Sometimes I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the offices of various publishers, to hear and hopefully understand the decisions that are made there.
Two cases in point:
‘The Explorers’ by Katherine Rundell, which I have just read at the behest of my 11 year old granddaughter runs to nearly 400 pages. However, that number could have been much smaller. The book has been printed with double spacing. Why? It does of course make it very easy to read but other books by the same author are printed in a normal fashion so why the decision to use so much paper unnecessarily? Double spacing to me brings back memories of writing my dissertation which had to be presented in this way to allow space for marking and comments. No need for any of that in this exciting adventure story.
Secondly, the novels of American writer Lily King. I bought ‘Writers and Lovers.’She is a new author to me but I was enticed by the article I read. Literary fiction and romance I was promised; this was the marketing blurb. Yes, I’m enjoying the story: funny, insightful, well written and I like the setting: Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, but who allowed the art on the cover to be brash, lurid, in your face? How on earth was it agreed that this style of art work fitted the writing?To me the cover looks trashy, cheap and only suitable for the beach. In fact I went online to purchase ‘Heart the Lover’ but couldn’t bear to click the button, the cover was just too awful. I didn’t want it on my bedside table.
I shall never know the answers to these thoughts and questions but I would love to have been in the room at decision time.