Here I am signing paperbacks in Toppings Bookshop in Edinburgh this morning.
Whenever I’m in a big bookstore, especially a well-curated one like Toppings, I look at all the tables with their piles of new books on a thousand fascinating subjects and wonder what chance my own book has of attracting anyone’s attention.
Fiction is so clearly king, and non-fiction can feel like the smallest of Rabbit’s Friends and Relations.*
I’m glad that my paperback has a lovely cover. Even amid many new titles waiting to be transferred to the shelves, I could spot mine from far away just because of its striking design. It helps, of course, that blue is my favourite colour.
(* Winnie-the-Pooh reference here)
As well as an eye-catching cover another thing your book gets right is a title which reveals what it is about. Whenever I look at the New Hardback Non-fiction section in Waterstone’s, I am faced with rows of spines with titles that although often intriguing give no indication what the book is about. If a paperback ends up in the Sport or Music section one then has at least a rough idea, but mixed-subject paperback sections like Biography present the same difficulty. One just doesn’t have time to pull out every title to see what the subject is. I think this is a point publishers badly need to take in. However,as I say fortunately it doesn’t apply to ‘Women and the Piano’, or indeed most of your other books.
Very good point, James! I have been converted to the ‘make it clear what it’s about’ title ever since whimsically calling two of my previous books ‘Out of Silence’ and ‘Sleeping in Temples’. I liked both those titles until I discovered the books were being shelved along with ‘religion’ or ‘archaeology’! They certainly weren’t being automatically put with music books. I agree with you that readers and browsers don’t have time to delve into every intriguingly titled book to find what it’s actually about.
Careless shelving work by somebody! There’s plenty on the back cover of ‘Sleeping in Temples’ to make its subject clear. The value of a good title can’t be overstated. I first took down ‘The Northern Silence’ by Andrew Mellor on the basis of that poetic phrase alone (although the spine does also wisely add ‘Journey in Nordic Music & Culture’). It is now one of my very favourite music books.
As someone who used to be tested occasionally,as part of our training, in a family run bookshop in Kent, still going strong, I also sympathise with the employees when they have to make decisions as to where they should place a book! Though this is not just about the titles.
So good to see your wonderful book in paperback and with such an attractive, eye catching cover.