Iain: Hello {{ subscriber.first_name | capitalize() or "friend" }}, so Heide and I have been spending a bit of time recently talking about one of our books that isn’t selling as well as we’d like.
Heide: Hang on, didn’t we do this last time? Us moaning about how much we liked writing Hellzapoppin’ and how it wasn’t as big a seller as some other books? Is this our thing now? Guilting our newsletter subscribers into buying some of our lesser titles?
Iain: No, that’s not where I’m going with this. I thought it would be nice to discuss our lovely (but under-selling) book, Snowflake, and how sometimes it’s hard to find a book cover that truly reflects the kind of story you’d hope to read within.
Heide: Ah.
Iain: The whole judging a book by its cover thing.
Heide: Which the proverb tells us we shouldn’t do but we ALL DO IT, particularly with books. Because it’s the cover that mostly sells a book to people.
Iain: Right. You’d think a book sells itself by the merit of its contents but we all know, deep down inside, we take a look at the cover and instinctively decide if that book is for us.
Heide: Have you ever bought a book purely on the strength of it’s cover?
Iain: Absolutely. Perhaps more often back in the days when I’d buy my books in a bookshop but I’ve definitely done it. You?
Heide: Definitely. What books have you bought this way?
Iain: Let’s discuss it chronologically.
Heide: How organised. Me first then, probably. This one was in the giant stash of ancient paperbacks that lived in my parents’ garage. I found the cover image captivating and I remember trying to draw it myself when I was about thirteen. I read all of the Bond books when was about that age, but this is the cover that stopped me in my
tracks. I wanted to be *that* cool.
