I told someone recently I keep a list of books that have had cover changes when they’ve gone from their initial hardcover printings. Although there have been a number of changes in just the last three years I’ve been blogging, there seems to be an even greater number of cover swaps in the last year or so. Even more interesting to me than the cover changes are the pair of books here that got both cover changes and title changes.

Eileen Cook’s Unraveling Isobel (reviewed here by Kim) is getting a cover change that I’m a little bit torn about.  I think the hardcover stands out quite a bit: the color is bright and vibrant, and I like the use of the leafy swirls from the font through the entire image. The cover fits the story quite well, though I find the Photoshopping of the model’s crotch area to be really disturbing (you can’t see it so well in the digital images but it’s visible in the physical copies). This is ultimately a story about mental illness, and I feel like the cover subtly hints at this.

However, one of the things I remember about this book was that there is a notable romance. While it didn’t necessarily work for me, I noted that that would be the sell for many teen readers. The paperback cover knocks it out of the park then, in terms of making it clear there is romance in Cook’s novel. Maybe what I find most interesting, though, is the treatment of title and author in the switch from the hard to paper covers: in the hardcover, the title takes up much more space than the author’s name, whereas in the paperback, the author’s name has much more prominence than the title. In fact, the title almost gets a little lost in the image itself. And although the image is fairly generic, it fits the story.

I don’t know if one cover is better than the other; rather, they seem to appeal to two entirely different readerships. The hardcover seems to appeal to those looking for a non-romantic thriller (which is how the flap copy reads, despite a blurb that calls the book sexy) and the paperback seems to appeal to those looking for a story with romance. The paperback edition of Unraveling Isobel will be available in October.
  

I read John Cusick’s Girl Parts a couple of years ago and was pretty put off by the cover. It’s a story about a boy who suffers from a mental illness whose parents choose to purchase him a companion bot in order to help him deal with the challenges arising from his illness. The companion doll, however, happens to fall for a different boy completely. So while the cover makes sense, there are a couple of problems: first, it’s unabashedly packaging a girl for consumption and the title doesn’t help a whole lot, either. Neither do the stickers on her body that call her “fragile.” Obviously, these make sense because the story is about a companion bot, but the use of a live model rubs me all sorts of wrong. The other problem I have with this cover is that, while this book has strong appeal for male readers, the cover won’t sell it to them. It’s a pretty girl.

The paperback, though, does this book a huge favor while still getting to what the story’s about. The girl is finally gone, and instead, we only have the image of bubble wrap. It’s entirely neutral, which gives it wide reader appeal. The title font is the same as the hardcover, and it works because it gets at the robotic element to the story. One of the big additions to the paperback cover is the tag line, which reads “Can a custom-made girl-bot fill a boy’s needs?” Rather than use the girl on the cover, the tag line does an effective (and much less wince-inducing) job of showing what the book is about. I like this rendition of the cover much better, even if the “fragile” sticker still rubs me wrong — it makes sense, of course, but any time fragile is applied to a book about a girl without agency, I can’t help myself. Girl Parts is available in paperback now. 

Technically, this is a paperback to paperback cover change, rather than a hardcover to paperback switch. You can check out the hardcover edition here (and I’ll say I much prefer both versions of the paperback to the hardcover which bothers me not because it’s risque but because it’s so blank and empty). Although I haven’t read Doing It, I’m pretty familiar with the content of the book, and I think that the original paperback cover on the left hits all the right notes for me. It is awkward. I love that we only get to see the guy and the girl from the waist down, and I think so much it said in the way the guy’s hand lays on the girl’s lap. I also think there’s a lot implied in the way the guy and the girl have their legs in the image. The only thing I don’t care a lot for in the original paperback cover is that it’s a little dark. The colors bleed together a bit: the people blend into the furniture which blends into the background, too. It’s just the title and author that stand out because of their bright color and center-stage placement.

