Our Wednesday Cover Story blogs are a simple but excellent in their premise: we talk about the design of books, what they say, what response they elicit from us. It all boils down to whether they pull their weight as a sales tool but on many levels we’re not all that different from this six-year-old who was asked to give her opinion on classic book covers and what she thought the books were about…  (Click on the picture to read her responses)

I’m not using this just for its cute factor but hey, that’s a given. These days a cover has to work so hard, often online at thumbnail sizes. It must evoke a speedy, gut response, the “Ahh…” of a browsing find. Otherwise it’s severely handicapped in finding the reader.

So enjoy the cuteness (Fifty Shades…zebra….huh?), but let’s take on board the lesson if we don’t want our readers to respond along the lines of:  ‘The cover is weird. It doesn’t give you like any clue to what it is about’. (Her response to a ‘traditional’ text layout for Catcher in the Rye.).

Lesley-Anne Crooks, Sales & Digital Manager

P.S. My favourite? That Jane Eyre has, in the hands of this kid, been transformed into something like Snow White’s dwarves, mining for gold.