How much does the spine of a book cover affect sales?

October 30, 2007 11:06 AM

How much does the spine of a book cover affect sales? My partner has just had a book published, but the publishers put an earlier draft cover design on by mistake. The main difference is on the spine, where the title is slightly wrong and the text placement is different making the title unreadable by anyone browsing the shelves.

We have asked the publisher to reprint with the correct cover, but they are refusing to do so 'on commercial grounds' and say that the error is not affecting sales.

I think that a book with a clear title on the spine - and this is a very eye catching title - will sell more than one with an illegible title. Am I right?

posted by quarsan to Media & Arts (30 answers total)

Yup, in a bookstore or library, my eyes skim over the titles on the shelves and if I can't read it immediately and / or the title isn't catchy, I move on.

It also has to do with the spacing / font of the title. If it's difficult to read in any way, I think you lose people like me (and I read ALOT).
posted by HeyAllie at 11:16 AM on October 30, 2007

ditto
posted by craven_morhead at 11:27 AM on October 30, 2007

I would say absolutely. Maybe I have it in the back of my mind to purchase your book and if I happen to see it I would pick it up. But I wouldn't pick it up randomly.

They need to fix this.
posted by ian1977 at 11:27 AM on October 30, 2007

Response by poster: Thank you. Please keep adding your views.

I've been looking around for any research that has been done. It seems obvious, but I would like something to throw at the publisher and possibly, a lawyer as it does appear that we have a breach of contract.

The publisher has a good reputation as a cutting edge and innovative outfit, but they didn't even notice the spine until I informed them. They blamed the printer, then said they would reprint immediately and are now saying they're not going to reprint until all copies are sold because they haven't had any complaints from customers!
posted by quarsan at 11:35 AM on October 30, 2007

I believe the "on commercial grounds" part, but not that it isn't affecting sales, for the above-mentioned reasons. It sounds like they don't believe they'd recoup the expense of a reprint and they're cutting their losses.
posted by empyrean at 11:35 AM on October 30, 2007

It makes a huge difference. I'm with HeyAllie.
posted by cmgonzalez at 11:36 AM on October 30, 2007

Maybe just seeing that they are causing a fuss on (quite literate) ask.metafilter will cause them to reconsider reprinting as a PR measure if nothing else. I am sure quite a few metafilter peoples are book peoples as well.
posted by ian1977 at 11:39 AM on October 30, 2007

This depends in part upon the type of book that it is, the target audience, and the types of marketing that it is receiving.

Something with a small run and little or no marketing will likely be more heavily dependent on sales from browsing, and thus this would have a large effect.

Something heavily marketed and reviewed will have a higher proportion of sales from people who decide to buy before they even walk into the store, so this error will have a smaller effect.

Etc.
posted by googly at 11:41 AM on October 30, 2007

I'm not going to disagree with the other posters, but most of the newly released books I see in big bookstores (B&N etc) are displayed in stacks that show their covers rather than their spines. In that case I don't even notice the spine most of the time, at least not at first. For older books, though, I agree that the spine is important.
posted by cabingirl at 11:42 AM on October 30, 2007

Overall, definitely, legible beats illegible every time.

Hard to say without seeing it, though, because it's really a gut thing. In theory, a spine could look pretty good regardless of the title itself. But again, legible is always better.

Also, a book being shelved spine-out rather than face-out will almost always have a negative impact (or rather, face-out will almost always have a positive impact), but that's at the bookseller's discretion.

To scrap a whole printing is an extreme step, reserved for big blunders. But there's no reason they couldn't change it the next time it reprints.
posted by lampoil at 11:44 AM on October 30, 2007

I don't know of any studies on this, but here is an article on the basics of spine design.
posted by mikepop at 11:49 AM on October 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

I can't see how an unreadable spine wouldn't hurt sales, potentially dramatically. If it was a book I'd heard about/read a review and was mildly curious chances are I'd never even see it, not actively trying to find a copy. Anyone with a casual interest in the book will be much less likely to ever buy it.

Saying the customers hadn't complained was lame. They've got the book so why would they care enough about the bad design to find someone to complain to?

And if you get it reprinted and your partner becomes famous the rare mis-printed first edition will something cool to have and maybe worth a bit of money.
posted by 6550 at 11:49 AM on October 30, 2007

Response by poster: I don't want a mention of the title in public, but it is a very eye catching one. Metamail me for the amazon link.

It's humorous, mainly aimed at women and I do think that many people would see the title and pick it up.
posted by quarsan at 11:53 AM on October 30, 2007

I'm not surprised they aren't getting complaints from customers. Not having a legible spine means that the book has a lot less effective shelf-space.

If I was specifically looking for the book and managed to find it, but saw the spine was flawed, I'd probably think twice about buying that copy, but probably would go ahead and buy it if all the other copies available shared the flaw. It would probably bug me a little each time I saw the book, and I'd think ill of the publisher.

