Books Covered by Tobias

Friends Don't Let Friends Design

Caustic Cover Critic (a great book design blog from down under) has my favorite post of the week. When Self-Publishers Hire Friends Instead of Professional Cover Designers. The results? Disastrous to say the least. This one is one of my favorites.

Cover Featured on Design:Related

Thanks to the publishers of Design:Related for featuring my cover design of A Slobbering Love Affair this week.

The publisher wanted the cover to mimic a mid-century movie poster. Original comps featured vignettes of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and other media-celebs. We were careful to find a flattering photo of the president as the author's contention is that the media is swooning over him. Therefore it was important to give Obama the stature and glow of a classic Hollywood leading man.

Check Out

... Galley Cat presents yet another example of duplicate cover images.

... the inspiring packaging design of  Mily Nguyen of 3dotr. and here.

... the result of government over-regulation: children may be banned from library book rooms in Maryland. Not kidding.

... the new section on my website of rejected cover designs: File 13

Vanity, Vanity

The New York Times has an excellent feature on the booming business of vanity publishers. Despite the lackluster (to put it mildly) sales of the big box bookstores and the countless layoffs at many of the A-list publishing houses, self-publishing is booming.

But, beware. Just because you think you can write and might have a story to deep inside, that doesn't mean you should. Most people, frankly, don't care what you have to say. Here's the rub:

...“For every thousand titles that get self-published, maybe there’s two that should have been published,” said Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, who said she had been inundated by requests from self-published authors to sell their books. “People think that just because they’ve written something, there’s a market for it. It’s not true.”

Check Out

. . . the top-ten bestselling fonts of 2008 from My Fonts. Eh. [via]

. . .  yet another interview with the caped crusader of covers.

. . . the Artist Series of engraved leather Moleskine covers from Engrave Your Book. Or create your own.

Book Cover Archive

Ben Pieratt (formerly of Fwis and the Book Cover blog) has launched an incredibly useful and intriguing site: An Archive of Book Cover Designs and Designers. With over 800 covers currently in the stacks and more to come, this site is searchable by title, author, designer, photographer, genre, pub. date, etc. It is a growing catalog of book covers and their designers. The site is beautifully simple, fun to look at and extremely interesting.

I'm not sure how the entries were chosen, but it looks as if they are all based for their exceptional designs. This is not a site of stinkers, nor do I think is it intended to be a platform for critique (like the previous mentioned Book Cover blog). However, each entry does allow for comments to be made.

Kudos to Ben for producing such a valuable resource.

It's a Joke, People

Barely.  

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Check Out

. . . Check out Karen Horton's fine interview with Penguin designer Coralie Bickford-Smith.
. . . The Rap Sheet looks at the epidemic of books sporting duplicate cover images.
. . . The NY Times reports on The New Austerity in Publishing.