Cover Designs For Books That Don’t Exist

Some will see this as an excellent idea for generating the all-important buzz for your book project. Others will this as yet another example of just how far publishing has turned it’s head from literature towards the omnipotent product. Either way, I have to admit this is a pretty damn cool book jacket.

Jared Paul Stern, the embattled New York Post gossip writer accused of trying to extort billionaire Ron Burkle, doesn’t have a book deal. He doesn’t have an agent. And he doesn’t have any details of the book yet. But, as fishbowlNY reports, he’s got a cool Chip Kidd designed book cover.

A writer once told me about a drunken lunch he shared with a powerful magazine editor. This was back in the golden days, when magazines still bothered to publish short stories and when writers could be considered part of a “stable.” Over the course of a three-hour, booze soaked lunch (another bygone from a past age), The Editor devised a short story title. The Editor then dispatched The Writer to create a story to fit the unusual and memorable title.

So, if in the past, a title could come before the work, then maybe it makes sense in today’s visual age to have a cover before the book.