It is interesting to consider the concept of paratext in terms of how the editors, printers, and publishers choose to illustrate the text. It is especially fascinating to me that the authors of a book are relatively uninvolved in the creation and selection of their cover art. Covers of books are the selling point, the image that draws us in as readers, and whether we like to admit it or not, we do judge books on their covers. So why are authors often detached from this process?<\/p>\n
A book cover is a marketing tool; it is ultimately designed to engage and more importantly, sell. Even if the cover doesn’t represent the text in the way the author intended, the cover is still illustrating\u00a0something,\u00a0<\/em>thus it will always convey meaning. This makes the cover art away to\u00a0convey a text’s meaning in addition to the author’s text,\u00a0giving this form of paratext even more power in its affect on the audience.<\/p>\n I experienced this inconsistency in meaning on a smaller scale this past winter break. My dad recently decided to self-publish a novel he had written, and hired one of his friends, a graphic designer, to produce cover art for the novel. I had read the book a while back, and saw the final copy this past month. The cover art, in my opinion, poorly represented the meaning I found in the book when I read it. While the art itself was relevant to the plot of the novel, I felt the stylized nature of the images gave off a vibe that I felt was inconsistent with the story. My point is that everybody has a unique reaction to a text, and no one’s interpretation will be exactly the same. Cover art serves a purpose, to pull in the reader, and everybody has their own tastes and opinions about what serves this purpose the best. The intersection between paratext and illustration poses a conflict of interest between the marketing tools of materials supplemental to text and the author’s intent of the meaning their text should convey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is interesting to consider the concept of paratext in terms of how the editors, printers, and publishers choose to illustrate the text. It is especially fascinating to me that the authors of a book are relatively uninvolved in the creation and selection of their cover art. Covers of books are the selling point, the … <\/p>\n