Episode 11: A Book by Its Cover

In this episode of the Watchung Booksellers Podcast, designers Olga Grlic and James Iacobelli relay their decades-long experience in cover design at major publishing houses with Watchung Booksellers' emeritus owner Margot Sage-El.

Olga Grlic, book designer, is currently VP Creative Director of Wednesday Books, Griffin Paperbacks, Essentials, and an Executive Art Director of SMP Group of Macmillan Publishers.

James Iacobelli, known as Jimmy, is book designer, currently Senior Art Director of Atria Books, an imprint of SImon &Schuster. Both are graduates of School of Visual Arts, NY.  They are local residents of Montclair and very frequent book buyers at Watchung Booksellers.

Here are the books mentioned on the episode and designed by our guests, Olga Grlic and James Iocobelli.

Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.

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The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ.

The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss.

Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.

Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.

Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids’ Room!

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Transcript

Kathryn: Hello everybody and welcome back to the Watchung Bookseller's Podcast. I'm Kathryn and I'm here with Marni. Hi Marni. Hi. Today we are excited to talk about book covers. We often figuratively judge a book by its cover, of course, but in a bookstore we do it quite literally. Today we are with the professionals of creating and judging covers.

Kathryn: We'll listen in to a talk with book designers, Olga Grlic and Jimmy Iacobelli, and Watchung booksellers own, Margot 

Marni: Sage-EL. Yeah, I met Olga and Jimmy one day in the store when I spotted them picking up book after book, inspecting the front and back. And I walked over to see if they needed help. And the conversation led to them telling me that they actually designed many of the book covers in our store.

Marni: So it was a great conversation. So we thought we'd bring it to the podcast. Kathryn, what are you reading this week? 

Kathryn: I am reading Bear by Julia Phillips. We just had her in store for an event. She's actually an MHS graduate but lives in Brooklyn now. This book is just beautiful. I love books that are set in the woods, I guess because I grew up in the woods.

Kathryn: It's about two young women who are taking care of their ailing mother and there is a bear that starts appearing and it's got a little fairy tale element to it but it's also very touching about being a working class young person in this country 

Marni: and it's, it's pretty fascinating. How about you Marni? I just got a copy of Griffin Dunne's new memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club, and it's about his very literary family so I'm excited to read that.

Kathryn: Oh, cool. Well, we'll list all of these books along with the books that our guests design on our podcast page at watchungbooksellers. com. But for now, let's get the conversation started. 

Marni: Olga Grlic is a book designer and currently VP Creative Director of Wednesday Books, Griffin Paperbacks, Essentials, and Executive Art Director at SMP Group of Macmillan Publishers.

Marni: And with her in conversation is her husband, James Iacobelli, known as Jimmy, is a book designer, currently senior art director of Atria Books, an imprint of Simon Schuster. Both are graduates of School of Visual Arts in New York City. They're local residents here in Montclair and regular customers at Watchung Booksellers.

Kathryn: And Margott Sajel has been judging books by their covers professionally for over 30 years. The owner Emeritus of Watchung Booksellers, she recently passed the helm to her daughter Maddie, but continues to help with author events and in store activities. When not at the store, she is busy running around town with her three granddaughters.

Kathryn: Enjoy the conversation 

Marni: and we'll be back after to fill you in on what's coming up in the store.

Margot: Hi Jimmy. Hello. Hi. Thanks so much for coming out for this. I'm really excited about this talk because I truly believe in judging a book by its cover. So it's great to hear about the magic you guys put into it. Give us a little background. 

Jimmy: So I kind of fell into it. It was my senior year at SVA, in the city, and I'd landed this internship at HarperCollins a few months before I was hired.

Jimmy: About to graduate and I was there for a few months and it just so happened one of the designers there was leaving Right when I was about to graduate and she just told the art director. Why don't you hire Jimmy? He's been here He knows what's going on. And he was like, okay He hired me and I was one of the only friends of mine that were graduating that got a job as soon as I graduated Which was well amazing And yeah, that was it.

Jimmy: I stuck with it ever since and that was 2006, so. Wow. It's been a while so far, you know? 

Margot: And Olga, you also started as an intern, right? 

Olga: Yeah, I was School of Visual Arts. I was really interested in printmaking, had no interest in using computers at all, so I thought I should probably get a job to learn how to turn a computer on and somebody will pay me for this rather than do it in school.

Olga: So the first job I found was in the Flatiron with St. Martin's Press. So I started my internship there and also have stayed at the same company for 23 years. 

Margot: Which is really kind of unbelievable because everyone I know, yeah, it's, you know, I always said it's most incestuous business but it's not because restaurants probably are as well but like so many, I mean people just, You know, funnel around together.

