Galaxies and Goddesses: A Sci-Fi & Fantasy Bookcast

Judging a Book Cover
Andrea: I’m Andrea.
Elizabeth: And I'm Elizabeth.
Andrea: Join us as we chat about sci-fi and fantasy books and beyond.
Elizabeth: Looking for a little escape from reality. So are we.
Andrea: Welcome to Galaxies and Goddesses!
Elizabeth: On this week's episode, we're talking about book covers.
Andrea: Specifically we'll be talking about judging them at first glance and how it can set the tone for reader expectations.
Elizabeth: Along with kicking off our Galaxies and Goddesses Summer Book Bingo.
Andrea: Let's get started!
Andrea: What are you currently reading Elizabeth and did you pick it because of the cover?
Elizabeth: I am currently reading Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov, and no, I did not pick it for the cover. The last couple books that I read, I just finished The Antidote by Karen Russell. Before that was Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The Crazies, which the subtitle of that one is, The Cattleman, the Wind Prospector, and the War Out West by Amy Gamerman.
Elizabeth: And did I pick any for the cover? No. The Crazies, that was a book club book that I read with my sister's book club. Dream Count and The Antidote were on the “Too Hot to Hold” shelf at the library, and I have read other books by those authors and really liked them, and just happened to be at the library at the time, and so I just took them off the shelf.
Elizabeth: But what about you? What are you currently reading?
Andrea: I'm currently reading Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid and The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. I just started both of those and both of them were book club picks, but even though I didn't pick them because of the book cover I do still end up having expectations for what I think it'll be like both of these books have different famous or celebrity book club recommendations. The Emperor of Gladness was an Oprah Book Club pick so it has that little sticker on the front. And so starting to read that I do expect it to be a, a good book. So far it's really descriptive and just atmospheric it really feels like you're experiencing it like very poetic, evocative word choice. So I feel like it'll be a very immersive read and… looking forward to that.
Elizabeth: The Ocean Vuong book?
Andrea: Mhmmm.
Elizabeth: Have you read his other one, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous?
Andrea: No, I have not.
Elizabeth: It's really, really good. I was actually just talking to a friend of mine yesterday. she described it as like earth shattering for herself.
Elizabeth: I didn't necessarily love it that much, but it still is a very good book, and is on the New York Times Book Review Best of the 21st Century Reader's Choice list, and that's one that, I would agree. I think it's probably one of the best books of the 21st century.
Elizabeth: And so, having seen that book, I haven't read it yet, but it's definitely on my TBR for sure because of how good of a writer that I know he is.
Andrea: The cover is really mysterious. So the cover for The Emperor of Gladness is sort of a large black band on the bottom and a black band on the top and in the middle is a misty atmospheric image with a silhouette of a person. So I think that does lead to this impression of mystery and intrigue. It's a very almost confident cover. It's not trying to oversell you something, besides maybe the mystery aspect.
Elizabeth: I mean, I think he's the type of writer that I don't think he has to sell anything. The type of person who would be into this kind of book is probably somebody who maybe has already read his work or has heard about it from somebody else who's read it.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I don't think it needs to sell itself from the cover.
Andrea: Right.
Andrea: But I think most of the time the cover is a marketing tool. It's the first impression a lot of people are gonna have. And so a lot of times publishing companies will try to reproduce a similar style book, maybe for a a lesser known author that mimics an author that did well.
Andrea: That's based on a lot of market research. So those books sell better when they have covers that match other books because those readers will buy them based on the cover.
Andrea: But kinda going back to the Ocean Vuong cover for a second it's like it almost appeals to more people because it's not trying to copy specific graphic. It appeals to everybody, because it's unique.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I’m thinking of the opposite. You picture the kind of book that's a beach read and that's been published in a cover that clearly is trying to target the type of reader that's looking for a beach read.
Elizabeth: The cover of Ocean Vuong's books is not like that at all. So yeah, it's kinda hard to jump to conclusions with a book like that as opposed to with a romance book or a romantasy book, you can jump to conclusions reasonably, and that does attract certain readers but also would, discourage other readers.
