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Hardcover to Paperback Makeovers: 6+ Changes To Consider

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It’s a new year, and with that comes another round of cover makeovers, many of which are books that came out in hardcover last year. I’ve pulled together just a few of the changes I’ve seen popping up and I’ve saved a pile more for future posts.

Some of these redesigns in paperback are winners and some of them don’t seem to change much about the hardcover. In some instances, maybe the hardcover is all together better. One of the more interesting trends I’ve noticed is where the hardcover was unique — either a design or completely font-driven — and the paperback makeover turns into a stock photo of a girl. It makes the paperbacks blend together, as it’s hard to sometimes differentiate one girl from another on those covers, whereas a cover that has the title written across it largely or features some other memorable image just stands out more on the shelf and stands out more in my head.

Let’s dig in. As usual, the original hardcovers are on the left and their paperback incarnations are on the right.

Tease by Amanda Maciel came out in hardcover last spring, and the design of this one was really noteworthy. It looks like a gray cover with the title in cursive across it, but in person, it’s extremely shiny. Both the silver-y background and the pink-red title text pop in the treatment of the hardcover design.

The paperback, out April 28, goes in a completely different direction. The title is still the focal point of the cover, though rather than pop like it does on the hardcover, it’s more subdued in white. It’s also in a completely different — and I think less effective — font. Where the hardcover didn’t include the blurb on the front cover (they were on the back), the paperback makes use of the Hopkins blurb at the top left corner. I’m not really inspired by the stock image used here at all. It looks like a million other side-profile girl faces on YA covers. It’s hard for me to tell whether the new look is meant to draw a different audience or not. I can’t figure out whether it’s appealing to teen readers more or less, as the girl herself looks older than a teenager.

The hardcover of Tease is the better cover here, hands down. Neither cover necessarily hints at what’s going on inside the book, though.

Elizabeth Scott’s Heartbeat cover went through a few design tweaks before the final hardcover version appeared.  Though it’s a cover of a couple kissing, the way the title is treated makes this one pretty memorable. The design is eye-catching and in thinking about how this book looks face-out on a shelf, it’s really appealing. The hardcover plays into the idea there’s a romance in the book — and there is — even though the romance isn’t the driving force of the novel.

And perhaps that’s the reason for the paperback redesign, due out March 1. The makeover on this one goes to a stock image, and rather than play up the romance, this one plays up the grief aspect of the story. The girl is off-center, and she’s looking off in the distance. Her body language is one that’s sad or longing, and that fits with the story itself. Unlike the hardcover, which did everything in all capital letters, the paperback redesign went with putting everything in all lowercase letters. There’s a certain understatement to that and aesthetically, it’s really appealing. It’s quieter. That said, the paperback is almost forgettable — it’s a girl on the cover with nothing super distinguishing or remarkable about her. It doesn’t feel fresh or new.

This one is tough to call a better cover on in terms of what it tries to tell the reader about the story, but in terms of straight eye-catchiness and memorability the hardcover does it better.

Scholastic has been rolling out redesigned covers for Siobhan Vivian’s backlist, and her first YA novel, A Little Friendly Advice, will be seeing the paperback makeover treatment on shelves March 31.

The hardcover for this one is straightforward and simple. This is a book about friendship and a group of girl friends, and Ruby, the main character, receives a polaroid camera for her 16th birthday. That gift translates onto the hardcover, as each of the girls are depicted in a polaroid image. There’s a nice sense of each personality in the four photos, even though they’re all stock photos. More, all of the girls look like they’re teenagers.

The paperback maintains the feel of the hardcover, but it makes it even fresher. There are still four girls, and they all look quite similar to the original girls. But what really stands out — and what Scholastic’s done with the other redesigns of Vivian’s covers — is that these girls look like they’re 16. Where the girls on the hardcover do look like teens, there’s zero question about the ages of the girls on the paperback. They aren’t wearing styles that are dated, either, meaning that this cover has a long shelf life ahead of it, despite being a cover with people on it. I love, too, that the main character is looking right at the reader.

While I think both covers for A Little Friendly Advice are good, the paperback is a really nice, fresh update of the original. For readers who didn’t pick this one up the first time around, this will be especially appealing and exciting.

For those who haven’t seen the other redesigns, here are the updated looks for Not That Kind of Girl and Same Difference.