Margot: Yeah, well, it's 

Olga: smart to funnel around. I don't think you were much smarter at funneling around than I was. Yeah, I did more so, 

Jimmy: but yeah. 

Margot: So, so tell us, so I'm always curious, like how, how does this start? Do you actually have to read the manuscript? 

Jimmy: I would say no. I mean, there's a lot of instances where there is no manuscript yet.

Olga: Right. So we do it so far in advance that when the books are launched within our company. So we each work for a different company, but there is a difference. internal launching of the books where you first learn of the books on the next list like right now we just packaged winter 25. Oh. Right, so we learn of the books, we talked about which books we're going to be working on, and the editors sometimes don't have manuscripts ready.

Olga: So when people are like, do you read every book? I would love to, but they're sometimes just not available. And then we learn about the positioning of the book, what the book will sort of be about, what's the positioning of it, time wise, cover wise, what it will compete with. Oh, interesting. You know, where it will sit on a shelf.

Olga: Like, is it one of the big books right now that are working, which is why we get in the familiar territory of why everything looks the same. 

Margot: I did want to talk 

Olga: about that 

Margot: at one point, but you have a sense of what the book is about as well as the whole marketing and editorial. 

Jimmy: I think so. We definitely get that.

Jimmy: Translated to us from editors and other people within our teams that have a sense of what the book is, even if there isn't much reading material for it yet. 

Margot: So I'm also curious, do either of you have like kind of a philosophy of design that you like to, or are you just responding to? No, I mean, we 

Olga: both work for very commercial houses, so I like to say I'm in the business of waitressing more than I'm in the business of baking.

Olga: I hear orders and I try to deliver what I heard. So yeah, it's not as much as what we personally or I personally think would package a book as it ends up being. 

Margot: Because I think it's you said it's by committee often, right? I mean, it's a 

Olga: lot of 

Margot: cooks. The author has ideas, the editor, then the sales jump in and 

Olga: Right, that's after, like the author and the editor sort of talk about what the cover would be like and then once we start working on these covers and they're presented to the editors, publishers, if they pass those, then they'll go to sales.

Olga: After sales, they'll have to be seen by marketing. It's just a lot of the approval process is so vast. And for more commercial titles that we work on, they involve a lot more people, you know, Oh, that's interesting. More commercial. 

Margot: I think so. Yeah. 

Jimmy: I think it depends on the author and the book too. I mean, there's instances where You'll have some designs, they get approved by editor, publisher, and you're done.

Jimmy: The higher the 

Olga: expectations, the more involvement. Oh, 

Margot: that's interesting. And is there still that influence from major distributors, like the big distributors? Box stores and online stores, do they have a say the way they used to? It's the sales 

Olga: people that now have a say that are selling to the big. Yeah, to the big.

Olga: Right, so that, we used to hear, you know, Target doesn't like this cover, you gotta redo it. But now it's the salesperson, our salesperson, that's selling to Target that's pre empting that by saying, I don't think Target's going to like this. So that has very much been altered and I think that is a big change that we've seen.

Olga: Yeah, because wasn't 

Margot: there one buyer who liked shoes? 

Olga: Yeah, there was a Barnes Noble buyer that liked shoes. Like, hated white and there were, there was just a lot of rumors that I don't even know how many of them were true or not, you know, but urban myths of color hating and, 

Jimmy: yeah, but definitely, um.

Jimmy: Accounts like Barnes Noble's and whatnot. They ask specifically for certain versions of books, too. I know like currently we're doing a bunch of special editions marketed just to Barnes Noble that they're going to purchase and have in their store. So they're big influences. Yeah. Ultimately is on the cover too at times.

Margot: Yeah. No, I can understand. I mean, I do feel that the publishers are starting to recognize or have been for the last few years, the importance of independence. But the reality is we're still like, what is it? 2000 little, you know, little from 

Olga: the statistics we got. Yeah. 

Margot: And so how does it happen? That, like, in a season, the same kind of books come out, like, you know, the, the sepia tone for one season.

Margot: Then there was aqua. Like the trends, you mean? Yeah, the trends. Like, I always say, are these art directors having drinks together and then come out and say, Yes, we're gonna go with teal this season. 

Jimmy: Well, it's by chance, you know, we go to the bookstores to see what's out there, too, you know, so we're influenced by that.

Jimmy: So maybe subconsciously we're attracted to those colors too, so we use them in a way for our designs. Yeah, but that would have been what's in the bookstore. Right, but 

Olga: mostly it's saying, hey, this worked. Can we do this? Right. I mean, look at the covers. Like, what's the big draw? You know, turquoise pool. Yeah.