Andrea: Well they say don't judge a book by its cover, but I think it's just hard not to sometimes. On some level you just automatically do judge a book slightly by its cover.
Elizabeth: I don't think you can't not judge a book by its cover. It’s easy to say, "Oh, don't do that," but we all do it every time.
Andrea: Mhmmm.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Unless you get a blind date with a book. Unless you buy a book that literally has the cover covered in like wrapping paper.
Elizabeth: But then you open it up and you have a book that you're judging by its cover.

Andrea: Okay. It’s just delaying the judgment you're saying?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: You don't judge it in order to buy it, but then you judge it to read it. As in, like, if you opened it up and you were just sad or not as excited about what book you just bought, then you might not read it for a long time Just because you buy the book doesn't mean that you're gonna read the book, which is, definitely a problem that I don't want to have, but I worry about.
Andrea: It's interesting you say that because the reason I haven't bought blind books is because I feel like I'll be obligated to read it sometimes when I buy a book I'm like, “This will be the next book that I read.” And it's like a commitment phobia of oh I'm afraid to buy it because I don't wanna commit to reading an unknown book. But you're saying just open it Andrea, and then decide. Buy the book anyway. You don’t have to read it.
Elizabeth: I mean sure, you don't have to read it. I mean, I've seen these books for sale all the time They'll usually give you like a single sentence of what the book is about. And so then trying to read the sentence and figure out, do you know what book it is, and have you read that book?
Elizabeth: 'Cause I worry sort of one of two things. Either I'm gonna open it up and just not wanna read it 'cause it looks lame and not something I wanna spend time reading, or two, perhaps I've already read it and just don't remember, and then you open it up and, "Oh, darn. I already read that.”
Andrea: I'm not as afraid of buying a book that I've already read. I'm more afraid of committing to reading a book that I don't know what it is if I give myself a little bit less pressure to read the book immediately after opening it I think I'd be more likely to buy it. So now I feel like I'm more likely to buy a blind date with a book. But I think there's just this element of surprise and like a fun aspect to it.
Andrea: It's not just about what book you're getting it's about the experience of discovering a new book that you might not have picked for yourself.
Andrea: With that being said I've always been hesitant to buy the blind date with a book because I don't wanna be committing to read something. I always have other things that I've stacked up that I wanna read.
Andrea: When I go to the bookstore I usually have specific books that I'm looking for at the bookstore and the times that I buy a book I didn't intend to read it is because the cover sucked me in.
Andrea: Like it was a book I was interested in and they had a fancy edition of it at the store so that might cause me to do an impulse buy. Like, “Oh we're doing a limited edition of this book” and it had been one I'd heard about or was interested in so I end up buying it.
Elizabeth: I am the type of book buyer that would be less inclined to buy a book because it's a special edition. I don't necessarily care.
Elizabeth: Sometimes there are books that I will buy, or bring home, because it looks good on the shelf, sometimes that happens.
Elizabeth: That's usually more for classics, I guess. so otherwise, when I'm buying books or bringing books home, the intention is to read it and then pass it along, and so I'm less inclined to buy a special edition book because it usually means it's more expensive.
Elizabeth: But like if I'm at a used bookstore, for example, and let's say there are multiple copies of the same book that I want to buy, then usually I'll buy the one that's probably what's called the trade paperback.
Elizabeth: That's kind of generic paperback style. I usually avoid the mass market, cover, because they sometimes can have sort of like the pulp, the pulp fiction cover, which I sort of like less, but I'm going to try to actively try to like more because it is a type of book that's dying.
Elizabeth: And I don't want them to die, so maybe I should actively be going for the mass market.
Andrea: Purchasing those books.
Elizabeth: Yeah. So like the Foundation books that we're reading right now, for example, I bought Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation, so books two and three in the trilogy series, I bought those at Powell's in Portland and specifically bought the mass market pulp fiction cover because they were the cheapest.
Elizabeth: Definitely in terms of themes of judging a book by its cover, I tend to like the mass market a little less, but I wanna get over that. Definitely don't want the movie poster cover. Nope, don't want that at all.
