had actually been demolished and weren't there any longer, while some of the streets were completely covered in scaffolding, as builders were starting to renovate the properties. That was obviously too complicated for the media people; far easier to keep up the 'image' of boarded-up streets, even when the true picture was starting to change and, in places, become completely different.

They say 'a picture says more than a thousand words', but a picture of a derelict street only makes sense if it's representative, if the rest of the area is desolate too. If Langworthy is anything to go by, it HAS improved – in parts – and if you took the trouble to walk around the area, you'd now see SOME improvement everywhere, and MUCH improvement in some streets. Well, that's too complex for the media; neither the TV, nor the Press, has bothered to come back and update the story. The image of dereliction was powerful and striking; so much so, that it lingers on with most of the British public. It's sad, but their view of Langworthy hasn't changed much since 1999, when the first TV programme aired. But hey, that's 'News'. A decade of rebuilding and regeneration is less dramatic and less engaging. Shouting is more interesting than talking. It's a shame that the more recent pictures won't make it to the front page, but that's because of the media we pay for in Britain today.