--In this connection, do you think that modern books ought to be "modernistic" in design?
--Absolutely _not_. As I said a minute ago, you can't play tricks with the process of reading.... One of the necessities of the modernistic stuff is the necessity to shock you--to make people jump. You can't set off firecrackers on a book page every few paragraphs without taking the reader's mind off the text. You simply can't read in the neighborhood of modernistic design. It isn't because you are not used to it. It's in the very nature of the style.... I'm talking about books, of course. For advertising, it's prime. Have all the modernistic design you want on your jacket. The more the better.
--Yes. I've been waiting for it. That brings us to book-jackets!
--Now _there_ you are in another country entirely. Now's the time to beat the drums and run up the flags and drape the bunting.... All the money you can't afford to spend on covers you _can_ afford to spend on jackets. Because, first, the jacket _is_ the cover; and second, the jacket helps directly in selling the book. Jackets are advertising--posters--billboards--so make 'em shout.
--If you mean _pretty_, not so important. If you mean oomph, by all means. Feminine charm, in the prevailing mode.... But sock-'em-in-the-eye. Make them strong. Make them so people can't miss seeing them.
--Formula? I haven't any formula.... If I had I think it would be _contrast_. Contrast with all the other books on the table. Don't follow anybody's style. Get away from the prevalent "successful" style of the moment. Take a look at the tables--what would stick out now more than plain white paper with plain black type? I'd probably varnish it. Contrast.
--Oh ... no. Jackets don't sell books. They _help_. What sells a book is the stuff inside--story--text. But books need to be _seen_. Jackets help make them visible.
--You save on covers and spend on jackets. You save on paper and printing, and put some of the saving into pictorial and design features. Would you come out with enough saving to get the retail price down from two fifty?
--I think so. I think if the thing were studied out on our "new angle" basis you'd find that you not only liked my books a lot better--as "packages"--but that you'd be able to buy more of them.