Elizabeth: And going back to the stickers, like the Oprah's Book Club or the Read with Jenna or…
Andrea: Like Good Morning America?
Elizabeth: Oh, that one. Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: And then like Target, like if you buy a book at Target, usually there's, you know, the sort of Target label on the front. I hate those. I wish they didn't do that. It does make me more inclined to look at a book that I might not look at if it has one of those stickers.
Elizabeth: But if I were to then buy that book or have that book, bring that book home, I might try to take the sticker off the cover. Like, I don't want the sticker to still be there. I wanna get rid of the sticker if you can.
Andrea: Well sometimes the sticker is actually printed into the cover.
Elizabeth: I know. I hate that.
Elizabeth: At least if it's a sticker stuck on, then you have the option to take it off.
Andrea: You were saying that you didn't like the movie poster cover, but the reason they make those copies of the book is a signal, “Oh, they turned this into a movie” and you might be more likely to read that book if you know that it's already been made into a movie. A large enough group of people have collectively decided that this is a story that's worthwhile they decided to put the money into turning it into a movie. And after you finish the book you can watch the movie or vice versa, depending on your preference. So I think movie cover version is a strategic placement to attract a reader that might not otherwise pick up the book.
Andrea: It's gonna be a paperback, so you're not paying for like a hardcover collector's edition you're buying it to read the story. Right? So I hold no judgment against the movie poster covers.
Andrea: If you have the option at say a used bookstore between the movie cover and the non-movie cover version you'd probably pick the one that doesn't have, you know, that says Amazon Prime Video on it.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: So for example when we did our independent bookstore one of the books I picked up It wasn't a movie but they turned it into a series for The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.
Elizabeth: Oh, yeah.
Andrea: That was the TV adaptation tie-in version and yeah I mean guess I am the right audience for that because I liked the show and now I wanna read the book And it reminded me of that when I was browsing the used bookstore So whoever decided to do that good job.
Elizabeth: Except for the fact that you bought it at a used bookstore, so the person who made that decision didn't actually make any money off of your purchase.
Andrea: Yeah. That’s true.
Elizabeth: The used bookstore made the money off your purchase.
Elizabeth: Once you have a movie poster cover, I feel like usually then you're seeing the book in an airport.
Elizabeth: Not to say that every book that is printed with a movie poster cover is in the airport, but definitely you see a lot more of those in the airport.
Andrea: This was at the Phoenix Airport, they had a program going where if you read a book and brought it back or brought your receipt back and bought another book you got a discount. So they were relying on the regular business traveler come and buy a book there read it and come back and buy another book And I thought that was so smart I had forgotten about this until years later when I opened the book and I found a receipt from like five years ago. But I'd saved that receipt thinking I'm gonna come back to this bookstore and buy another book.
Elizabeth: Or maybe the traveler that buys the book in the airport, reads it, and then on their way back after they finish the book, you can stop in the bookstore again on your way back.
Andrea: Before you go home.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: They’re leaving for a trip you buy a book and they're like Hey you know instead of just walking out of the airport an opportunity to come back and buy another book. Yeah. Smart.
Elizabeth: I also would have kept that receipt. I probably would have tried to like actively go get another book, even if I didn't need a book. once again, if it's like a return flight or something, I'm not gonna go out of my way to Phoenix just to go to that bookstore in the airport.
Elizabeth: But, yeah, would then actively go back and buy another book, even if I didn't need to read a book at the time.
Elizabeth: Sometimes people will ask me, like, “How do you find time to read so much?" And that's the answer, is I just always have a book with me. And I've heard, the internet and social media and smartphones as a tool that we use now to make it so that we're never bored.
Elizabeth: Honestly, like, I will find myself scrolling on my phone sometimes, but, people do it a lot more than I think I do, 'cause I, instead of just pulling out your phone, like if you're waiting for an appointment or you're waiting in a line or you're waiting for someone to arrive or whatever, people's first inclination is to pull out your phone.
