Judging a book by its cover

Reason to love marketing number 12: It can make the world a more beautiful place (or in this case, your coffee table or bookshelf at least).

Over at We Made This today I came across these beautiful new book covers from Gollancz, the science-fiction and fantasy division of Orion Books

, which the lovely people at WMT had found while in Foyles.

The new covers, produced in-house by Emma Wallace, were developed from the brief ‘do what you want, but bring them to a new audience.’ I think she’s certainly going to do that. It appears from the online forums that WMT had browsed that traditional fans of the books were not exactly over-enamoured at the new look. However, I would guess that these customers will still be buying the books, no matter what they look like. With the aim of attracting a new type of audience, these books should not only entice new audiences for the stories inside, but also for the book covers themselves. I don’t think I’m the only person who judges some books by their covers and who likes to have good-looking books in their collection (incidentally though, not to sound like too much of an airhead, I do buy most books for their content).

Regardless, compared to what had gone before (see below) the new covers are a complete departure and a fresh, exciting change.

All eight covers are devoid of any mention of the title, author or publisher on the front and each has a different feel due not only to the different graphics used, but also the difference in the finishes of each one. The remaining five of the series can be found below, although I doubt these pictures do the covers justice. All are available for purchase on Amazon and I would imagine, all good book shops.

They really are a truly beautiful series and visually, quite stunning. I wonder if this will be the way forward for book cover design?