I hadn’t realized that a belly band was really a sartorial item, reputed to ease lower back pain especially during pregnancy. This band of cloth around the belly puts me in mind of a cummerbund, something I’m more familiar with. I’d always assumed it had something to to with Kummer, German for worries, care, grief: as in “Why is it I’m so fat?”. It doesn’t. It actually comes from the Urdu, Kammar-band meaning a loin band according to The Oxford English Dictionary. They also remind us that a belly band may be found on a horse pulling a cart, on a sail, or a kite.
To me, however, a belly band is a tiny jacket wrapped around a book outside the jacket which is already there — a meaning which the OED doesn’t acknowledge: but then their entry on this word hasn’t been updated since 1887.
Belly bands on books are actually rather a pain in the neck. As a reader do you feel you have to keep the belly band? If so, how to prevent its getting torn or lost? If not, what was the point in the first place? Why do publishers use them? Mostly, I believe, to make the book stand out. But if your reason is just point of sale impact, it’s got to be a big point, a great quote. With the one shown in the picture the publisher took the opportunity to define the title on the back of the belly band — but of course they could have done that more cheaply on the jacket itself.
Maybe you get a quote from the ideal booster at the last minute: though I’m not sure Gyles Brandreth’s words are likely to make anyone buy Christian Bök’s OULIPO-esque tour de force of five pieces each using only one vowel. When you get this rave quote, life being what it is, the book is bound to be bound and already on its way to the warehouse. So we’ll give it a belly band. But that quote’s got to be really good to make a belly band worth doing. Quite apart from designing and printing the band itself, you’ve got to get it onto the books. Touching a book after it’s been delivered to the warehouse is staggeringly expensive these days: let’s say adding a belly band after completion is going to cost you approaching $2 for every copy. Adding one before completion will be less — apart from the trivial printing cost, it’ll only be the cost of wrapping a little second jacket, a matter of pennies. But pennies are pennies and for me at least are wasted in this instance. But then so too is the ribbon marker the publisher has provided. I’d much rather have had these pennies directed towards binding the book in a decent bit of cloth instead of the black paper they chose as case covering material. But then we all have our manias. Perhaps my main point is that my buying decision was not based on any frills like these — I bought it (secondhand and in mint condition) because it was recommended by Al Filreis in his ModPo* MOOC. So for me appearances were irrelevant: I suspect that’s probably true of most Eunoia purchasers.
It’s nice how it looks as if you’re seeing through the belly band to the dropped out vowels on the jacket. You aren’t; the vowels are dropped out of a grey tint on the belly band too. Obviously I was meant to align the thing a bit lower on the book to take my photo.
Despite all my disapproval I have to assume that Canongate knew what they were doing when they gave this book a belly band. I hope it worked — these sort of books have to be published. And if the bells and whistles really helped the books move off the shelves, great.
An unusual vertically aligned belly band may be seen here.
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* See the footnote to this earlier post. A picture of page 30 of Bök’s book may be seen here.
Making Book 
Richard – I lived in Japan for a little bit and was surprised to see how extensive the use of the belly band – or “Obi” – is there. Not only do books have it but also CDs, DVDs, games, and records. According to a blog post on Kupiki, the band “contains extensive information about the product, including (but not limited to), it’s original release date, official price, details about the artist, their history, and much more”. Given the economics of placing a band around an item at any point in the publishing process, obis seems to be used extensively in Japan. I know that collectors of any sort pay top dollar for Japanese items that have the original obi – with the same product being much cheaper without the obi.
Interesting; thanks. Do Japanese publishers tend to use the obi in place of a book jacket, or in addition to it, as in my example? The Kupiki quote suggests it’s in place of a jacket. That makes it less of an extravagance of course: it’s just a small jacket, rather than an add-on.
I do think I remember seeing a belly band on a CD — no doubt under the influence of the Japanese practice.
In my limited experience, it tends to be both. I’ve purchased Japanese books that have a DJ and an obi as well as publications that only have the latter. In any event, the bands in Japan tend to be much more functional and informative than the ones I see elsewhere.
What strikes me about this cover, belly band included, is that it gives the potential buyer no information about the book. Is it a novel? A memoir? A collection of literary essays? Who can tell? Perhaps the idea is to be so mysterious that the intrigued potential buyer will pick it up to see what it is. Does this result in more sales gained than are lost to customers who might have bought it, had the cover given some indication what it was? Who knows?
I confess that I just now looked it up on Amazon to find out what it is: Poetry, with a gimmick. Each section restricts itself to words using just one vowel, working its way through the alphabet. I might have bought something like this in my twenties. I am less impressed by gimmicks in my old age. Even if it turns out to be good, I cannot help but suspect that it would have been even better without the dog-walking-on-its-hind-legs shtick.
Well, with point-of-sale materials, you’ll tend to know what category of book you’re looking at. It’ll be on a table of novels, or in the poetry section, or whatever. There may of course be a mystery motivation I agree. We have to believe don’t we that more customer involvement with our books will result in more sales? Otherwise promoting them risks becoming counterproductive.
OULIPO does tend to court the risk of becoming “dog-walking-on-its-hind-legs shtick”. At best I think it can be clever rather than good. Still clever is something.
[…] informative” it may well be, but having that four-ways jacket forces you into printing a belly band, which increases your cost, as does the jacket itself, since there’s perfectly adequate […]