Elizabeth: Not to say I don't do that sometimes, 'cause I do, but probably more often my first inclination is to pull out a book.
Andrea: Well that ties in nicely to how much does social media influence cover design.  An increasing number of people are finding out about new authors and books through the internet and online media. So whether that's something like Instagram or the BookTok world on TikTok that's where people are finding new books to read. And that is then influencing how publishing companies design the cover because you want it to be legible at a tiny little screen size thumbnail. So if you can't read the title of the book you're probably not gonna buy it. You're not gonna remember it. That's influencing cover design a lot these days.
Andrea: Where do you find out about what books you wanna read Elizabeth and is any of it through social media?
Elizabeth: I find books in all sorts of places, social media is one of them. It seems like the algorithm has gotten a lot better in the last year, because it's picked up on the fact that I like accounts and will spend more time looking at accounts that talk about books. So now there are a lot more book content creators that are in my feed.
Elizabeth: I do like book lists. There's something about having a list of books that maybe someone has curated for me, and I trust that source.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: The award winners, Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, Nobel Prize winners. And then if you can remember the author, then I feel like books by that same author are gonna stick out to me more too.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: I mean, it helps that my mom and my sister read a lot too, and I have lots of bookish friends who like to read things, and then they recommend things to me. And so then if I, hear it for the first time from a friend or a, trusted recommendation, then I might have my eye out for that more as I'm looking at social media.
Elizabeth: I haven't gotten to the point where I'm gonna read something only because I saw it on social media. I guess I'm using the social media to, reinforce the recommendations that I'm getting from other places.
Andrea: That makes sense.
Andrea: I didn't really start finding books or looking for books on social media until like the last year or two. And prior to that I feel like I mainly chose books based on personal recommendations from friends and an author that I liked was coming out with a new book I would just automatically read that book.
Andrea: Now I feel like my to be read list has exploded. There's just so much more that I want to read that I didn't even know was out there. You feel like you know slightly more about the book. You get the little blurbs and pieces so you're like, “Oh, I wanna read that”, whereas before if you went into the library and you just don't know anything about the books you don't really feel like it's intended for you, but when they're showing up in your personal feed you're like “Oh this is a book that I might like.” There's just a lot more pressure to read more books.
Elizabeth: You feel like in your social media you're mostly getting book content creators that are sci-fi and fantasy?
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: Is it exclusively sci-fi/fantasy?
Andrea: There's also a lot of romance.
Elizabeth: Just generic romance, not romantasy?
Andrea: Just generic like literary fiction/romance.
Elizabeth: Like Emily Henry
Andrea: Yeah, like Emily Henry.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: More mainstream romance, contemporary romance authors, and I think that's because of the crossover between romantasy and romance because I like a lot of romantasy so they're like “Oh here's some romance. You might like that too."
Elizabeth: That's interesting that you say that most of the book content you are fed on social media is sci-fi, fantasy, and romance. I think the books that I am fed is a lot more eclectic, and I think that's because I read a wider variety of books.
Elizabeth: Obviously definitely still read sci-fi and fantasy and romance books, but I sort of read everything too. So I do kinda seem to get a lot of everything in my, book feed, social media feed.
Elizabeth: Have you ever felt tricked by a cover? Like the book was different than what you expected based on what the cover made it seem like it was gonna be?
Andrea: The first book that comes to mind actually is The Moonday Letters by Emmi Itäranta that we read last year as one of our book picks for the podcast. So the cover looked like it was a space station of some sort, habitat on the moon maybe, because it takes place in space I think it's really hard for a lot of sci-fi books to portray the idea of travel in the case of Moonday Letters they had space travel and they also had sort of psychedelic dream travel which would be really hard to portray on a cover. So I think a lot of sci-fi books suffer from a similar dilemma of not every book wants to just have stars on the cover. I really liked Moonday Letters but I did feel like it was different than I was expecting.
Elizabeth: For my own answer, saw that this book was on the shelf, that I could trade one book that I brought with me and take that book, I was like, "Sure, I know the name Joanne Harris, she wrote Chocolat.” So I was like, "Sure, I'll take that book."
