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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Literally judging books by their covers?

I now go out of my way to do so, in most shopping. I figure if their marketing team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the rest of the business's operations. (In the sense that bad marketing implies bad product; good marketing can go either way)

I mean just compare SICP and TAOCP covers to.. head first *; the latter look like self-help trash in b&n.

Now O'Reilly, they've got covers you can really believe in

> I figure if their marketing team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the rest of the business's operations.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. I can't even think of a comparison to further illustrate the stupidness of this sentence.

Its the primary public facing function of a consumer-facing business. Its really a lot more difficult to argue that they shouldn't be judged on for it, when its specifically the main thing a business is trying to be judged on. The only immediate argument I can think of is that

A) mass marketing is, and should be, frowned upon as a field, due to their use of extremely abusive strategies

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't appreciate those who advertise well, and that all of marketing should be frowned upon

B) marketing doesn't imply anything about the business

But in a lot of cases, it does, because they're either in a market where they should (most consumer products), or they're in a market where there's no need to (free software, extremely cheap retailers. business to business, non-finalized products, middlemen like amazon, monoprice, etc). And if they're in the former, and they pull off a shitshow, I don't see how its reasonable to not judge them for it.

There's a reason a large chunk of silicon valley puts such a massive strain on look&feel, UX, and all the shitty css frameworks, despite tech having the history of not giving the slightest shit.

They've moved into a market where marketing does play a major role, and their success at it should be indicative of other successes. The backend stuff might not have to care (but, it turns out, they still do; just a different fashion), but any final product landing on your phone as an "app" certainly does care, and they should be judged for trying, and failing.

I try to imagine what kind of a marketing team came up with the cover of SICP. How did they plan the reaction of the target audience, A/B tested the cover art on focus groups, etc. Entertaining!

I like to imagine they didn't; Sussman had an idea about the book he liked, someone drew up a decent image (or even found it somewhere), and they slapped it on. My favorite kind of marketing is the ones where they don't have to do much work to get it good; or at least don't show it.

Indeed. I couldn't imagine it being otherwise. What I wrote was ironic, of course.

> Now O'Reilly, they've got covers you can really believe in

I agree that the Head First books look gross, but there are a lot of bad O'Reilly books (on the inside) even if the animal looks cool.

Sure, but the relationship I'm claiming is one way:

bad marketing implies bad product

Good marketing implies nothing

Its just a first-level filter

> Sure, but the relationship I'm claiming is one way:

> bad marketing implies bad product

That definitely doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny.

Looking at the Author, Reviews and the Table of Contents is probably a better heuristic.

That said, for things that aren't books, a marketing department that is complete dogshit might point to an opportunity. Berkshire Hathaway doesn't have great marketing. It doesn't need to.

If you go on Alibaba and find a merchant that has a great prospectus and a broad range of products, that's most likely a reseller. That means they take their share of the pie, and if you try to get something manufactured, you'll be working through a proxy. Better to find their manufacturer instead.

Non-comsumer facing, retailers, middlemen, manufacturers etc don't follow the same rules of marketing; they still have to do it, but in a different fashion. IE alibaba and amazon are "advertising" based on how cheap they are; it would be a bad show for them to put out extremely nice, expensive ads for their e-shop. Its absurd to see ads for a car parts supplier.

Marketing exists in the context of its market, and must be judged in that light. Sometimes cheap, shitty marketing is the best thing to do.

And to be clear, books to programmers is one of those fields where marketing matters; it just be because I'm more involved here than any other community, but its one of the heaviest trend-following communities I'm aware of, and seems to have been that way since the 80's.

Also toc and reviews is a second level filter; author may be first-level, mostly dependent on whether you actually know who he is; cover is almost always the first point of contact; physical or e-store, you're most likely looking at a list of covers.

It would be absurd not to realize this, and not to try taking advantage of it. And you should be judged for both, if you don't do it well.

And it would be absurd if you, as a consumer, are not aware, and do not take advantage of this situation (by acknowledging, and applying, a filter on covers!)

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