John Green adds his voice to the chorus of bloggers writing about Justine Larbalestier’s Liar cover.

On publishers choosing covers that will appeal to a broad audience:

I would argue the job of a cover is not to get the book to the broadest audience but instead to get the book to its best audience.

Cover design is important at point of sale, but most books are sold by word of mouth—friends recommending the book to friends. The pretty girl cover will sell more at point of sale, but will it sell to the people who will like the book and recommend it to their friends? That should be the first question about a cover.

On publishing going the way of the music industry:

It’s pretty difficult to imagine physical bookstores being a widespread phenomenon in 10 years. There will be some stores, of course. (More independents than chains, I suspect.) Publishers will finally throw off the oppressive yoke of free returns, whereupon they will discover that they still can’t make money. They will shrink or go out of business.

All of that will suck, but this won’t: BOOK COVERS WON’T FREAKING MATTER SO MUCH AS A SALES TOOL. Designers will be liberated to design the coolest jackets without so many commercial constraints, because the focus will be on the right audience instead of the broad audience. Word-of-mouth will be king again.

I may be jinxing myself here as someone who wants to be a published writer someday, but: sounds good to me.