My Penguin

Penguin's released a new series of classic works with blank covers. The main selling point of the "My Penguin" series is -- you guessed it -- that you get to design your own cover.

You can send your scrawlings unique cover art in to Penguin, and they'll showcase the best (which is also a good way to drive traffic to your website).

Clever. But will these books be cheaper since there's no cover art? Part of the appeal of buying a book for me lies in the book design -- buying books is a sensual activity for me. I like to observe feel smell books (which is why I hate it when bookshops shrink-wrap) -- I'm not going to pay more for a blank cover if I can get something more aesthetically pleasing for the same price.

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