If I was just browsing, and the book was displayed with the full cover out and the cover caught my eye, I'd look at the book. If I found it interesting, I'd then be right where I was in the first scenario.

If I was just browsing and the book was shelved so only the spine was showing, I'd probably skip it.

If I was specifically looking for the book, but it was shelved with only the spine showing, there is a good chance I wouldn't see it it because of the flawed spine. If I were really determined to buy the book, I might pull out the the book with the flawed spine and check it if it was shelved in the right place, but if I was at the bookstore with a half dozen books in mind that I might buy, I'd probably just move on.

Unless they've done a really good job of promotion, to the point where most bookstores are displaying it face-out and people are arriving at bookstores determined to buy the book, the screwup is assuredly hurting the book.

Unfortunately, the publishers interests and the authors interests aren't well aligned in this matter. A reprint would be another cost they'd have to recover before they see a profit, where as from the point of view of your friends advance, mores sales are better, no matter what the cost.

It may well have been the printers screwup, but it sounds like something the publisher should have caught well before distributing the book, so they are going to have to eat at least part of the cost of a reprint themselves.
posted by Good Brain at 11:55 AM on October 30, 2007

For me, I'd actually be more drawn to a book with a hard to read title, but than again I'm just different that way.

I've been known to try to sell books from time to time, but I'm not your bookseller (IAABSBNYBS)

But

There are a few important things to take into account. Your book really should be faced out if it is going to sell. Faced out books sell more. The spine doesn't matter nearly as much as the front cover (I'm a spine looker though, but I love books).

The second is, it sounds like the book is already available. Many books these days are printed in Asia than sent very slowly to the U.S.. To redo the cover to repair the issue with the spine might cost just as much if not more than the additional sales they might make.

If the book isn't available already, reprinted could cause a delay in the release of the book, which causes a series of hassles along the publishing chain.

Finally, if the say none of the customers complained, it sounds like they would be talking to the buyers from the chains. If the chains still buy your book with something wrong with the cover, they probably still think it will sell (unless the catalog pages and galleys had the new cover).
posted by drezdn at 12:05 PM on October 30, 2007

Here, let's just dispense with the mystery, OK?

IMO, it's impossible to know what the real impact of this kind of print error is. If you're expecting the uninformed, unsubstantiated opinions of a bunch of strangers on the internet is going to help sway the publisher, I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

I realize this is an intensely personal issue for you, but look at it objectively- the publisher is a small potatoes shop who scoops up bloggers for publication. They're simply not going to reprint the entire run of a first-time author because of a printing error.

Also, this:

most of the newly released books I see in big bookstores (B&N etc) are displayed in stacks that show their covers rather than their spines

Is a very good point. Unless your partner becomes mega-successful or some kind of expert in her area, the number of books she'll sell in stores once it moves off the display table diminish rapidly.
posted by mkultra at 12:07 PM on October 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

off-topic: assuming it's the book featured on your partner's website, what an effing GREAT title.
posted by roger ackroyd at 12:11 PM on October 30, 2007

Response by poster: mkultra, I am asking here to get people's objective opinions and advice before deciding how to deal with the situation. I hoped to do so without naming the book.
posted by quarsan at 12:20 PM on October 30, 2007

quarsan, it's impossible to give real advice on your question without knowing the particulars of the publisher, if not the book itself.

Besides, it's linked from your profile.

Let me ask you this- what do you plan on doing, seriously? Suing them? Embarking on some grand smear campaign? I'm sorry this happened to your partner, but the publisher just isn't gonna budge.
posted by mkultra at 12:43 PM on October 30, 2007

here's the thing, if the spine was printed with the wrong title or illegibly, it sucks, but there is nothing YOU can do about it, the publisher has to want to do it.

it was the publisher's responsibility to notice the error at printing, before it went to the shelves. they get to see the cover several times before it's actually printed and bound, and it sucks that they didn't notice it.

when we did a major fuckup like that, we pulled all the copies we could and got the book rebound. note: this does not mean reprinted. they just strip the cover and glue on the right one.

anyway. it looks like it is a very small publisher. contact the publisher (as in, the person whose title is publisher) and bitch about it. explain coherently why this is a problem for you and why they should fix it. if this is as great a book as you think it is, they know it, and they should be jumping to get the problem fixed.


ps--probably not cool to post the link mkultra.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:50 PM on October 30, 2007

also, i wouldn't go about threatening lawyers and such. errors like this happen all the time, to all sorts of authors big and small.

one more thing: if their initial print run was very small, it might make sense for them to wait it out and fix it on reprint. conversely, if the reprint was several hundred thousand, you're probably stuck with it as is because it would be prohibitively expensive to re-cover that many books without seeing first how well it's going to sell (if they're going to remainder half the print run, why bother recovering it).

and, me personally, a COVER draws me to a book, but the back cover copy is what makes me buy it or put it back (if i'm just browsing in the store and not heard of a book before). the spine is pretty irrelevant for new releases because as someone else said, most new releases get displayed so that the cover shows and not the spine. once your book gets backlisted (and put on the shelf like a regular book with its spine showing) maybe it'll have been fixed, and maybe not. but by that point someone is going to know what book they're looking for.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:58 PM on October 30, 2007

It is generally agreed in the trade that the main factor influencing sales is the visibility degree within the store. If your book is on the so-called "Power tables" (you know, "Waterston recommends", "Great reads for the beach", "New at B&N", whatever). These happy-few are easy to peruse, they're face up and accessible.

