The latest bookselling stunt from the Penguin people: design your own book cover.Helen Conford, Senior Commissioning Editor at The Penguin Press, on the Penguin blog:
The tag line is 'Books by the Greats, Covers by You', and throughout the rush to design the (back) covers, get the right paper, and tell people about them, we've had a really great time. The covers are art-quality paper, and from internal Penguin efforts we know that they hold ink, paint, pencil and glue (see the first efforts here). Each one comes shrink-wrapped so the paper doesn't get dirty, and I hope people might give them as gifts. They're went round Penguin earlier in the week and we've starting an online gallery that will launch with staff efforts at the end of November (no doubt we'll talk about this here). All of the books talk about the gallery on the back cover, because we want anyone and everyone to send in pictures of their own covers so we can put them up too.I'm not sure--and do not care--if this gimmick will migrate to America. Maybe I would feel different about it if I could draw as well as, say, Florence McGrath, age 5.
Thanks to Friend of the Blog Cary Federman for bringing this news to my attention.
--Marshal Zeringue
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