Life of a Book Hoarder

Book Design Problems

I was at a bookstore recently (wow, no surprise) and picked up a book with a pretty cover and intriguing title. Sadly, I didn’t make a note of what book it was. Anyway! I turned it over to read the description and found only quotes from strangers whose opinions I don’t care about recommending the book.

But Milliebot, you say, that’s pretty common, like, every book has that. Just check the inside flap for the description.

Dear reader, this was a paperback! There was no inside flap for me to read, and upon opening the book there were just more “glowing reviews” and then the first chapter.

There was no description of the book anywhere on the book!

How is that acceptable? On a paperback book, the description of the damn book needs to be on the back so I can decide if I want to read it. I shouldn’t have to Google a book I’m physically holding to find out what it’s about! Maybe I would have been interested in the book and actually purchased it, if someone had bothered to include a paragraph to inform me of what the book was about!

I’ve never been a fan of quotes on books anyway, because a one or two sentence review from some magazine, or even another writer, isn’t going to persuade me to buy a book. I especially hate when they ruin a cover design with a quote too. But removing the description in order to fill the back cover with stupid review quotes really pissed me off.

Would this make you mad too? Are there other book design elements that bother you? (Like when they trim the cover shorter than the rest of the pages so that a thin strip of colored paper can stick out instead? Ugh.)

1 thought on “Book Design Problems”

  1. Hahaha oh, I feel your pain. The thing I dislike most is when a blurb quote misleads me. I wrote about this in a blog before, but I recently read a book that was blurbed as “hilarious” and when it wasn’t the slightest bit hilarious I was kind of angry. I think I would have enjoyed the book much more had I not been expecting to laugh!

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