“Frankly, I don’t think book covers sell books,” Chip Kidd tells the Outlaws. 

This statement from one of the preeminent book cover designers of the past 30 years is admittedly confusing, or it may be just be his expert spin on the idiom, don’t judge a book by its cover. “Books that are No. 1 on the bestseller list … I’ll look at it and think it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kidd says. He also believes the covers of the wildly successful Harry Potter ser