I always thought the hardcover of Jon Skovron’s Man Made Boy was pretty great. I love the big Frankenstein hand, and more, I love that it’s holding the title of the book itself. The font for the title is made up of circuitry, and I think the heart in place of an “O” was a clever touch. There’s no need to talk boy book or girl book, but this book cover definitely has a masculine feel to it, and I think with that feel, there’s appeal to guy readers especially. This cover, faced out, should go. Even with a heart on it. The heart is malfunctioning anyway.

But the paperback for Man Made Boy, due out July 7, takes what the hardcover does well and amps it up even more.  In a lot of ways, this cover feels powerful because it’s so understated. Where the hardcover is a bit loud, but packed with fun detail, the paperback is one cohesive image. More, though, I love how this cover undermines gender. We get that in the hardcover with the heart, but in the paperback, we get it because the image replicates doll pieces (do those push-out dolls still exist today?). Interestingly, the paperback ditches the big John Corey Whaley blurb in honor of a tag line, and it’s much more effective and useful to me as a reader — “A boy among monsters, a monster among people — a hero above all.” I know what this story is going to be about more with that than I do praise for the story.

Also interesting: the author is introduced to readers as the author of This Broken Wondrous World, which is the sequel to Man Made Boy and also features a similar cover treatment . . . but publishes nearly a month after the paperback is released. Maybe that’s a placeholder, but if it isn’t, that seems weird to be advertising an author by a book not yet published.

Both of these covers are pretty good, but because the sequel is going with a similar look to the paperback, maybe the paperback is a winner for cohesiveness.

Here’s a much-needed, very well-done, and memorable cover change for 21 Proms, an older anthology of short stories by 21 authors. The original cover on the left isn’t bad at all. It gets right to the point of the book: these are stories about prom. The authors on the cover include all contributors, rather than just the biggest, most well-known names (at the time — this book published in 2007). It’s a stock image, and the tag line fits for the collection.

The redesign, which came out December 31, does in a bit of a different direction but without sacrificing the feel of the original or getting away from the purpose of the anthology. The cover, which is an illustration, highlights the stories within the anthology. You don’t just see heterosexual couples represented here — there are multiple gay couples, as well as a lesbian couple, as well as individuals who are without a partner, as well as groups. There’s a nice range of representation on the cover, which is fitting with the content itself. One interesting and noteworthy change, though, is that because of how the illustration takes up so much of the cover, the author listing has been pared down greatly to just the biggest, most recognizable names in YA. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s an interesting change nonetheless.

The paperback for 21 Proms is a winner here. It’s fresh, it’s contemporary, and it’ll give life to this anthology for another generation of teen readers and prom story enthusiasts.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the cover for Lucy Christopher’s The Killing Woods when it came out last year. It’s not a bad cover by any means, but it’s kind of forgettable amid a ton of YA book covers featuring a shadowy person running through the woods. The tag line was kind of interesting, especially because it got to what was really going on in the story itself. This wasn’t so much a book about woods which were deadly, but rather, about the deadly games played in the woods.

The paperback redesign, which came out December 31, changes the cover quite a bit, while still maintaining a sense of foreboding to it. We’ve got the woods in the background, but rather than being blue, they’ve been made into a deep red color. And rather than feature a haunting moon, there’s a bird on a branch — keeping with the fact birds are a hot cover feature, this isn’t too surprising, even though it doesn’t play a role in the story. What the redesign does that I love, though, is the title font. If anything, the new font is what gives this cover the sense of fear to it. I’m an even bigger fan of the typerwriter font for Christopher’s name.

While neither cover knocks it out of the park, I think the paperback is a little more my taste. In terms of audience appeal, this is a tough one. The hardcover mimics a lot of adult thrillers in how it looks, which could be a draw for teen and adult readers. The paperback is quieter and more “literary,” which almost makes it feel like it’s reaching for more adult readers, rather than teen readers.

I’m less interested in talking about the paperback redesign for Miranda Kenneally’s Breathe, Annie, Breathe than I am about the fact this is the fourth incarnation of this book’s cover. The hardcover, on the left, came about after two previous designs were nixed after being revealed. Here’s what the two original-but-ditched hardcover designs:

After seeing so many designs of this one, my mind is muddled with which is the real one and which isn’t the real one. I wonder if that’s part of what drove the decision to choose yet another design for the paperback? If anything, though, the final paperback look fits with the look that the rest of the very loose “Hundred Oaks” series has going for it, with romance being what the driving image force is. If it hadn’t been redesigned, it would have been the only book that was just a girl on the cover.