Olga: You got the woman from behind for historical fiction. Like, things work. And so they're like, why mess with what works? And My natural instinct is mess with it as much as you can because people love different. That's what's attractive. Exactly. Not the same, but that's where we very much disagree. So that's your 

Margot: biggest battle.

Olga: My, my personally biggest battle. Yes. 

Margot: Cause as I said to you both, You consider yourselves commercial, or that you deal with commercial books and the art, but I don't find your covers to be commercial. They really are art covers. Your webpage is amazing because it's just covers. There's no description.

Margot: There's no story. It's very striking and beautiful. I think that's a challenge too. 

Jimmy: How do you make something that is quote unquote commercial, but how do you make it feel more arty or not so generic in a way? And, you know, I think that's a challenge. What I really try to do in my covers is twist that commercial line as much as you can and, um, skate it.

Jimmy: And, you know, feel proud of it, too. You know, you want to feel good about it. And 

Olga: ultimately, it's like the greatest job ever once you take out all the little tweakings and, you know, All the things that we deal with, it's, you never produce the same thing, even if it looks the same, you never, not a single book is ever the same as the previous book, which not very many jobs have that luxury of not having a repetitive pattern.

Margot: I mean that's, at the bookstore, it's like we've got a thousand new products every week, so. I actually kind of like that, I don't know if it's a trend or whatever, but that the publishers are trying to have a look per author, or I guess if authors have made it and they have a body of work. And so how do you feel about that?

Margot: And have you worked on one? I didn't know. Yeah. I mean, I work on many of 

Jimmy: them. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's more or less, you know, sort of picking up the same type face. From book to book, and that's sort of the base of how you can distinguish 'em. They feel like a, also it connotates, 

Olga: it worked. You wouldn't be packaging them identically if the, the first one did not work.

Olga: So it's just No, 

Margot: except for some are issued to like, well, it's like a library. Yeah. Like all of a sudden it's like, like the penguin classics or things similar? No, no. Not Penguin Classics, but like Philip Roth. Right. Like they all had different covers and then someone to do the 

Olga: back list, right? Yeah. Right.

Olga: To do back, yeah. When they, to just have a more uniform. 

Jimmy: We do that a lot now, right? We'll just take the old backlist that maybe was varied in design and style because they were designed, you know, year after year after year. It changes, so they take that chunk of ten books at one time and we just make a new look that carries over, you know?

Jimmy: I actually like that. It's fun. I think it's a nice way to have people want to collect them all. You know, they, they look good together as a, as a box set or, or however On your shelf, yeah. For sure. 

Olga: Plus it's great for marketing because this sort of gives them a new story to sell more books. Right. 

Margot: And then, yeah, and then, but I still have people coming in saying, I want this cover.

Margot: It's like, it's not produced anymore. Right, right, right. So it's hard. You're obviously with two different houses and you have different styles. Yeah, but you have one website. Yeah. . So you're kind 

Olga: of, we have two websites. We each have a website. Yeah. But 

Margot: it's like, oh, but it's like they're linked. Yeah, they're linked.

Margot: We 

Jimmy: have, yeah, 

Margot: I guess we have a same 

Olga: Instagram page where we thought it would be really fun to reclaim. A lot of covers get posted by cover designers on Instagram, and it's always like really beautiful, arty, incredible covers for very literary. Fascinating novels. And so we said, Oh my God, wouldn't it be great if we would start a page together where we just post a cover a day.

Olga: I mean, we do so many covers that we could just do a cover a day and not, and reclaim this, like, it has to be amazing. It has to be perfect. It has to be beautiful. You have to be proud of it and just do it. And then of course we gave up halfway because it was It went from cover a day to cover a month.

Olga: Yeah, like cover a month. But we do, we produce so much, you know. I know, you said, how many covers do you produce? 30 a week? Well, no, I mean, it's not 30 a week. I mean, we do, you know, I just packaged a book that I did 120 comps for to get to the final cover, right? So, it's hard for me, when you say, how many book covers do you do?

Olga: It's like 10. You're thinking of the final covers but the variations that took you to get to the final cover are so vast, well our cemeteries are very, very big of all the kilt covers that we have. 

Jimmy: Yeah, we have lots in our back pocket there. 

Margot: That's interesting, so I never heard that term, so your cemetery, like that's your archive file, right?

Margot: Do you go rightfully? And that's why working 

Olga: together is very fun. Cause we'll remember each other's killed comps and say, Oh my God, remember that thing you did three years ago? Like I need it. Give it to me now. I have a perfect book for it. So even though we work for different companies because we share a workspace and we work together, we can sort of lean into each other's covers for 

Margot: that.

Margot: That is great. And yet you've been able to maintain your own styles. Always. 

Olga: Well, I mean, we're different people. We work at different companies. We work in different books. Yeah. We're like two CIA agents that live in under the same roof.

