I’m speaking of physical books on this. I don’t really go buy physical book copies often, but it is upsetting to find a cover or a title interesting, turning back and only seeing a bunch of positive opinions of the book by people we don’t care about. No sypnosis or plot information inside either.
Are we supposed to just take the book anyway, make us look up what is it about, what exactly? What happened to keeping the comments on the first or last pages of the book?
Can’t think of a faster way to make me put a book back on the shelf, unless I already know what is it about.
Is there any explanation for this format?
by BookwormInTheCouch
4 Comments
I already saw a post about this yesterday and I’m honestly perplexed how much people care about this stuff.
I personally like going into the book completely blind, but if you want to know the synopsis, just read the Wikipedia introduction on the book. Or go to a site that sells it on-line, they sometimes have one.
I think it’s a trend that started with some authors who are so popular that people will grab their latest book without needing a synopsis or teaser. Stephen King, for example, or Nora Roberts are authors who people follow almost religiously. You can already expect a horror or romance novel from them, so the details arent as important.
There are other reasons, like the publishers think a lot of praise from critics/noteworthy authors is enough to convince people to give it a shot, or the cover art wraps around. But some of those have the synopsis/teaser inside the front cover somewhere. And there are people who dislike any synopsis because they consider it a spoiler.
I hate this trend
Paperback should have summary on back. Hardback has summary on inside flap.