2015 YA Book Cover Trends: Part II

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On Monday, I highlighted some of the trends showing up in the 2015 YA book covers that have popped up so far. Because there are so many, I had to break them up across two posts. Thus today, welcome to part two.

This round-up of trends features some that are obvious and some which are simply interesting or fun coincidences that emerged when looking at tons and tons of covers. All links will take you to the Goodreads page for the book, so you can read the description and add it to your to-be-read list. When you click through, see if you’re as keen on the most popular comparison title of the year as I am (spoiler, it’s We Were Liars — so many YA books are being compared to it this coming year).

If you know of other 2015 covers that fit any of these trends, feel free to let me know in the comments. If there’s another trend popping up I’ve missed or not talked about here or in Monday’s piece, I’d love to hear about those, too.

Turn Your Back On The Reader


This isn’t a new trend, but it caught my attention this year after looking at so many covers. It’s mostly females, but not without a male or two or three, and it’s when the model on the cover has their back to the reader. It’s a way to avoid putting a face on a book cover. Note how much long hair there is on the girls, too.

After the Red Rain by Barry Lyga, Peter Facinelli, and Robert DeFranco

All Fall Down by Ally Carter

The Bargaining by Carly Anne West

Better Than Perfect by Melissa Kantor

The Boys of Fire and Ash by Meaghan McIsaac

A Cold Legacy by Megan Shepherd

Deceptive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

The Distance Between Lost and Found by Kathryn Holmes

The Eternity Key by Bree Despain

Etherworld by Claudia Gabel and Cheryl Klam

The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. Pearson

I Am Her Revenge by Meredith Moore

I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Infected by Sophie Littlefield

Inherit Midnight by Kate Kae Myers

The Leveller by Julia Durango

A Matter of Heart by Amy Fellner Dominy

The Nightmare Charade by Mindee Arnett

Polaris by Mindee Arnett

Positively Beautiful by Wendy Mills

The Remedy by Suzanne Young

Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly

Scripted by Maya Rock

The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson

Skyscraping by Cordelia Jensen

Sophomore Year is Greek to Me by Meredith Zeitlin

A Book of Spirits and Thieves by Morgan Rhodes

The Heir by Kiera Cass

Unmade by Amy Rose Capetta

Until the Beginning by Amy Plum

Between Us and the Moon by Rebecca Maizel

When Reason Breaks by Cindy L. Rodriguez

Carnivals


Who doesn’t enjoy a good carnival scene, complete with a ferris wheel, on their book cover?



Our Brothers at the Bottom of the Sea by Jonathan Kranz

Undertow by Michael Buckley

Butterflies


We’ve seen birds and planes, so it almost makes sense there’s also quite a few butterflies showing up on covers in 2015. I prefer to this to the insects that were showing up in past years.

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Dream A Little Dream by Kerstin Gier

Note that both of these feature the Blue Morphos. Are they coming back?

Hold Me Like A Breath by Tiffany Schmidt

The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent

Illustrated Covers


This trend won’t be going away any time soon. I’m still not sure it’s one I love, though many of these are pretty great. The challenge is that after a while, they sort of blend into each other, even when they’re all original designs.

7 Days by Eve Ainsworth

The Improbable Theory of Ana & Zak by Brian Katcher

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

Between the Notes by Sharon Huss Roat

Breakout by Kevin Emerson

Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Eden West by Pete Hautman

The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner

If You Were Me by Sam Hepburn

Invincible by Amy Reed

The Kidney Hypothetical by Lisa Yee

Everybody Knows Your Name by Andrea Seigel and Brent Bradshaw

Little Bit by Alex Wheatle

Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond

Love, Fortunes, and Other Disasters by Kimberly Karalius

Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

Mosquitoland by David Arnold



My Best Everything by Sarah Tomp

The Nightmare Charade by Mindee Arnett

Pretending to be Erica by Michelle Painchaud

The Prom Goer’s Guide to Interstellar Excursion by Chris McCoy

Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George — Not sure why I can only find a draft cover, but it’s gorgeous and I hope that’s what they go with for a final look.