The new paperback — available now — definitely gets rid of the color blending issue. This cover is bright. Despite being remarkably similar to the original paperback cover, the changes are interesting ones. The floor isn’t carpet anymore and the couch isn’t floral but an orange-red. Maybe most noteworthy, though, is that the girl in the image is no longer wearing anything on her legs. They’re bare, and the boy is no longer placing his hand tentatively on her thigh; he’s running it along her leg. His foot is also rubbing against hers. There’s an interesting contrast in the body language between the new paperback and the original, in that the tentativeness and awkwardness of the first seems to have disappeared in the second. Instead, it’s been replaced with more comfort in the situation, at least in the guy’s positioning. The girl in the image still has a hesitance in her body language. I like how the title and author name are treated in this cover, and I think it’s interesting they’ve added a tag line to the newer version: “Everyone’s thinking about it, but are they . . .”

I can’t say I prefer one of the paperback covers better than the other, but I wish I could take elements of the first and combine them with elements of the second to make the perfect version of this cover. I’d love to take the body language of the first and mash it up with the setting of the second. 

I read Mary Jane Beaufrand’s book as The River a couple of years ago, and the mystery woven within the frame of the story of la llorona kept me hooked. It’s also a book I’ve talked to teens and they’ve been drawn to it for the same reasons. For me, the original cover and original title of the book work. I love how there’s so little to it: it’s a few wisps of hair, an image of the water, and the tag line that implies the story is a mystery: “What dark secrets does the river hold?” The colors in the cover work, too. I love the light/dark juxtaposition, as it further alludes to the mystery. What doesn’t work for me is a little thing, and that’s the blurry title font and treatment (it’s less noticeable digitally). Worth noting is that the title is much bigger than the author’s name, which is tiny and shoved in the bottom corner of the cover. It’s a little lost. If there’s something worth noting about the original cover, though, it’s that it looks much more like an adult novel than a YA novel.

This book not only gets a new look in paperback, it gets an entirely new title: Dark River. While this doesn’t sound like a huge change, it is a pretty big one. Even bigger, I think, than the image on the cover being swapped. I always think about cover changes as a librarian, and I can’t help but wonder if the title change will lead to a lot of confusion. I foresee some duplicate purchasing of this book, and I foresee frustration about cataloging in the event of duplicate purchases. That said, I think the new title is a better fit for the story and a better fit for the YA market. The image on the cover of the girl underwater explains it perfectly. I think it’s interesting to note that the title treatment is stronger than in the original hardcover, and the author’s name is much bigger and bolder, right at the top of the book, rather than hidden in the corner. Note, too, the change in the tagline for the story: “What deadly secrets does the river hold?” As a whole, this cover looks much more than a traditional mystery to me than the original. Dark River is available now as a paperback.

I read and raved about Janet Ruth Young’s The Babysitter Murders last year. I don’t think the book got a whole lot of attention, which is part of why I suspect this one is getting a major makeover. The original cover stands out to me because it is so different from most other YA books. The image is really straightforward and there’s little going on in the background. The title is allowed to stand out, and the title sort of indicates what’s going on in the image (the babysitter is there with her charge). What’s sort of uncomfortable about the cover is that this happy picture is then set against the notion of this book being about murder. The font for the title and for the author are also bright and happy. It’s a bizarre contrast, but more than that, the cover looks very much like an adult book cover to me. There’s nothing about it that seems like it would appeal to teens. Even though it stands out, I don’t know if it does so in a way that would reach teens.

Young’s book is not only getting a new cover in paperback, it’s getting an entirely new title: Things I Shouldn’t Think (available in November). Let me start with the easy part, which is the new cover itself. I don’t think it does any favors for the book at all. It’s the same generic girl face with her hair over her eye and nose that seems to be on so many paperback covers, and her expression tells us nothing. In the first cover, the happy image is uncomfortable because of the title, but that uncomfortable feeling works because that’s what the story is ultimately aiming to do to the reader. This one misses so many marks and does little for the book since it looks like everything else out there. As for the title change, though, I am a huge fan. Things I Shouldn’t Think gets right to the heart of the story, which is about a girl struggling with the “C” side of having OCD. What she thinks is what she shouldn’t be thinking. The Babysitter Murders is a tiny bit misleading and I would go so far as to say potentially a spoiler in and of itself. But as much as I like the title change, I dislike the treatment on the cover. I don’t like that it’s not capitalized nor that it’s on a strip of black above the girl’s face. And like the original cover, it’s interesting to note that the author name is tiny, at the bottom, and hard to spot.

