Book Personality

I know this sounds really strange, but books have personalities just like people. Just the way the cover is, the amount of pages, if it's a hardcover or paperback... and that's just on the outside of it. When I've picked up a book - or received one through the mail - I often have a good look at it. Sometimes, I know that it was printed in both hardcover and paperback, so getting one or the other a 50-50 chance. Then, I have the chance of getting either the paperback cover picture or the hardcover picture. Allow me to explain. Sometimes the publisher will put out both styles of book and they will have two different kinds of artwork on them; one for the people who can afford the hardcover and one for the people who can afford the paperback. However, both of them must be appealing to both classes of people otherwise nobody will buy one style or the other. Sometimes, the book will only come out in paperback; but it will be an oversized one and it will have the artwork of a hardcover on it. Confused? Thought so. So was I for a little while until I realised that some writers and publishers were putting their eggs in one basket and pulling all the rewards for it too.

But as I said above, this is just the outside of it.

Then, you have what the author has written on those lovely pages. Can they pull you in with the blurb that sounds promising on the back? Will the story flow as beautifully as the critics say in the 'Good Reading' and newspapers say it does? All these questions are pretty ordinary and are usually filled with the smallest pinch of doubt as you hand over your money or slide your credit card through the efpost machine. It's just the luck of the draw really.
And it's that luck that I love to gamble with. In the last few months, I went hunting for a particular book at Borders and came out with a vampire romance.... how that happened I didn't know. But it looked interesting; seeing I was writing that kind of thing in the last year. So, I got my nose into it on the way home on the bus and found it good. Personally, it could have been a little quicker, but that's me. I like books that make me run to keep up with the action.

So, books have personalities. Or is it the author that puts most of that in there? I think I'll leave the final decision up to you.