Social Media Influencing Book Covers? 22
So this recently was brought to my attention by the wonderful @thebibliotheque. She wrote a full length blog post which she goes ham about it all and I highly suggest reading it.
BUT, I just had to write something about all of this because it got my feathers all ruffled.
Recently The Guardian did an article about social media and the influence that it could be having on book covers – and in my opinion, while a lot of the article was just meh, it was shedding some bad light on the bookstagram community!
The general consensus coming from this post was “bookstagrammers buy books just for the cover.” Period.
While the article itself was whatever with what it stated, it was the comments that had me grumbling.
In my personal opinion, this Guardian article was quite silly and a sensational piece – a piece just for the sake of writing. Through this article a bookstagram account may potentially be targeted (I pray they don’t) and they clearly took words from the interview that suited the angle that they wanted their article to take – like always.
I’ve never once thought that covers were made for taking photos of – it’s to gain attention in a store when on a shelve. It’s just sad that so many individuals would bash a community that just is sharing a love of reading through a modern way. So many people don’t read unless it’s on an e-reader so they should be happy that books are still prevalent.
What are your two cents on this?
Just because we take photos of our books doesn’t mean we don’t read the contents. With all the books out there, a cover has to catch your attention. The classics have more simple covers because they’re classics – they have enough hype already. But with all the books written, you need something to draw your readers in.
There were other comments in there about blaming certain generations and such for this happening (which is a cop out in my opinion) and saying things like ‘I bet they just use the book for a photo and don’t read it’.
Okay stranger. Yes, I go to my local bookstore, find a beautifully designed hardcover book that is about $30 and spend my cold hard earned cash to buy this book, just to bring it home and take a photo of it and never read it – and not get paid for posting that photo. Yes, I totally did that.
No you ignoramus!
About 90% of these books get read, or are read, before the photos are posts. Many photos come following a review.
Also, the idea that it’s all about the cover is so wrong. So many photos that are so popular I see are just of the pages. Also so many popular books have plain and simple covers – nothing flashy.
Now, this is an opinion piece, but reading the comments you can tell who the readers are and who is not – also who are the trolls and such. But I just wanted to bring this to the front of all your readers so you know what your friends may think. I’ve had to correct them on what bookstagramming is. It’s an art and a way for you to make a community. Almost 90% of the people who follow me are bookstagram accounts, so we just share recommendations through pictures. Very few people there actually are there to learn about all these new books and be part of the community in some side-lined way.