Elizabeth: The book that I took was called The Strawberry Thief. When I took this book, I did not realize that it was the fourth book in this series. I thought it was just a standalone by itself. You could read it on its own, but it wouldn't make as much sense.
Andrea: Did you end up reading the whole series?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Had I known at the time that's what it was, I don't think I would have taken this book.
Elizabeth: On the cover, it said nothing about a series or nothing about, it being the fourth in this world of these characters from Chocolat. I think it probably just said something like from the author of Chocolat.
Andrea: The clarity in the numbering system or where it takes place in a series I think that is super helpful and important to have on a book.
Andrea: I went back to my Goodreads list of like, “What books have I read? What did the covers look like?” And immediately the book that stood out to me that I was like Oh yeah that one was from when we did our Independent Bookstore Day adventures in Seattle. We went to Elliott Bay Books and they were giving away ARC copies of books for free and they gave you the option like which book do you wanna take home with you, and it was between two books and I just picked one solely based on the cover and then I found out later oh this is a young adult novel, intended for middle grade readers. I don’t know if I would've picked that otherwise. It was The Memory of Forgotten Things. And The Memory of Forgotten Things it sounds very poetic and the cover had an eclipse and stars. At a first glance I'm like oh that looks of sci-fi-y.
Andrea: I should have looked more closely at the cover because it does look like there are three kids in silhouette in front of the eclipse happening. But yeah I read the book. It wasn't what I expected I gave it three stars I thought it was okay, but yeah not meant for adults.
Elizabeth: It’s meant for a 10-year-old.
Andrea: Yes. An okay book but I'm not the intended audience.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: If I had just taken a little bit of a closer look at the cover I could have picked up some cues. I was maybe projecting some of the things that I enjoyed about books, like “Oh stars and an eclipse, maybe that's sci-fi I'll take that” and I made a judgment about the book that was wrong.
Andrea: Also have you ever skipped a book because you were embarrassed by the cover? Like not wanted to read it in public?
Elizabeth: I'm not gonna skip it. I might just be very aware of where I'm reading it.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: Or knowing that if I'm reading it in a public place, then I better be prepared to talk about it if somebody's gonna ask me about it.
Andrea: So there's a book called Come As You Are and it has like a red zipper on the front. I've been too embarrassed to even buy that book but I've heard that it's good.
Elizabeth: Is that cum spelled C-U-M?
Andrea: No.
Elizabeth: Nope.
Andrea: It's C-O-M-E but then it has a purse opening like a top view of a purse opening to a red lining, Okay? Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski.
Elizabeth: It's trying to be risque?
Andrea: Yes it is specifically about a exploration of and how women's sexuality works And so research into ...
Elizabeth: This is a nonfiction book?
Andrea: Yes. Yes. Nonfiction self-help.
Elizabeth: Oh.
Elizabeth: I guess I thought you were talking about some sort of risqué romance that a friend of yours had recommended.
Andrea: Oh no. Maybe I should put it on hold and get it at the library and then check it out on my own.
Elizabeth: Yeah!
Andrea: But you know what it's part of anatomy. It's not anything to be embarrassed about.
Elizabeth: No, I would not be embarrassed about that at all. What I was embarrassed about was asking the librarian for where to find the next book in the ACOTAR series. That was not because of the cover, just 'cause I had to ask somebody about it. But that book is, it's nonfiction. So I just, I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed about that.
Elizabeth: You're educating yourself. Now, you can't necessarily say that as much with the romance or romantasy books that are very spicy. That is not necessarily educational, so…
Andrea: Right, like I also have a copy of Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon.
Andrea: And I'm actually more okay with reading that one in public. If somebody knows what it's about then they probably are interested in reading the book.
Elizabeth: As somebody to talk to about the book.
Andrea: Right. It's almost a reason to read it in public because then they'll be like Oh you’re reading that.
Elizabeth: It’s a good, conversation starter for sure.
Andrea: Good conversation starter.