Olga: We have our own secrets. We can't like give out our company secrets to each other, but. Have 

Margot: you ever thought of combining? I don't know if you know Leo and Diane Dillon, they used to, I don't even know where they started and stopped, but how they worked. Have you ever thought of that? Yeah, we 

Olga: worked together a bunch of times.

Olga: Jimmy has hired me, I've hired him. Oh! 

We've 

Olga: done covers together. We always say, we said we do couch art directing. Right. We'll comment on each other's work, but not in, uh, It's 

Jimmy: nice to have her there because we are so different in styles and thinking that her thoughts lead me to things that I couldn't have come up with or vice versa.

Jimmy: Right. And so that's what's really helpful, too, is each guiding each other's design in a certain way. 

Olga: And also we do a very collaborative work and now after COVID, like everyone's working from home alone and sort of, we've kept this like communal thing going, 

Margot: which has been really fun. Which is really important in creative work.

Margot: You can't just work in a vacuum. 

Olga: There's so many people that have opinions about what we do already, that in order to keep sane with all those, like we keep a sense of humor and we can laugh about it and think it's hilarious. And we have a sign in our office that says, would you like fries with that?

Olga: Because that is ultimately what we do. 

Jimmy: Right. Well, I take those as challenges too. It's like, what is it then? You know, like something cool. Why? What is it? And trying to dissect what that is is, I think, the most fun for me, you know, because I don't have an ego of what I'm doing. If you don't like it, fine, but let's Tell me what you don't like about it.

Jimmy: But that's the problem solving psychology. Yeah, yeah, and so that's um, it's really challenging and also amazing to work with, you know, a publisher and, and sales and editors and multiple editors. Right. Authors, so you're trying to learn a hundred different words. Languages and visual languages that they're trying to communicate and I'm trying to 

Olga: Non visual people saying what they do not like about a visual is a very fascinating process.

Margot: Yeah, because then you have to really extract, like, what is it actually? You're translating things 

Olga: that are nonsensical. You know, they're like, I don't like it. It's too blue. Oh, it's a purple cover. Okay, sounds good. You know, and so you're constantly translating things and that's the problem solving why I think Personally, this is a great job is because you're constantly solving problems.

Olga: You know, everything is a problem not a negative Right. Well, everything's a challenge. It's really fun. 

Margot: And then you must have repeat authors and editors. So you already, like, kind of know what they're looking for or how to interpret what they think they're looking for. You understand 

Jimmy: their visual language, too, and what they like or don't like.

Jimmy: So you, you know, lean your designs that way so, you know, you're not gonna have to redo it later on or something. 

Margot: Right. Well, obviously, I mean, since you're a both been in the business for so long you're obviously doing it right. Well, we're doing 

Olga: it. 

Margot: So, so, so now you're both, so you just recently moved to Montclair you said?

Margot: Just like recently, four years ago. We keep saying just yesterday. COVID has like, We never thought we would 

Olga: move, and then when it all happened, we were like, we gotta move. And Montclair was the only place I would ever leave the city for. That's so cool. And 

Margot: because you know, 

Olga: I just thought it wasn't, it wasn't a village in the middle of nowhere.

Olga: And you could walk everywhere and it's filled with really interesting people. I think it's really important to curate people around you. Yep. To lead a very interesting life and this place kind of had it all. Yeah. We were lucky enough to be able to find a house cause that was not easy. 

Margot: Were you right in the beginning?

Margot: Was it? Yeah. Okay. So before we moved here in 

Olga: June, 

Margot: four years this month. And so now do you feel part of the community? Do you? For sure. I do. 

Jimmy: I mean, I bike a lot. 

Olga: We met a lot of people. We have young 

Jimmy: kids, so we've met so many families and we're kind of like plugged right in I think. Yeah, it's a fun town.

Jimmy: That's great. 

Margot: I always felt when we moved here in 90 that it was a very artsy community with musicians and artists and all. But it's broadened a little more, especially as house prices have gone up. Not quite all the funky artists said. 

Olga: Yeah, we got, our biggest insult was on, uh, we parked a car in Watchung and this guy got really mad at me and he screamed, Go back to Brooklyn!

Olga: Which I thought was very harsh. Yeah, there are a lot of threads. But I felt, I felt his rage. I'm not from Brooklyn. 

Margot: Oh, you did not come from Brooklyn? You were actually born in 

Olga: Brooklyn. Oh, okay. I was 

Margot: born in Brooklyn. There you go. We did the Upper West Side Brooklyn Montclair transition. Oh, that's a 

Olga: classic.

Margot: Yeah, that was the classic. As I said, I met someone who moved from Queens. I'm like, what? Wait a minute. 