The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek by Seth Rudetsky

The Truth Commission by Susan Juby

Valiant by Sarah McGuire

Vanished by E. E. Cooper

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Eyes


We’ll get to see some more big eyes this year. Oh, and I’m putting in one that’s a little harder to pull out but they’re there. Watching you.

5 to 1 by Holly Bodger

City 1 by Gregg Rosenblum

Reawakened by Colleen Houck

Salt & Stone by Victoria Scott

Skandal by Lindsay Smith

Purple, with Spools of Thread


This is just a two cover coincidence, but strange that they’re purple covers with spools of thread on them. I think Fig‘s cover might be my favorite so far of 2015, though I don’t think it’s a YA book cover at all. It feels more like it’s either middle grade or adult (and to be fair, I think Valiant may be a middle grade book, not YA).

Valiant by Sarah McGuire

Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Fractured Pieces


Or maybe in some cases, it’s more like a collage than fractured pieces. These all kind of have an Instagram-y feel to them, too.

99 Days by Kate Contugno

The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

Duplicity by N. K. Traver

Making Pretty by Corey Ann Haydu

Tracers by J. J. Howard

I


Hearts. Are. Everywhere. Not only are there a ton of hearts on the covers as part of the image, but there is more than one book where the heart image is used in place of the word “heart” in the title.

Alive by Chandler Baker

The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak by Brian Katcher

Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan

Bright Lights, Dark Nights by Stephen Emond

Emmy and Oliver by Robin Benway

Encore to an Empty Room by Kevin Emerson

Flirty Dancing by Jenny McLachlan

From Where I Watch You by Shannon Grogan

Killer Within by S. E. Green

Love, Fortunes, and Other Disasters by Kimberly Karalius

My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga

Not After Everything by Michelle Levy

Play On by Michelle Smith

Revenge, Ice Cream, and Other Things Best Served Cold by Katie Finn

Sophomore Year is Greek to Me by Meredith Zeitlin

Things We Know By Heart by Jessi Kirby

We Can Work It Out by Elizabeth Eulberg

What Remains by Helene Dunbar
The Wrong Side of Right by Jenn Marie Thorne

Bows & Arrows


While there are still a lot of daggers on YA covers — a trend I noted last year — I thought the look of the bow and arrow being on covers was more eye-catching this year.

Arrows by Melissa Gorzelanczyk

The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons

Ignite by Sara B. Larson

The Storyspinner by Becky Wallace

Gold Objects


The reason that the bow and arrow covers caught my eye was because I’d initially seen a lot of golden objects appearing on cover images. So why don’t we look at the gold objects? There’s nothing connecting the objects but their color and how they stand out on the cover because of it.

Ignite by Sara B. Larson

Mark of the Thief by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Miss Mayhem by Rachel Hawkins — Another cover that’s on my short list of favorites for 2015.

Woven by Michael Jensen and David Powers King

Into the Woods


Since I’ve looked at plenty of objects on covers, how about settings on covers? I haven’t read these to know, but I have a feeling that the woods here aren’t going to be a great place to be heading.

Andreo’s Race by Pam Withers

The Bargaining by Carly Anne West

The Distance Between Lost and Found by Kathryn Holmes

The Eternity Key by Bree Despain

The Revelation of Louisa May by Michaela MacColl

Renegade by Kerry Wilkinson

Strange Skies by Kristi Helvig

Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton –Add this to my favorite covers short list, too, and it reminds me quite a bit of Amy Reed’s gorgeous cover for Invincible.

What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott

Girls Behind Words


Another way to obscure the face of a cover model is to put her behind the text for the book’s title.

Damage Done by Amanda Panitch

Dead to Me by Mary McCoy

The Notorious Pagan Jones by Nina Berry — I hope this is a mistake about being YA because, while it’s fitting with the time frame of the story, that cover model is older than me, which is older than a teenger.

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Four Teens, Just Hanging Around


I’m not sure what’s special about the number four, but I have noticed more covers with multiple people on them seem to have groups of four. Even better if they’re in groups of four and in the distance and shadow-y.

The Cost of All Things by Maggie Lehrman

Get Dirty by Gretchen McNeil

The Night We Said Yes by Lauren Gibaldi

Promposal by Rhonda Helms

A Bright, Fully-Saturated Color Palate


To wrap up this post, let’s look at the color trend for 2015: bright, bold, saturated colors. These are covers that are standing out because they’re using so many colors on them.

