Publishing Has a Hologram Problem

If you’ve ever walked through a bookstore with an author by your side, you may have noticed something peculiar: writers don’t check out new books the way normal people do. Your average reader, when they pick up a book, will first inspect the cover, then they will read the synopsis, and finally they will glance at the author photo, cruelly appraising the hair and skin and posture of a subspecies of human (Homo scriptor) that largely prefers to remain out of sight. In other words, they will never actually open the book before they buy it. A writer, by contrast—wise to the Draperian deceptions of jacket copy—tends to open it to the first page, take a quick sip of its prose, and if they like it, then and only then will they endeavor to learn what the book is actually about.