Book news

To my knowledge, no one, anywhere in the world, has ever used the word “sexy” to describe Made to Stick. I am pleased to announce, though, that our innovative publisher in Taiwan, Locus Publishing, has broken the sexy barrier. The cover of the book shows a strip of tape somewhere that you wouldn’t expect. Check it out here (it’s mostly work-safe).

Coming soon: An apology letter to the frustrated men of Taiwan who buy the book expecting something a little more, er, titillating. (Few things are more libido-killing, I’d wager, than a good Southwest Airlines anecdote.)

Cory Doctorow likes the duct tape on our cover. Cool. I’ve been a Boing Boing fan for years — was quite a nice surprise to see a familiar image there.

There were some early cover designs of the book that included Post-It Notes. And we were thinking, is there anything less sticky than a Post-It? Isn’t that, in fact, the core value of Post-Its, that they aren’t so sticky? I guess we could have gone that direction and renamed the book: Made to Adhere Lightly.

We also played around with images of gum. Gum sticks, ya know. One design showed a woman’s foot in a high-heeled shoe, and she had just stepped in a huge wad of gum, and strands of the gum were trailing the heel into the air. It was a cool photo, almost beautiful. And yet the emotional resonance was, um, less appealing. “Our book — it’s like stepping in gum!”

Bless you, duct tape.

Our guest-blog post over at Powell’s books today asks the question: Can a billboard be too scary?

We also discuss sticky & non-sticky terror-preparation tips. Hope you enjoy.

The answer to this question, and more, at the Powell’s site where we’re guest-blogging this week.

I was pleased to be able to include this sentence in today’s entry: “A study on toads found the creatures mostly used their right legs when removing a plastic balloon that researchers had wrapped around their heads.”

We’re guest blogging on the Powell’s Books website this week. We’re thrilled to be working with Powell’s — they’re such a great supporter of books and authors.

The question posed by the first entry at Powell’s: Are there really a lot of people who oppose the cervical cancer vaccine for moral reasons? Or have we let a sticky idea get the better of us?