Elizabeth: One thing that we haven't really touched on that I think about sometimes, as far as covers go is, one thing I don't like about an e-reader is that you can't see what someone else is reading. So you can't see the cover, so they could be reading anything. But that also means that I'm less likely to randomly engage a stranger in discussion about a book. If someone's reading a Kindle or an e-reader, I'm not gonna ask them what they're reading.
Elizabeth: Whereas if I'm sitting next to somebody in some sort of random public space and they're reading a book, and let's say they're taking a pause or whatever, I can say, "Oh, what book are you reading?" And if someone asks me what book I'm reading, then you can hand it to them, and they can hold it, and they can turn the pages, and they can read the back, and they can, decide, "Is this a book that I might be interested in?"
Elizabeth: And you can't do that with a Kindle because there is no cover, and there is no book to hand over to flip through.
Andrea: I think that is a benefit to having a hard copy version of a book is that yeah other people can see what you're reading in public and it could be a potential conversation starter a way to connect with people. And yeah, I think there's this assumption that if you are on a Kindle or device it's more private.
Elizabeth: …or business related.
Andrea: It could be work.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Like it could be anything.
Elizabeth: But when someone's reading a book, even if it's an academic book or something, you know exactly what they're doing. There's no hiding what you're doing when you're reading a book.
Elizabeth: Not to say that I'm gonna like insert myself into someone's reading if they're deeply engrossed in a book and not looking up and not paying attention to what's around them, then no, I'm not gonna insert myself into that to ask them about it.
Elizabeth: But if someone, takes a break or looks up or, finishes a chapter and closes the book, then it's, a, an easy conversation starter.
Andrea: Maybe people should get some stickers for their e-readers that say, “Ask me about what I'm reading!” A way to signal like I'm reading a book.
Andrea: So we've talked about book covers. Now we get to talk about book bingo.
Andrea: Our book bingo will be out on our Instagram page. So We're giving away two $50 gift cards to bookshop.org
Elizabeth: As long as you get a bingo, any bingo between June 1st and September 1st, and then submit your summer book bingo.
Andrea: Check the details on our Instagram page and read along with us.
Andrea: Well and speaking of not judging a book by its cover, we do have one square that is judging a book by its cover and it is, "has a bird on the cover."
Andrea: So there was a little bit of debate about this square, because I originally thought it should be, has a sword on the cover, Elizabeth thought that was a little bit too narrow of a field. Is that accurate, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Yeah, and I don't have any books with swords on them that I can think of, but there are definitely a lot of books out there with birds on the covers, including books that have both a sword and a bird on the cover.
Andrea: Yes. And so that, that's why I'm okay with it has a bird on the cover because when I looked at a lot of the books I had picked out for has a sword on the cover, half of them also had birds on the cover.
Elizabeth: Where last year we had a, you know, has a flower on the cover. I think a bird is very similar to that. There's just so many books out there that have flowers and that have birds.
Andrea: Why do you think the bird is a common motif on book covers?
Elizabeth: I don't know. I, I don't know if I can say for sure on that, but it does also make me think of, the show Portlandia, and they have a whole skit of put a bird on it. of just, "Oh, put Put a bird on it." So it's one of those like, you know, like, "We can pickle that.”
Andrea: Oh really?
Elizabeth: “Put a bird on it." So I don't think it takes very much to find birds on lots of things.
Andrea: Yeah, and I think it, it opens it up, a little bit more. So I'm happy to, maybe give myself a double challenge of a bird and a sword.
Elizabeth: And a sword, but you don't get an extra square for that. You only get the one square for the bird.
Elizabeth: Unfortunately, that concludes this week's episode. We've reached the end of another cosmic journey on Galaxies and Goddesses.
Andrea: Don't worry, the adventure never really ends. There are always more stories to explore, and let's be honest more bookish tangents for us to go on.
Elizabeth: But hey, that's part of the fun. If you loved today's episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share the magic.
Andrea: Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll be chatting about book two of the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire.
Elizabeth: And in the meantime, keep your mind fueled by the magic of stories.
Andrea: And never stop chasing the worlds waiting for you between the pages. Thanks everyone.