Something else worth mentioning about this book’s change is the flap copy. Here’s the original, and here’s the updated version. The first talks around the OCD, while the second hits it head on and uses it as a selling point. I think the second does the book a huge favor in that hitting the mental illness aspect of the book will sell it to readers (which is good, since the new cover is doing no favors). I’m not sure either of these covers are getting the book to the right readers, but I do think the new title is an improvement. Thanks to Courtney for pointing this change out to me.

What are your thoughts? Any of these covers doing it better as a paperback than in a hardcover? What about the title makeovers?

Sometimes I wonder if I spend more time thinking about cover art on books than reading the books themselves. But then I look over at my to-review pile and remind myself it’s all part of the process. Covers are so important to selling books — especially YA books — I can’t help think about how and why they change when they go from their hardcover originals to their paperback incarnations. Here’s a bunch of recent and forthcoming cover changes. Some are good, some are bad, and some don’t elicit much from me at all in terms of being good or bad.

I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan is getting a makeover. The original hardcover is on the left and the paperback (due out June 12) is on the right. I think both of these covers are pretty good — the original is illustrated, which is a rare thing to find in a YA cover, and it works well. I’ve read this book, and it’s a quieter novel, and the original cover fits the tone, without overshadowing or overselling the quiet nature of the story. One of the other things I like about this cover is that because it’s illustrated, rather than a stock photo, it will appeal to younger YA readers, and it’s a story that would be appropriate for those just starting in YA books. That’s not to say it’s a gentle or easy read, but rather, it’s inviting.

As much as I like the hardcover, I really like the paperback. It’s a photograph, but there’s something in the muted blue tone that works and makes it stand out. I like the sense of isolation and loneliness the pair of boots has, and it’s nicely contrasted with the monarch butterfly by not only the spot of color, but also the sense of hope it symbolizes. I’m also a fan of the font for the title and author.

Both of the covers for Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray are quiet, muted, and almost too easy to look at, since the book is anything but easy to read. I find it interesting that neither of these covers screams historical fiction — they’re both very contemporary looking, and I can’t decide whether that’s a strength (wider readership) or a weakness (missing target readership). The original hardcover (left) is the one I prefer to the paperback for a number of reasons. First, and maybe most importantly, it’s not a photograph of a person. Because this story is so much about human nature, I think the fact it’s a faceless cover is important and a chilling contrast. Not to mention, the nature here fits the setting inside the book. I dig the font treatment on the title and author byline, though her name almost gets lost in the snow on the ground.

I’m not feeling the paperback cover because it features the face on it. Not just any face, but a very pale, very perfect face. More than that, though. there’s something about the way the snowflakes are caught in the girl’s eyelash that bothers me. What I do like about this treatment is the font for the title and the fact the author’s name is bigger and not fading into the image itself. In fact, I think the title font might be smaller than the author’s name even (though it’s a slight difference). It’s interesting that the paperback includes a tag line to it that the hard cover does not that reads “One girl’s voice breaks the silence of history.” I can’t say it’s the greatest or catchiest. For me, the hardcover wins this round.

Kimberly Marcus’s 2011 debut novel-in-verse Exposed does it so much better in hardcover, even though I find the hardcover pretty unmemorable itself. I’ve reviewed this book before and one of the elements running through the story is photography. So as much as I don’t care for the hard cover on the left, it fits the story pretty well, and it’s a nice play on the title. I do appreciate the title font on the hardcover, and how it is spaced out and, well, exposed.

The paperback cover is a downgrade, though. First, it’s a close up of a girl’s face, which tells absolutely nothing about the story. It’s nice it’s a close up of a girl with freckles, since there aren’t a lot of those, but that still tells nothing of the story. But worse: these covers of a close up of a girl’s face all look exactly the same. Maybe it’s helpful in a sense for reader’s advisory or it could be an interesting book display, but I tend to think it’s a little insulting to readers AND the the authors. It’s giving readers the same thing over and over and it’s making the author’s work blend into everything else that’s out there. With the paperback, there was a font change on the title and it’s probably my least-favorite font choice. It’s weak and looks cheap. And maybe the thing that’s most interesting about the change, though it certainly isn’t telling of much, is that the girl on the hardcover version has long, dark hair and the girl in the paperback has blond hair. I guess both girls do have their eyes shut.

