You Can(not) Tell a Book by Its Cover
I recently received the book Beyond Booked Solid by Michael Port. His assistant had asked me via e-mail if I would like a copy for a possible review, and it sounded like a book I might want to share with you, so I replied "yes".
When the book arrived a few days later, it had a Kinko-style look to it: Clear plastic cover, bound by plastic, and photocopied pages. The surprising thing about this is that the book is published by John Wiley & Son, Inc., which previously was in my mind a quality house. I stuck the book in the bottom of my review pile, which meant I likely would never read it. Why would I?
The premise of the book is essentially how to achieve success. Yet the book looked like it was produced by a less-than-successful author/publisher. It looked incredibly cheap, and my business neither sells cheap nor is interested in anything less than producing the highest quality services to my great clients. I certainly don't want advice from someone whose book looks unprofessional. Call me narrow minded, but I draw inferences from packaging (and so do most consumers).
A few weeks passed, and, as I try to do regularly, I was working my way through my blog roll to read my favorite bloggers. To my surprise, Drew McLellan, one of the marketing professionals I respect most, posted a review of Michael's book. And he had good things to say about it. Wow! Looks like I can't always tell a book by its cover. Therefore, I moved Michael's book closer to the top of the pile. I likely will read it and review it.
Here are my points:
- Packaging matters, whether it's a book or any other product. And although we can't always tell a book by its cover, packaging is one way we evaluate products, services and brands.
- Good, quality and meaningful covers/packaging say positive things about what is inside; bad, cheap and irrelevant covers/packaging say nothing or worst yet, indicate the product producer has nothing worth selling. Furthermore, the product producer doesn't care enough to make any effort to convince me otherwise.
- Word of mouth is more important than packaging. However, once a bad first impression is made, only someone with whom we are close and trust without question has the slightest chance of convincing us to put aside our first impression.
- Cheap packaging screams cheap and unprofessional. In the case of a business advice book, who wants to pay for cheap and unprofessional advice?
- If you want to be seen as selling value, quality and great products and services, the packaging needs to reflect those qualities. That packaging includes the covers of our books, the design and content of our blogs, the design and content of our marketing materials, the clothes we wear, our haircuts and everything about our business, the way we look and speak, and the way we present ourselves.
Look, my book's paper quality and typeface and size are of lesser quality than I wanted. Publishers make those decisions, not authors. My point isn't that any of us is perfect. It is that we as business people need to understand the messages we send with the packaging of our products, services and more important, our personal and business brands.
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