Visibility would include where the books are placed and how many are available (hence the giant towers at the entrance). And then there are of course in-store displays, posters etc.

The second reason people buy a book is word-of-mouth, for example a personal recommendation from a colleague or a relative. Those can be somewhat influenced by book clubs, blurbs, reviews and advertising, but generally they have a life of their own.

The third reason is the name of the author (you could almost say "brand recognition").

The cover plays a role in about 7% of the decisions to buy a book (10% by other accounts), but how many of these were influenced by the name of the author is difficult to say.

The spine... I would say 0.1%. You see, most of the sales take place when the book is on the table or in the facing stakes in the stores, i.e. in the first weeks of its publication.

So what you should do now is to record your publisher's claim that he'll be ready to correct his mistake if there's a second printing (a new spine pre-printing process could cost him $2,000 at this stage).

And then just pray the book will take off while on the tables in the stores, thus allowing a second printing before the bookstores put it back on the shelves, where it will live only by its spine.

Good luck to your partner!
posted by dov at 1:10 PM on October 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Generally speaking, what they all said.

In the case of this particular book? I wouldn't worry. That thing's going to go to a reprint anyway, no problem, and I doubt very much that anyone's putting it up sideways.
posted by genghis at 3:18 PM on October 30, 2007

Here's the thing; this sucks, and it may or may not be affecting sales. But if you or your partner is an ass about it she may well have trouble publishing anything else. There are far more books out there than slots for publishers to put them in. Anything - and I mean anything - that makes it more difficult for a publisher to work with you makes it more likely they'll opt for somebody else.

If you're a nobody, don't rock the boat unless it's a huge deal. Even brilliant, award winning authors who act like enough of a prick can end up pissing off their publishers enough to get grey-balled.

Witness Ted Chiang. Brilliant writer. Some of his stories are stunning. And yet he was apparently enough of a prick over the cover to "Stories of Your Life and Others" that his next collection deliberately got the most dull, boring, and un-sales-inspiring cover that it could and predictably tanked, likely along with his publishing career.

So unless your partner sells many, many thousands of books and can thus afford to dictate terms, I would be very careful about acting like a jerk... even if it is justified.
posted by Justinian at 3:43 PM on October 30, 2007

But what's the problem with the spine? Missing words? Bad font? Is the word Twat clear but not the others?

While it's impossible to know whether it would actually affect sales and if so by how much, the seriousness of the problem could vary widely, just based on common sense.
posted by lampoil at 7:09 PM on October 30, 2007

This is really unprofessional of the publishing company.

At the very least, they ought to come up with some sort of sticker or adhesive patch which could be put on the spine. That could be done MUCH more cheaply than a reprint.
posted by orange swan at 8:25 PM on October 30, 2007

Response by poster: lampoil, bad font, small font, missing word, background colour spoils legibility and no word is legible from 3 feet away.
posted by quarsan at 12:43 AM on October 31, 2007

I think dov is right on. And also misanthropicsarah. If you've only complained to your own editor so far, and there's someone in charge above that person, get them on the phone and calmly explain why you're disappointed with the error and the decision not to correct it right away.

But when it comes to real effect on sales, the more I think of it, the more I think it's unlikely to have an effect. Since it's a small publisher, and it's a project with its roots in the internet, you're much better off putting all your extra energy and money into grassroots and internet promotion, generally just spreading the word, rather than fighting over this with the publisher. There are probably no studies that measure whether an illegible spine changes real sales. But dov's browsing stats provide a lot of inside. I can't remember the last time I was in a bookstore, browsing the spine-out offerings. I glance at tables while going for something specific I'm looking for, or I browse online, or I hear about books by word-of-mouth or in the media and put them on my amazon wishlist. I know not all shoppers are the same, but I'd think the people who browse spine-out for humorous non-fiction would be fairly few--again, I'd worry more about being spine-out at all rather than what the spine itself looks like.

Stickering might be an option, but I'd worry about it looking worse or causing more problems. I've never seen a sticker on a spine--but maybe it would be OK.
posted by lampoil at 4:05 AM on October 31, 2007

You could always turn it into Lemonaide, mentioning

"Look for the Blurry Spine" or some such in your own promotion for it.
posted by drezdn at 5:36 AM on October 31, 2007

Response by poster: Thank you all for your replies, they've given us a good view of the issues and practicalities around this situation. we'll think carefully before deciding what to do.
posted by quarsan at 7:48 AM on October 31, 2007