Olga: When we first moved here, people came out of their houses and introduced themselves by the years they've been here and borough. So it was like, Park Slope, six. Wow. Cobble Hill, three. And we're like, all right, no, no one, no one is from Jersey.

Olga: Great. 

Margot: Although my kids are adults and a lot of the young adults are moving back, which is really cool. I don't know many towns that the young adults want to come back. 

Right. 

Margot: But there are not very many towns like Montclair. Yeah. And live here again and live here again. Yeah, it's true. So going back to the covers, is there a dream that you have about once you retire and move together to do something fine art?

Margot: Oh yeah. I'm 

Jimmy: like so many side interests. I mean, yeah, but 

Olga: definitely go back to making things by hand and not be in front of computers all day. So wait a minute. Design, cover design is all 

Margot: done on computers. Well 

Olga: we do a lot of, I mean, not as much as we used to. 95%. Yeah. 

Margot: But we do. But you commission illustrators.

Jimmy: Right? 

Margot: Right. Because Where was that? What was that? That one Beautiful cover with a young man. Naked man looking out onto the sea. I cover Oh, that was, that was found art. 

Jimmy: A painting. Oh, that's found art. That was found art that wasn't commissioned. 

Olga: Okay. But most of them are commissioned. I commission a lot.

Olga: You do a lot of commission. We do illustrations. We do. 3D stuff, we do photographs, we do as much as we can but it's so fun to find amazing talent and hire people that is like one of the greatest perks of the job I think is constantly trying to keep a roster of people whose work you find so interesting and you have it in the back and in your there's a cemetery and then there's the vault and then the vault is like of all the amazing work that you've seen that one day you hope at launch you hear about a book and you're like I got the perfect piece.

Olga: Do you rely on SVA 

Margot: grads a lot? 

Olga: Is that a pipeline for you? Oh, no. Not at all. Like, Pinterest, like Instagram, like finding stuff online. We have a lot of 

Jimmy: artists that write us. A 

Olga: lot of self promotion stuff, right? 

Jimmy: I mean, 

Olga: we've like, gone to art fairs and found amazing painters that we wanted to hire. I mean, it's like a constant look for people, yeah.

Olga: Right. 

Margot: That's a cool part of the job. 

Olga: Yes, definitely. Love finding talent. And there's always, like, it is something that never dries dry, you know? Yeah. It's a million people that are so much more talented than you will ever be, and to get to hire any of them and work with them is such a joy, you know? 

Margot: Well, because for them, you're discovering them.

Margot: Right. You're like, putting them on the map. You're starting their career, which is amazing. Yeah, people get really excited to be on 

Olga: covers, you know? It's really, um. It's 

Jimmy: also one of, I don't know, I guess one of the last industries where you can illustrate or design something and your name is inside a flap.

Olga: Right. 

Jimmy: Physical product in a bookstore. I mean, you can't just. You know, 

Olga: because every flat has a credit, doesn't a name on, 

Jimmy: um, what else is there? There isn't anything there with your name on it. 

Margot: Yeah. People 

Jimmy: love that. So it's pretty cool. 

Margot: Yeah, that is. I didn't even think about that. That's great. I love it when you guys come to visit the bookstore just around, I mean, that's the only way 

Olga: we can.

Olga: We're like robbing books, and we're like, don't leave any prints! We're just like touching and booing and eyeing. And we 

Jimmy: go, man, they must think we're so weird. We just go right to the back flap. Yeah. Well, because we don't 

Olga: go to the office as much, so we don't see the physicality of these books. Sometimes I go into a store, I'm like, wow, I really see this was approved as a JPEG on a phone, because the quote is So too large, like things that, you know, were post COVID, people approve some things when they're very small.

Olga: Right. Yeah. So we go to bookstores to actually see what it ends up looking 

Margot: like. Are you involved at all in that whole trend of making the physical book even that much more beautiful because of the challenge? 

Jimmy: Yeah, effects. play a huge role in, in my Especially YA 

Olga: is 

Jimmy: Right. It's a strange Like a study Yeah, 

Olga: cause like they, they have a lowest margin, but they have the highest effect.

Olga: So it's sort of trying to figure out how to make them stand out. And also they're compete with such highly designed, beautiful packages. So YA is sort of like a big challenge to try to make look very special. 

Margot: And is that part of your decision? Like if they, if you do It's a budgeting decision, you know? 

Olga: It really is like what the budget allows and then to sort of try to think of a way to do it.

Olga: But there are many different, you know, interiors involved and different departments.

Margot: Do you work with the interior designers to have a comprehensive look, or no? 

Jimmy: No, I mean, they'll ask for, you know, covers, or work in progress covers, just so they can have, you know, fonts and type to work for their interiors. So there's a cohesive set up. Like title pages and whatnot, but um, you know, there's times where yeah, our covers aren't ready yet.