Nomansland by Lesley Hauge came out in 2010 in hardcover, and it just released in paperback a couple of months ago, with a cover change. This is an interesting one to look at because both of the covers are really similar — they use the same color palette and both appear to have the same artistic technique of using a stock image and illustrating on top of it (to be fair, I’m not sure if that’s the case or if these are actual illustrations, but I believe it’s the first). In the hardcover on the left, we have the girl shooting her bow and arrow away from the reader. We’ve got no sense of what she’s thinking, though we can tell from her stance she’s strong and determined. The girl is in control of the situation, and it’s clear in the image that the horse is just a tool (and I like that). My one complaint in the girl is that she’s almost made a little too sexy with the way her clothes are sticking/fluttering on her body. That’s not to say she can’t be that way, but it almost feels a little over the top to me, given how much power there is in her stance and in her aim. Note, too, her hair is flying in her face.

In the paperback version, we have the girl facing the reader, and we can read intent in her eyes perfectly. We don’t have a body to judge, but we have a set of eyes and a gaze that gives the same feeling of determination and badassery that the first cover gives. It’s interesting this girl’s hair is flying out of her face, rather than in it, giving the reader an even stronger view of her expression. It’s sort of a refreshing change of pace from the covers with the windswept hair (especially where you know the girl is strong and powerful). I like the font treatment on the paperback cover and I appreciate how the red pops against the otherwise gray and toneless background. I don’t have a favorite between these two covers, but I do think they’re in an interesting conversation with one another.

The cover change on Susane Colasanti’s So Much Closer baffles me beyond words. The hardcover (left) nails the story perfectly. This is a book about a girl who decides she’s giving up her life in New Jersey to move to New York City in hopes of getting with a boy who just moved there himself. It’s very much a New York City novel — the hardcover captures it perfectly, and I think it does a great job of giving a sense of what kind of girl Brooke is. She’s wearing something that screams NYC to me, and seeing that her goal is to be an NYC kind of chick, well, this gets it. More than that, I appreciate the body language going on between the girl and the guy. There’s a hunt of something, the potential for romance to bloom, but there is not a  guarantee. If anything, it sort of illustrates the fact the girl is more interested than the guy (she is, after all, leaning into him and her leg is close to his). I like the font, and I like that the cover is consistent with other Colasanti covers in that her name is bigger and more prominent than the title. This isn’t a knock on the book, but rather, a smart move on the designer’s part, since Colasanti readers often read her books because they’re written by her. Titles are less important than the author.

The paperback cover gives a totally different impression of Brooke than the hardcover: in this instance, she is very much a girly girl. It’s not only because of her dress (which I think makes her look pregnant with the way it’s flying up in the front), but it’s through her entire body language — there’s the stance with her legs, and there’s the way her hair hangs, and maybe the thing standing out to me the most, which is her hands. This cover also plays up the romance much more than it plays up the NYC aspect. I can’t put my finger on what does this — maybe the font of the title and the way it’s laid out — but this cover looks much more like it’s targeting an adult readership than a teen readership. The paperback also features a tag line that reads “Follow your heart . . . No matter where it takes you,” and it fits the theme of the story. I don’t quite get the purpose in changing this cover, though it tells a much different story and gives the book a different slant than the hardcover does. But more importantly, and something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now: who is holding up the umbrella? From the way her hand is positioned on the boy’s shoulder, there is no way the girl is holding it, unless she has Gumby arms, and from the guy’s position, the same deal holds. Isn’t his head being whacked on the inside by the way it’s positioned? Is there an invisible hand here? An invisible arm? Inquiring minds want to understand the physics behind this one.

I haven’t talked about book cover changes lately, and it’s something I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about lately. I’m working on a post about series books and mid-series book cover changes (specifically, about how much they impact libraries and librarians), but in the mean time, I thought looking through some recent cover swaps would be fun. It’s always interesting to see how a cover is revisioned when it moves from hardcover to paperback, as sometimes it’s spot on, and other times, it’s worse.

