Misery Lit

It's not new that tragedy sells, but it is relatively new that people's tragic stories sell—and sell well. So naturally, those books are popping up everywhere. Just look at the recent books by the father and son duo of David and Nik Sheff: Beautiful Boy and Tweak. Each tells his side of how Nik became addicted to crystal meth and the horror stories of what that has meant to their family.

Because of this recent demand for what Bookseller magazine calls "misery lit," more and more bookstores are creating special sections to showcase these books. Mark over at the Creative Review blog has an interesting story about this growing niche of products. While we could debate all day about whether this trend is good or bad, it's interesting to note Mark's take on the covers for these products. Each cover is following a specific code for this genre: scrawling, handwritten title + ghosted image of a wounded or innocent child. Just like the codes found in other genres/categories, these codes help potential buyers recognize a book as one that centers around a tragic life story. Of course, it's also creating a genre of books that all look alike. It then becomes the creative team's job to create a fresh look within these codes that helps a book be associated with the genre while also makes it stand out from the crowd. One interesting attempt at this is Nik Sheff's Tweak. From the design, it looks like the creative team had no desire to make this book appeal to potential readers of "misery lit." Instead, the creative team seems to be going after youth and young adults that find drugs alluring—for good or bad.

Thanks to Mark and the Creative Review blog for this intriguing story.
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