Baby Hearts Press is now a hybrid publishing company and because of that, I’m looking at books with fresh eyes. It’s been so exciting to work with other authors and to help them work on publishing their own books. That is what brings me to today’s blog.

Are Forewords Obsolete?

I love books. I love everything about books. I’m a geeky, bibliophile who literally reads a book from cover to cover. Believe it or not, I love Forewords, Acknowledgements pages, dedication pages, and I’m in heaven when I see a book has an Index. Those extra bits in books always make me happy.

When I started working with Laura Redfern on her book, it seemed like a no-brainer that she would have a Foreword. I have a Foreword for my upcoming book, The Heart of a Heart Warrior. Laura, like me, is a bibliophile. She also found an amazing cohort to write the foreword to her book—a person who she admired and respected.

Laura called me while I was at Barnes and Noble, after I had attended a brand-new writers’ group. She sent me a working cover and we both felt it wasn’t quite right. The cover designer had put the information about the Foreword above the title and it didn’t quite look right. Since I had the opportunity to go to the books about finance right there, I walked over and started pulling books off the shelf and taking photos of it.

That’s when I discovered that most of the new books on finance did not have a Foreword. The books that did have a Foreword were much older and were later editions of the book or books with new covers.

Another thing we noticed, since Laura was pulling books off her bookshelf and analyzing them in likewise fashion, was that newer books tended to have quotes on the front of the book that would draw the reader in. Instead of having a big name as an author of a Foreword, a big name would say something awesome about the book.

What do you think? Are Forewords obsolete?

Are Forewords Obsolete?

Are Forewords Obsolete?

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