Jimmy: And you see it too. Once you 

Olga: open a book, you're like, Oh, this cover was done way after the 

Margot: book was designed. Do you have like a best story and a worst story? Without getting fired? No, it's 

Olga: just, you know, a lot of authors, I get it. They're nervous, they have such high expectations, but they're ultimately, in my humble opinion, their own worst enemies, you know?

Olga: Because they just overthink things, and they drive you insane with little Micro, and so it just gets to the, those are the stories of just their very daunting process of making sure somebody feels comfortable with where we've arrived at. Those are the horror 

Margot: stories. But I think at every book signing book talk that we have, there is a whole.

Margot: Question about how much influence did you have on the cover and what was the process? But I have to say most of the authors are really pleased with their work because again It's a visual thing, right? You said they don't they're writers of words 

Jimmy: Right. But I don't think none of my experiences where we like shove a cover down an author's face.

Jimmy: Right. It's 

Olga: important that an author really loves it. I mean, ultimately it's a dress and they need to feel comfortable in it. And it's just sort of, that's finding that is sometimes the challenge. Right. Yeah. 

Jimmy: Skating that world where they've created this world and we're trying to visualize that world. And that doesn't always intersect.

Jimmy: But. We also need to make it a tool to sell the cover. So, you know, there's so many layers there. And I think, right, which 

Margot: they're not always aware, right. I don't 

Jimmy: think they're quite aware of that at times or yeah. So the 

Margot: whole machine of publishing is fascinating. Like what it takes to actually bring something to fruition 

Jimmy: to a lot of people that work on these things to get them out, you know, and.

Jimmy: It's a huge process 

Olga: that takes a really long time, you know. 

Margot: Really long time, but yet you're producing 30 covers a day or whatever. Well, 

Jimmy: it's just a constant factory line of each worker's got their own job and they all need to work cohesively to get that book printed and out, you know, at that release date.

Olga: And then the magic, if it works or not, and then the downfall. Right. 

Margot: Were there any that it Did it were a surprise to you that they worked that they really helped push the book or 

Olga: no, I mean, when they put a lot of money in a book, they want it to work. They're going to try to make it 

Margot: work. But that doesn't always guarantee 

Olga: no, no, because those, 

Margot: I see that those sales are strong the first week, 

Olga: right?

Margot: Right. Because of the push, the push, all the marketing, and then it drops. The books that I love are the ones that. That have the long tail, yeah, that it's word of mouth, person to person. The 

Olga: little engine that could, yup, it is, it's true. And we read a lot of these books that they're like, this is a big book, this is the most amazing book, and you read it and you're like, 

Margot: hmm.

Margot: Well that's what, I mean, that's my dealing with, I guess, editors. They so believe in the work, that it's amazing, you know, it's amazing to feel their energy in them. Well 

Olga: I think they have to, in order to get it out, they have to pump the author. Yeah. They have to tweak it to it making sense. It's, it's a lot of work on their end to sell it to begin with.

Olga: To 

Margot: buy it, tweak it, 

Olga: to package it, to market it. Yeah. I mean, I would not want to be an editor. I 

Margot: think that would be 

Olga: extremely 

Margot: stressful. Yeah. 

Olga: Very stressful. 

Margot: Yeah. I would think so. But I think there's a lot riding on what you do. Thankfully, you don't think it's stressful. Well, 

Olga: I mean, don't get me wrong.

Olga: Yeah, no, it's plenty stressful. We just have a good sense of humor about it because it's, it beats, um, pulling potatoes out of a field every day in the sun. So I feel like, I just say these are first world problems when we get a lot of very detailed emails about how to make things better. 

Margot: Is there any one cover or style or any one thing that you did that you were like super proud of?

Margot: And now it's like asking which of your children is your favorite. 

Olga: I mean ultimately like having a cover that however arduous it was to get to the end result. It is, you know, getting that many people to all say, it's okay. I always say like only Disney can get 30 people in the room and they all say, aww, at the same time, it's a hard thing to achieve.

Olga: So even though aesthetically these things might not be what you are really proud of, the problem solving and the amount of people and the process, you're just grateful it's done or accomplished. Yes, like it's not horribly embarrassing and so I feel like it's hard. I mean there are obviously covers that you're so excited about but, you know, It 

Jimmy: goes away quick, right?

Olga: And then it gets repackaged for a paperback.

Margot: Yeah, so what is that deal? Because sometimes I really love the cover on the hardcover and then 

Jimmy: Well, sometimes in our case, you know, we package the hardcover in a way that makes it, you know, feel like a hardcover. You know, the type is big or maybe it's a more singular object on the cover, simpler sometimes.

