We're Shallowing Hard

I know, the verb "shallowing" doesn't exist, but I don't care. I just created it.

It would be cheesy and boring if the title was: The book community is shallow.

Because it is. And I hate to admit it (I admit it now but I don't hate writing this post). Sometimes we make a fuss over nothing.




Books of a series not matching on your shelves.

Different editions of different books in the same series.

And especially... cover changes.

Basically it's mostly about series. We hate to see our books in series not matching, whether they had a cover change or you couldn't find the hardcover edition and you bought a paperback and it's not matching the other 'hardcovers' in the series, or the opposite. I understand you. I mean, I belong to the book community, and I -myself- am shallow sometimes. I'm sure you've been at least one time (I forbid you to deny it). I care about the aesthetic of my books as much as you do. I feel happy to see my books matching and all that stuff.

But sometimes it's over-shallowing. Sometimes we care about the cover of the book, or how it looks beside the other books in our shelves more than what the book holds for us. I hear sometimes people say they're not buying the physical copy because... they don't like the cover? Or because of a simple cover change?

Just count how many times there was a cover change in the middle of a series and you were angry but were the first to pick up the next book anyway because you loved the series.

Did you care about the cover change when you were jumping into the amazing world that the author created for you? I think you were too busy wanting to know what will happen next. So why being angry at first?

What I want to say is: covers/editions matching doesn't matter as long as you love the actual book. I know we can't keep ourselves from being shallow sometimes, we regret that beautiful cover turned into something less-beautiful, we envy that person who has the whole series in hardcovers. But we can keep ourselves from over-shallowing.

All of that leads to this: The book community is shallow, and it's just who we are, we care about our books. But we should stop being shallow over nothing.  Remember why we fell in love with books in the first time, because of the inside of the book, not its cover, or how it looks on shelves.

Are you shallow? Do you think we should stop being shallow? Why/why not?