Danny Wallace mania has been sweeping the nation this week, with the premiere of the movie version of Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey and Zooey (which I finally found out is just pronounced Zoe, confusingly) Deschanel. An overexcited Ebury contingent donned their glad rags and braved the freezing red carpet in support of Danny this week. Jim and Danny and made a grand entrance on top of a double decker bus which drove into a packed Leicester Square. There were swarms of people, and Danny and Jim spent a good half an hour working the red carpet. After being ushered through the pleb entrance (as opposed to the paparazzi one) we settled in to celeb-spot and yam the free popcorn. Jim Carrey was running about being his usual hyperactive self.  The film was a real feel-good movie, and did make us laugh out loud. Danny had his moment of glory as Man at Bar, which went down a treat. The film comes out on Boxing Day, and the tie-in book is in the shops now.

The brand film tie-in new jacket!

Staying with Danny – we recently organised a photoshoot for the jacket of the Friends Like These B format, which is due out in July ’09. This involved a drive-in studio in Holborn and fitting Danny and four of his friends into his Nissan Figaro, which is not the largest of cars. Naturally we put Lucy (a petite girl) in the front and made Wag, Richard and Other Danny wedge themselves in the back. Danny (Wallace) admitted that no-one had ever been in the back of the car before because he didn’t think they could fit (I’m quite glad he didn’t tell me that before the shoot). The boys got cosy and we got some great shots. We also made everyone pretend to be pushing the car, for some action pics, and Danny’s actor friend Richard pulled out all the stops with his posing. The jacket is nearly finished and looks great.What do you think?

Ali -Assistant Editor

‘Never judge a book by its cover’. That must be the most misjudged thing anyone’s said with regard to publishing. Come on, it’s all about the cover, right? You’re standing there in Waterstone’s, gazing blankly at the 3-for-2 table. You’ve picked up the 2 books you went in there for, but turning down a free book is sacrilege. So you cast about for your third. Which you’re buying because of the cover and the blurb on the back. This one kind of depends on your reading appetite at the time.

Do you go for the intellectual-looking one (muted colours, proper type, landscapes, or a person who’s very far in the distance, quote about how erudite and Booker shortlisted it is. On Chesil Beach wins this one hands down, as it has both a landscape and a tiny person)? The chick fic (pink! Cartoony type! Woman with pointy shoes who’s been cut off at the knees so you don’t have to identify with her! A quote from Wendy Holden saying how much she loves it!)? The women’s fiction (an artily-shot, saturated colour pic of a woman who’s been cropped off at the waist and the neck. You can see most of her arm – she’s carrying something meaningful, like a bag of obscure fruit or some posh flowers. Or you can see her feet, but she’s not wearing any shoes. Shoes are frivolous. The author wrote something that was an international bestseller – ie big in the US – but you’ve never read that either. You think you should, though.)

How about a serial killer thriller? (They’re very dark, and they have huge, embossed, f*cked up type for the title. They have vaguely textured backgrounds that look like the walls of the shed/deserted warehouse that the killer’s keeping his victims in. The review quotes are always wonky, and a lot of them are from Harlan Coben. The author name is often in a colour that looks like dried blood). Or - perish the thought that Waterstone’s/Borders/Books Etc should be pushing this – a misery memoir? Tiny, melancholic child (they used to always be in corners, turned away from you, but now they’re staring you right in the face, daring you to ignore their terrible suffering at the hands of adults. Adults like you! Well, not like you, obviously, you read proper books by people like Ian McEwan. But still, these children are now more brazen.) White background, red, handwritten type and a tagline that is just ‘the true story of’, plus the same 6 words put in a different order on each one (your choice of: innocent, damaged, lost, little girl/little boy, heartbreaking, desperate, struggle, neglected, survival, inspiring, betrayed, forgotten, frightened, mother, father.) There may be a quote from the News of the World if you’re lucky.

Or a Richard and Judy book (doesn’t matter what the cover looks like, it just has a massive sticker on it, and you’ll have seen 15 other people reading it that week. You’ll worry you’ve picked the one that’s total rubbish, rather than the 5 which are surprisingly more intellectually satisfying than you’d given them credit for).

Yes, it’s very easy to slag off jackets, but the reason that most of these genres are so identifiable is that they work. Change only happens when someone daring goes out on a limb and reinvents a genre look (generally with a huge brand author, or someone totally unknown that they’ve paid £1 million for and they have to make it work). And then, when you’ve got your Startling New Design Direction, and it’s sold bucketloads of books, what happens? Every other bugger rips it off. (See The Dangerous Book for Boys for the most obvious recent example).

Next, watch out for a forthcoming expose on the noble art of the jackets meeting…

Alex - Marketing Manager