Jimmy: So, 

oh, 

Jimmy: There's a, you know, a look that we try to, you know, it's like a weird unspoken look for a hardcover. And then for paperback, they'll want to change that. It's a 

Olga: different market. 

Jimmy: Yeah, different markets now, different price points. So you have, it can be a different style. Maybe you can take more risks with it.

Jimmy: Maybe it can be more, uh, elaborate. And it's a track record. Ultimately big books don't get 

Olga: repackaged, right? Right. Like when they don't have to sell a story of, we have a new cover, let's give it a new life. I mean, that's not true. Yeah. For every book, but books that a lot of money had been put into marketing and sales and it had worked and it's all over the place You don't necessarily want to change that look and then start over, right?

Olga: And if it worked then why would you, right? But then also there is different markets, you know Oh paperback and target is gonna be different than a hardcover and And it's just different markets look for different books. Do they 

Margot: have many 

Olga: hardcovers in Target? I don't even know. I mean, they do. Oh, they do.

Olga: They do more than they used to, but 

Jimmy: Yeah. And also, it's just, you know, maybe it's just changing the color for the paperback or Right. I don't know. I 

Olga: don't buy books in Target. 

Margot: It's always interesting to me to see what books work where and, you know, who's looking for what. 

Olga: Right. Or when they're like, it doesn't read as a JPEG.

Olga: I'm like, well, okay. 

Margot: Oh, right. Because that's the other new thing now. Shopping 

Olga: online. 

Margot: Yes, for shopping online. And for us as readers. As independents, we shop through Edelweiss 

Olga: and 

Margot: believe me, if there's no cover there, it's like, I almost like slide right by it. 

Olga: That's our threat always. Do you want to not have a cover in Edelweiss?

Olga: That makes 

Margot: such a difference. 

Olga: Yeah. I mean what you're buying just blank. That's where our jobs come in. Right. Otherwise it would just be. 

Margot: It makes you have a double take. It's like, okay, somebody felt strongly enough about this book to put this really beautiful cover together. So let me, I'm going to dip into it and see if it works for me.

Margot: So 

Olga: I'd love to shadow you and see what, oh, which one, which 

Margot: one. Oh, okay. But you can kind of tell from what's on the table 

because 

Margot: then Well, although that happens too, right? Like, you order a book, the rep will say it's great, not great, whatever. You make a decision. I'll just get two. I'm not quite sure.

Margot: I'll just get two books in. Then it comes in, and somehow the combination of the cover and it hits you at the right time, and you go, wow, this is beautiful. I'm gonna put this out front and center, even though I didn't buy the stack. 

Olga: Right, right, right. It speaks to you. Yeah. Speaks to us, so I know, which is what another thing we tell production all the time where it's just we wish that books will be looked more as objects.

Olga: Unfortunately, budgeting doesn't allow for that, but little special things that make the paper, the embossing, the color, these are such little tweaks that make a huge difference. Huge difference. I mean, at least in our world. A budget cut, you know, it's like every school gets the art department cut out first.

Olga: It's sort of, people don't really see the importance of that. 

Margot: I think it's hugely important, and I think our customers do too, because they come in, it's like, I mean, literally the joke about, you know, that book with the blue cover, do you have it? I'm like, it happens all the time. And then when people come in and ask for a title that we're not so familiar with, we have to see what the cover is.

Margot: I mean, I can look on the computer, do I have it? But I need to see, what's the cover? Oh, yes, we have that. And it's right over here. Like, that, you know, that stays. And that's not just me. I think that's most of our booksellers. Yeah, I mean, God, 

Olga: I love coming to your bookstore and looking at everything. I mostly buy cookbooks in your bookstore.

Margot: Oh, do you? Yeah. 

Olga: That's 

Margot: a, what, and do you cook with them or are you a cookbook reader? 

Olga: I am both. Okay. 

Jimmy: Our son loves it too. Yeah, he 

Olga: loves reading cookbooks. 

Jimmy: We have a tab there, don't we? 

Olga: Yeah, we got, we do. First thing we did when we moved to Montclair is I came to the bookstore and I asked, could I open a tab to allure my children to come out of the house, and my daughter is a huge reader, and I was like, well leave the house, go buy a book.

Olga: And that's how we got introduced. Wow. Constantly being at the bookstore. And thank you for that. 

Margot: Thank you for keeping us here, as I always say. 

Olga: Right, right. I don't, that's like the ultimate. You can't move to a town that doesn't have a bookstore. 

Margot: And then it was this summer that we opened up the kid's store.

Margot: And that's a whole nother space to celebrate. Aubrey C. Cheche did original art based on the characters in the covers that she's put around the room. It's like a very simple interpretation of the covers, but it works so nicely. Yeah, and back in 1990, there were five bookstores in Montclair. 