Here’s the hardcover of Franny Billingsley’s Chime, and it’s a cover I’ve never been a fan of. I haven’t read the book, but from everything I know about it, it just doesn’t seem like a good fit of a cover. It’s the girl, I think — she detracts from the fantasy aspect of the story for me. I don’t care a lot for the color scheme here either, as it’s dull and almost lifeless. It’s a sleepy cover.

Billingsley’s book comes out in paperback in April, and it’s getting a makeover. This works for me, and I think it’ll attract a new range of readers. Even though I’m not a huge fan of the face-on-the-cover, this girl is much less “dead girl” than the hardcover edition, and she’s even got a spark of power to her (I see it in her eyes and the fact her hair isn’t blown across her face). Moreover, I’m a fan of the change from a drab color scheme to a brighter one. The cover kind of reminds me of the repackaged Francesca Lia Block books. I find it interesting the paperback features a blurb from Libba Bray, whereas the hardcover edition didn’t have a blurb.

The hardcover edition of Cathy Ostlere’s Karma is interesting to me because it’s so simple. I read this book last year, and it’s a lengthy verse novel about 1980s India and the search for heritage. It’s a hard sell conceptually for teen readers but I think the cover here does the story some favors in that it might entice otherwise skeptical readers. It’s pink with yellow designs that are an homage to Indian culture. The couple on the front (beneath the title and above the author’s name) make sense in context of the story, too. I love the title font and how it fits nicely with the font for the author’s name, too. Sometimes the simpler, the better.

The paperback of Ostlere’s book came out in January, and you know, I think they got it even more right in this cover. Even though both the paperback and cover fail to give the sense of time period (I’m not sure how they could), I feel like both do a good job giving a sense of place. Like the hardcover, the paperback features a great title font, though I do find the font selected for the author’s name to be a little distracting. It’s not as in sync with the title font as the different fonts on the hardcover edition are. I love, too, that the cover doesn’t appear to be whitewashed; while we don’t get to see a face, the hands and arms here are brown and not white. For me, the flowers she’s holding sort of represent the heritage aspect of the story. Although they’re wilting, the girl’s holding them with reverence and respect. More generally, I find the color palette works here, and it’s all together visually appealing. There is just enough going on to keep an eye engaged without being over-the-top.

Adele Griffin’s psychological thriller Tighter is another cover that had a dull color palette going for it, but because of the story, I think it works just fine. I like the shadowy figure against the cover, almost like there’s a film over the picture and the person is trying to see through. It’s fitting for the story and I think it helps give the book a genre classification. It’s reminiscent of a scary film. The title font works fine, as does Griffin’s name font. I do find it interesting her name is larger than the title itself.

The paperback edition of Tighter will come out in June, and I think it hits the mark pretty well, too. It’s got the sort of drab but haunting feel of the setting with the darker background color, and the girl who is ghostly captures the genre of the story. I note again the fact that the author’s name is larger than the title, which I think is an interesting choice. I like that the fonts are the same (or at least very close to the same) as those on the hardcover. They work well, and the slight blur to the title font isn’t dizzying nor distracting. My one comment on this one is I think the cover might be more appealing to female readers than the hardcover, simply because it’s more obvious it’s a girl at the center of the story.

I think that the cover of Julie Chibbaro’s Deadly is jarring because it’s an uncomfortable color of greenish yellow, but it’s a cover that stands out for me because of that (as well as the silhouette-style girl on the cover, her dress crawling with infestation). This book stands out on a shelf, and I think it does a good job reflecting the content inside. It’s a story based on the legend of typhoid Mary, and it’s heavily vested in the science of disease. I’m a fan of the red font and lower case only lettering on the title, and I like that the tag line shifts its color scheme when it’s laid over the girl. One of the themes of this story is the role of females in society and the book challenges what it was to be a female in the early 20th century, especially when it comes to being a female interested in science. I think the cover does an interesting job reflecting that in portraying a girl in a big dress and in the fact the girl’s at a full stance. Her head is up and the bugs are moving down and away. She’s got some power and defiance to her.

