Call me superficial, but I would far sooner buy a beautiful book than an ugly one.
It’s something to think about when Christmas shopping — a concern that’s only magnified when it comes to buying a book as a present, rather than for oneself.
It’s also something to bear in mind in the broader context of the battle of physical books versus eBooks. Sales of eBooks are soaring ever upwards, making even the most old-fashioned of publishers think that they really must be the way forward. Why is it that so many readers don’t mind losing contact with books as physical things in favour of scrollable words on a grey background that only exist inside a pocket-sized computer? And yet, why will I — and many other book-lovers — never love an eBook in the same way that I might love a book?
I suppose it boils down to paper. And now that nobody has to read a book as a printed papery thing, that papery thing must work harder to be wanted. James Daunt, m.d. of Waterstone’s, recently praised Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending as ‘an irresistible physical object’ in a talk for Radio 4’s Four Thought. Perhaps the advent of eBooks is a step in a Darwinian process for physical books. Only those best-adapted — the most beautiful papery things — will survive.
On talking to a Kindle-convert recently, he confessed that the one book he sorely regretted downloading was Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore. ‘It’s just such a beautiful book,’ he moaned, ‘I wish I had a copy to put on my shelf.’ He was so miserable about it that eventually he bought the hardback too.
But certainly not every book is beautiful enough to earn a place on a bookshelf. I’d be perfectly happy to throw away a mass-produced paperback with an ugly cover and dense typeface on cheap paper. For paper books to survive, publishers need to up their production game.
I was surprised to notice that many of the most beautiful books around at the moment are produced by small independent publishers. It seems counterintuitive. Surely these small outfits have tinier budgets, tighter margins and smaller print runs, so can afford to spend far less on each individual book? When one thinks how many millions of books are produced by the major publishing houses every year, one would think their comparatively vast budgets would make their books look vastly better.
Yes, The Sense of an Ending is ‘irresistible’, as is Jerusalem and, I’d say, Claire Tomalin’s biography of Dickens. But I’m not sure that I’d say the same for many big, commercially successful books.
Compare the look of a paperback novel from Hodder or HarperCollins with a paperback published by independent publishers Pushkin, for instance, or Persephone. As for hardbacks, what about the beautiful Virago Classics? Or how about Paul Nash in Pictures, published by The Mainstone Press? It is gorgeous – good paper, perfectly reproduced illustrations, quirky endpapers and a lovely cover. The Mainstone Press only produces two books per year. No wonder then that those two are really beautiful books. Compare this to the hundreds of book produced each year by a big publisher like HarperCollins or Random House and it’s easy to see why some books slip through the net. It’s not just a question of money, there isn’t the time or the manpower for so much care and attention to be lavished upon every single book.
Of course the small publishers are less complacent than the big ones. The little ones know that for their books to sell – for people to notice them and want them – they need to look, well, irresistible. They don’t have the marketing budget to buy their way into a WHSmith chart or to spend on posters on the tube, so they have to rely on their books’ looks to seduce people into parting with cash. I’m not sure I’d particularly want to read Dodie Smith’s memoir, even though I loved I Capture the Castle, were it not for the stunning way it’s been packaged by Slightly Foxed. A pocket-sized hardback, printed clearly on lovely paper, complete with a ribbon to keep one’s place. I think I’d almost pay £15 for a Slightly Foxed hardback regardless of content, merely because it is such a desirable thing.
Appearances count for small publishers, so this is where they spend their money. They spend around 20 per cent of each book’s Recommended Retail Price on getting it printed and bound. When one compares that to a mass-market paperback that is priced at £7.99 and costs only 50p to make, it’s easy to see why one looks so much nicer than the other.
These days, we don’t have so many £7.99s to throw around. Why should we spend them on something that is shoddily produced? Surely we’d rather spend our money more choosily, on something that feels special, thoughtfully crafted and well-made?
Big publishers may never spend the 20 per cent of RRP on book production that small publishers do, but they need to consider edging up at least a little higher. How about employing an extra designer or two so that they don’t have quite so many jackets to rush through? How about spending a tiny bit more per book on an extra finish to a book’s cover, or on better-grade paper for inside? Could they even spend an extra 7p per copy to give a book a little ribbon to help one keep one’s place?
But then one can see their dilemma. Seven pence per copy is one thing when printing a limited edition of 2,000 copies. It’s quite another when selling 15,000 books a week. That’s over £1,000 per week on ribbon!
And I can see that it must be hard to argue the case for spending more money on making a book look better, if the publisher’s sales department insists that the book will sell well enough without it. But, frankly, that sales department needs to be told that now is the time when well enough isn’t good enough.
Unless, that is, they want printed books and their paper jackets to go the way of record covers and end up as pieces of nostalgia, collected only by fanatics. Collected, I suppose, by old-fashioned lovers of things, like me.
Emily Rhodes works in an independent bookstore in London and is writing a novel. She blogs at Emily Books and tweets @EmilyBooksBlog.
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