Publishers may think a cute animal on the cover is what sells in the supermarket, but ask around online and those who buy pet books will tell you otherwiseThe moment of receiving your first book jacket is one that every author remembers. I was so excited when I got mine – a jacket, for a book, written by me, that was going to be published – it took me a while to realise it wasn't quite right. When the time came for the smaller, mass market paperback edition of the book concerned (a memoir about my golfing adolescence, called Nice Jumper) and my agent and I suggested a change of image, my publishers were only too happy to work towards something that suited everyone. That was 12 years ago, though, and the publishing industry has changed a lot since then, with supermarkets becoming increasingly dominant and power swinging away from editorial and towards sales. It had already changed a lot by early 2009 when Simon & Schuster, the publishers of my fifth book, Under the Paw, sent me their proposal for the book's paperback edition. I instantly knew I hated the cover and instantly knew there was not a lot I could do about it.In Under the Paw, I'd written about the chaos of more than three decades living at the beck and call of several of the world's most demanding felines. I was realistic about the book's marketing: although proper writers such as William Boyd, Kate Atkinson and David Sedaris had said nice stuff about it, it was, after all, a memoir about some cats, and no... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]