Wow. Yeah.

Margot: Everyone got really hurt by Amazon, obviously. Barnes Noble kind of affected us as well, but then Amazon, like, so many places shut down. But Now everyone's coming back and now we have, I mean, besides the Montclair Book Center, Verona opened up a bookstore. It's like, this is like amazing. It's like we really are going back into the 

Olga: But I think that's the ultimate thing that people really want to touch and buy books. Yeah. This is where you will never go out of business.

Margot: We have customers who order, like, the one book that they want, they order online, to come pick up, and then they go, yeah, then they go through, and see what, it's like, what are the books they didn't think they needed to have, but they do. But 

Olga: it's just the physicality of seeing a book, is, you can't. It's just the covers.

Olga: Yeah. It's the covers. Right, I mean, they're just little, little, little covers. Well people, there's so many amazing designers and so many, we just are fascinated by the things people are coming up with and especially people that work in a process like ours where there are so many cooks involved and so we're just fascinated by what's coming out and it's like a never ending process.

Olga: Looking at covers, you know, that's cool. However, many trends make them look exactly the same. There's still so many that stand out. 

Margot: Yeah, there are. And those are the ones you gravitate towards. But yeah, I was going to say, but that starts the trend, right? The one fabulous original art that came out and then everybody 

Jimmy: copies that.

Jimmy: Yeah, it morphs into a bunch of others, but 

Margot: yeah. This was great to have the time to talk to you guys. Thank you. And to hear about like the energy that you guys put into the covers. It's really wonderful that. You have a life that works so well and gives us, gives us these great products. Yeah, it's 

Olga: like a great job, I think, personally.

Olga: We both fell into it, but it ended up being such a great, great career. Well, 

Margot: and it's obviously changed over the years that you've been there. 20 years? 30 years? Like 20, 

Olga: 20 for you, 23 

Jimmy: for me. 

Olga: It really hasn't changed 

Jimmy: all that much. No? You know, I think about it all the time, it's like It's one of the only industries that's sort of like tech proof in a way, you know, besides the Kindles and the iPads that kind of made a surge in the e book stuff, but it's Well, it's, 

Margot: it's, you've had to morph 

Jimmy: certain 

Margot: things because of the tech, 

Jimmy: right?

Jimmy: I think maybe just the way it's sold, marketed, right? It's a lot of social media marketing now and whatnot, but I think the basis of it is still the same. Still about the books. That is actually, yeah, interesting. There's, CDs, they're gone. DVDs are gone. I mean, they're still here. Books are here. People want to read a physical book.

Jimmy: Yeah, so there's something really special and traditional about it and it's really cool to just be a little part of that history. 

Olga: Beats packaging toothpaste. 

Jimmy: Yeah. What? 

Olga: It's a Beats packaging toothpaste. Oh, yeah. Laughter. 

Margot: That's true. And it is, it's art all the way around, right? The art of the written word, the art of the cover.

Margot: It's the art of the ideas that get passed around. So, thanks for being a part of that and making, thanks for making our bookstore look so good. Thanks, 

Marni: Olgun, Jimmy and Margott. We loved hearing about your work and love seeing you in the store. 

Kathryn: And before we go, let me share a few of our upcoming events.

Kathryn: Tonight, Tuesday, July 9th, we are so excited that master spy thriller novelist Daniel Silva will be here. He is launching his latest Gabriel Alon novel, A Death in Cornwall, that just came out today. Tickets are still available. You won't want to miss it. It is going to be so great. And this Thursday, July 11th, we welcome Joyce Maynard back in town with her latest novel, How the Light Gets In.

Kathryn: She'll be in conversation with our own Alice Elliott Dark, and they are going to have a great conversation. 

Marni: And next week on The Wednesday, July 17th, Hayley Krischer is debuting her first book for adults, Where Are You, Echo Blue. And don't forget to register for Montclair Public Library's send off karaoke party for Janet Torsney on July 25th 

Kathryn: at Tierney.

Kathryn: You can find out more about all of our upcoming events in our newsletter, show notes, and at watchungbooksellers. com. Recording and editing at Silverstream Studio in Montclair, New Jersey. Special thanks to Timmy Keleny and Retesta, and Derek Mathias. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.

Kathryn: Art and design by Evelyn Moulton. And research and show notes by Carolyn Shurtleff. Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids Room for their hard work and love of books. 

Marni: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please like, follow, and share it. You can follow us on social media at Watchung Booksellers.

Marni: And if you have any questions, you can reach out to WBPodcast at WatchungBooksellers. com. 

Kathryn: We'll see you next 

Marni: week. Until then, 

Kathryn: for the love of books, keep 

reading.