Task 2: Start a revolution: What one thing would you change about the book reading world? (Be it publishing, distribution, editing, cover art, bookstores – anything having to do with books.)
This is a thing especially aimed at the German book industry. The one thing I would like to change in a nutshell: I would love for those poor blokes, who have to design the book covers of German books, to have a more inspiring job.
One example:
Jojo Moyes´ "Me Before You" was a huge bestseller in Germany and they used this cover for it:
Admittedly, it´s not the most inspiring cover, but it´s not the worst cover I have ever seen. And I´m okay with the fact that they basically used the same cover for the other books in this series. But what the German book industry does, not only with these books but with mystery and fantasy books as well, is this:
These are Jojo Moyes´ stand alone novels and again, you could argue that it is perfectly okay to use the same cover over and over again.
Now, take a look at this:
I could easily add twenty different books with the same kind of cover art. Trust me, it is so boring to go into a local bookshop and see the same book over and over again. Preferably all of them stacked side by side upon a table in the middle of the bookshop. Those covers are incredily bland and they don´t give me a hint what it going to happen in the book. Which should be the purpose of a book cover, at least in my opinion. And just imagine working as a cover designer for those publishers. They must be bored out of their minds.
And don´t get me started on the blurbs and the titles of these books. They are equally as bad as the covers of the German editions. As you might tell, I´m not a big fan of the German book publishing industry in general.
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