An editor once told me that in publishing, the marketers and the production design editors were the really important people. That comment infuriated me because it was nothing but the stubborn, impertinent truth. What is a book without a great cover? A literary masterpiece? A groundbreaking innovation in literature? A heartbreaking confessional that touches people and causes them to rethink their lives?

Some would argue that without a good cover a book will never be discovered, and thus is nothing. The lesson here being that if marketers and production design editors do not whore into long hours of the night and sell their soul every day for the almighty dollar, there would be no audience. With no audience, there would be no reason to print books. With no best selling novels, there would be no blockbuster movies. With no movies, no television or video games adapted from movies, and no other entertainment medium to distract all of humanity, the only entertainment left in the world would come from the purest form of imagination. The words?the ideas and the notions that are so profound, they have to be put on paper to adequately explain.

Would this spell out the end of civilization? Would there be rioting in the streets, with citizens demanding more simulated explosions and visceral images be force fed to them for their own artificial excitement? In other words, would the audience demand to be corporately seduced, and demand more explicit or implicit advertising to help guide them to purchasing entertainment? Who would really buy art for art's sake, if not first prompted by commercial sources to buy this art because everyone else has sampled its brilliance?

How many book covers today are designed with art in mind, as truly a unique statement that complements the material itself, as opposed to quick, colorful copy write that's merely designed to poke a passerby's interest and induce a cash transaction?

The average Harlequin romance novel has its book cover struck in the commercial gutter. Shirtless amorists and scantily clad heroines while certainly beautiful and artistic in form do not exactly make any provocative visual statement. That is, what artists and visionaries describe as "art", not Webster's. On the other hand, one could argue that a romance novel with such shallow, over-marketed content, makes no real contribution to art and thus a squalid image represents the material perfectly.

While a piece of unanimously brilliant art is used prominently in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is the cover image truly a bold, artistic statement in its own right? Or does it merely highlight the Mona Lisa, and so impress upon us this book is definitely about Leonardo Da Vinci's secret messages about the Christ's Mary-gate scandal? While it took a talented graphics artist to design the cover, it did not seem to make any significant statement and thus live up to the definition, "the creation of beautiful or significant things."

As far as abstract images go, I see very few books with an abstract image, yet a good number of covers featuring abstract style fonts and backgrounds. Using nothing but fonts and background colors, however, I see as a bit of corporate cowardice. If pure restraint is what they're going for, then it's hard to top the marketing strategy of the bible?an overbearing black background with simple text minus byline and a cross. A thousand words deserve a good picture. Unless your book is The Bible II, then you owe us a striking image.

There are some children's books that feature abstract paintings on the cover, but these are condescendingly thought of as simple illustrations just to give children a safe, casually-descriptive visual. It seems as if a mainstream book cover with a naturally abstract image, perfectly free of marketing clich鳬 would be deemed unforgivable. By whom? The masses? By critics? Well, mostly by the production editors and marketers, who make a living analyzing what people buy and better ways to move merchandise.

It seems commercial publishers only want photogenic, time-tested images for book covers, the type you are accustomed to seeing on billboards and live action commercials. Chick-lit? Sleek, sexy animated woman and lots of lips. That's what it takes to sell chick-lit, studies show. Horror or suspense? Some blood somewhere, plus make sure the title of the novel is represented clearly. A book on Van Gogh? Was the "Starry Night" painting actually a hidden diatribe against Mohammed and his affair with Aisha? How about a picture of a sliced ear and red lipstick? That will grab readers right away.

Forget the fact that abstract art is displayed and fawned over in museums and analyzed and critiqued by professional art critics. Abstract art doesn't sell books. Production editors don't like it. Think photogenic, think sexy and attention grabbing. Even better, a picture of a celebrity for the paperback!

What a sad intersection that is, where art finally meets business. Gone are the days when only the most brilliant works of writing were published, regardless of
targeted audience and marketing strategies, and the sole reason to buy was to enjoy the writing?the imagination of the author. Now when you buy a book, you are buying the production design and the cover image. The writing itself will hopefully hold an audience's attention for at least the first 10 pages, since studies show that's when the crucial to-buy-or-not-to-buy decision is made. I propose that "book cover art" be renamed to "book cover trailers" whenever the sole intent is to just sell a book regardless of the originality or significance behind the cover image.

The next best selling author (assuming Dan Brown can't keep plagiarizing geographical and pseudo-religious hyperbole forever) ought to shake up the literary and artistic community and demand an abstract painting of an anonymous, melancholic person be displayed prominently for the cover.

The production editors and marketers will hate it. It has nothing to do with the story, they will bark. The critics will scratch their head and wonder why a safer more photogenic, commercially-friendly image wasn't used. The critics might actually be impressed because it's so unusual and unlike everything commercial publishing sells. And of course, the artistic community would love it to pieces. Not only is it a beautiful abstract image worth a thousand words, for once, a book cover makes a statement.