After a lengthy design process which generated 500 submissions from over 100 graphic designers worldwide, Urantia Foundation’s Board of Trustees is pleased to announce that the English paperbacks and hardcovers will soon have new cover designs. The print run is scheduled for the end of March, and the books will be available for distribution shortly thereafter.
Why is Urantia Foundation changing the cover of the book?
The book industry is changing rapidly. Borders, a large chain of bookstores throughout the US, went bankrupt. Barnes and Noble, another American bookstore chain, has been losing money, bookstores are downsizing, eBook sales are exploding, bookshelf space is decreasing, the number of book titles is increasing, and competition for a spot on a spiritual bookshelf is fierce. Especially for a book published in 1955! The book industry demands new covers, and we cannot minimize the book industry’s needs.
Why is Urantia Foundation choosing these two covers?
In the fall of 2012, Urantia Foundation hired an outside research firm to survey 699 North American spiritual book shoppers to determine what they thought and felt about seven unique book cover designs. Out of the seven covers tested, spiritual book shoppers significantly preferred the Tree of Life cover over all other designs. While the Tree of Life cover won with all ages of shoppers, its highest appeal was to the younger audience between the ages of 18-35. The Earth cover also did well. When questioned what the book was about based on the cover design, the top two responses for the Tree of Life cover were spirituality and God, and the top two responses for the Earth cover were God and religion. The top two impressions on the plain cover were new age and cult.
Why doesn’t Urantia Foundation just sell a plain-cover book?
For many long time readers, the all blue cover evokes simplicity and elegance. For you, Urantia Foundation offers a plain-covered book in two forms. We make an all blue, LeatherSoft™ book, or you can remove the dust jacket from any hardcover book, and you will find a plain blue book.
We have done extensive testing on spiritual book shoppers’ interests in plain book covers. In 1999 we did an extensive test using eight book covers with 1,094 spiritual book shoppers. The lowest scoring cover in that test was a plain cover preferred by only 1.2% of respondents. In 2007 we did another book cover test, and the plain cover was preferred by 3.7% of respondents. Once again, in 2012, we tested a more artsy variation of a plain cover, and only 2% out of 699 respondents preferred it. Plain covers do not work in this market. Urantia Foundation must provide covers that will encourage the bookstore industry and the next generation of readers to buy The Urantia Book and read it.
Since Urantia Foundation does not advertise, have celebrity endorsements, nor public promotions of The Urantia Book, the best way to assist the Spirit of Truth, Thought Adjusters, and angels with leading future readers to the book is by word of mouth and a good cover. These new covers provide the greatest opportunity to attract spiritually hungry book shoppers who are browsing bookstores and the Internet.
This approach may be Pauline, but remember, even though the angels respected Abner, they worked with Paul.