The paperback edition of Deadly will be out at the end of the month, and I’m not feeling it the way I felt the hardcover. It’s dark and shadowy, and I don’t think it at all gives a sense of time — though admittedly, it probably gives a decent sense of place, as the story’s set in early 1900 New York City. There’s a definite mood developed in the image, but I’m not entirely sure it fits the story itself. The girl in the dress is in the shadow on the ground and at full stance, but I don’t think it connotes quite the power the girl in the hardcover edition does. I’m not a fan of the title font here, as I think it kind of bleeds right into the image itself. For me, this book looks a lot more like a mystery than a historical fiction, and I’m afraid it’ll blend into other books that just look dark on the shelf.

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about not being a fan of Janne Teller’s utterly bleak novel Nothing — but see, the thing is, I wasn’t a fan and yet it’s a book I think about a lot and think deep down I kind of admired for being so risky and different. The hardcover of the book is spot on in depicting the feeling of hopelessness the book conveys. It’s a late fall or early winter setting, with the trees lacking their leaves (need I tell you the symbolism there?). I quite like how the title is in a light box on top of the trees but the title itself almost fades into the background as if it, too, were nothing. I think the single girl in the middle crying into the one spot of color in the cover captures the story so, so well. I’m a little torn on teen appeal of the cover since it is so heavily symbolic and it’s not necessarily a stand-out on the shelf; however, the teens that this book would appeal to will so get the cover and appreciate it. It may be what draws them to it in the first place.

The paperback of Teller’s novel will be out in March, and it, too, gives a nice sense of the bleakness in the story. But this time, we have two people embracing one another, almost in desperation. I don’t read this as romantic at all and I think that it captures the mood of the book well. It’s desperate (at least for most of the characters). The coloring of the cover is again dulled, though this time, there’s not a symbolic spot of color quite the way there was in the hardcover, unless you count the girl’s hair. The title being centered and spread widely across the center of the image works, too, and like the hardcover, I think the simplicity of it helps it sort of blend in all together. 

I have a pile more of cover changes I want to talk about, but I’ll save them for another post in the near future — except one. Most of the changes above haven’t elicited a whole lot of reaction from me. I don’t think any of them are way off base, even though I’ve certainly preferred some of the hardcovers over the paperback. But here’s one I really don’t like. One that I think is a mega disservice.

Gabrielle Zevin’s All These Things I’ve Done has a great hardcover image. I love that the title is in red on graying image, and the only other spot of color is the dripping chocolate heart. There’s the back image of the cityscape, and while it’s shadowy, there’s enough recognition to know it’s New York City (even if in the story it’s a distant, future NYC — the shadow effect here gives a bit of the potential for the physical appearance to be different at that time). Aside from the heart, I think this is a cover with appeal to both genders because it’s fairly ambiguous. I appreciate there’s not a face or a person on the cover, and really, there is something to be said for simplicity in cover design. The other thing I think is neat about this cover is the juxtaposition of the all lower case lettering of the title with the all upper case lettering of the author’s name at the top, and yet, neither competes to be the bigger role. They’re in harmony.

Enter the paperback edition of the Zevin title and while we still have quite a bit of a blurred city image that works well, we now have a girl face. A girl face that looks a bit vamp-ish and scary. For me, this book is much less about the dystopic future of a city without chocolate or coffee but about a girl who looks like she’s going to do some pretty bad things in the city. I can’t put my finger on exactly what movie or television show image it reminds me of, but it reads much more action-adventure to me than the story really is. Although the new color palette doesn’t bother me, it’s the way the girl still manages to jump out from it that doesn’t work for me. There may also be a little too much going on in terms of the fonts, the stacking, and the color use in the title and author text.

Now I’m curious — do you think any of these do it better in one edition or the other? I’ve heard more than once that the hardcover is the one aimed toward librarians while the paperback is the one aimed at the true teen demographic, though I’m not sure how much I buy that excuse at all if the true goal is to sell a book (there’d be as much emphasis on both then to produce the best possible cover, period). Or have you seen any changes recently — say the last six months or so — that have caused you to stop and wonder why the change was made?