All We Have Is Now by Lisa Schroeder

The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise by Matthew Crow

Between the Notes by Sharon Huss Roat

Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein

City Love by Susane Colasanti

The Cost of All Things by Maggie Lehrman

Dreamfire by Kit Alloway

Faking Perfect by Rebecca Phillips

Fire Fall by Bethany Frenette

First There Was Forever by Juliana Romano

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

One Thing Stolen by Beth Kephart



Parallel Triangles by Kimberly Ann Miller

Positively Beautiful by Wendy Mills

Rogue Waves by Jennifer Donnelly

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord

The Summer After You and Me by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

Survive the Night by Danielle Vega — Such a neat cover!

Three Day Summer by Sarvenaz Tash

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton

What You Left Behind by Jessica Verdi

The Wrong Side of Right by Jenn Marie Thorne

You and Me and Him by Kris Dinnison

2015 YA Book Cover Trends: Part I

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Every year when the end of December is in sight, I like to spend a little time looking through the covers for books coming out in the new year. It’s always interesting to spot trends going on in design. Covers are a big part of the marketing of a book, and this is especially try in YA — trends for book cover design tend to come and go in waves, hoping to capitalize off what looks are doing particularly well.

As interesting to me is seeing what sorts of design trends or micro-trends or similarities are similar to those which have come in years past. For 2015, as seen in the last couple of years, there’s an abundance of birds appearing on covers, either as the main image of the cover or as part of a bigger image. I’ve skipped including a section on font-driven covers or covers where the title takes up more than have the cover real estate because not only has it been a trend for the last two years or so, but it’s so common that pulling them together would take a long, long time.

This is a two-part post, with part two coming on Thursday, as there are a lot of interesting and unique trends and commonalities worth looking at and thinking about. Some covers fall into only one category, while others have found themselves across multiple trend groups.

I’d love to know if you are aware of other covers fitting any of these categories. Because this would otherwise be too long a pair of posts, I’m not including book descriptions, but rather, links to the titles on Goodreads so you can check them out for yourself and, if you want, add them to your to-be-read lists. Hopefully, some of these books will be new ones to get on your radar.

Put a Bird on It


I feel like I’ve made the same Portlandia joke in a few posts, but it still stands. Birds continue to be popular on covers of YA books.

Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

Dearest by Althea Kontis

Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn

Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner

If You Were Me by Sam Hepburn

Little Bit by Alex Wheatle

Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

Paperweight by Meg Haston

Positively Beautiful by Wendy Mills (I’m not sure why I can only find a draft cover for this)

Save Me by Jenny Elliott

A Sense of the Infinite by Hilary T. Smith

The Summer After You and Me by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

Tether by Anna Jarzab

The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell

Things I’ll Never Say edited by Ann Angel

Three Day Summer by Sarvenaz Tash
Tracers by J. J. Howard (Which uses the same stock image seen in this post)

Until the Beginning by Amy Plum

When My Heart Was Wicked by Tricia Stirling

Legs


One body part there’s a lot of in 2015? Legs. Some of them are covered and some of them aren’t. But legs!

All The Rage by Courtney Summers

Jesse’s Girl by Miranda Kenneally

Joyride by Anna Banks

One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin

Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly

Tracers by J. J. Howard

The Truth About My Success by Dyan Sheldon

Tunnel Vision by Susan Adrian

Wrong About The Guy by Claire LaZebnik

Post-It Notes


I’m fond of using post-its, almost to a fault, and I think they make for a nice look on a book cover.

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand

The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre

That “Instagram” Look


A number of cover images are being filtered in a very Instagram-style way, not to mention they’re styled either like selfies or the kind of pictures you’d see scrolling through a teen’s Instagram account. I’m pretty sure there are more covers that would fit this Instagram-y trend, but I’m limiting to the obvious ones.

Anything Could Happen by Will Walton

Faking Perfect by Rebecca Phillips

Finding Paris by Joy Preble

First There Was Forever by Juliana Romano

The Law of Loving Others by Kate Axelrod

Like It Never Happened by Emily Adrian

Love is in the Air by A. Destiny and Alex Kahler

Making Pretty by Corey Ann Haydu

Stand Off by Andrew Smith

We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach

Devils


There may only be 2 of them, but I find this cover commonality amusing and enjoyable. I think the Schreiber cover is especially clever.

Con Academy by Joe Schreiber

Hellhole by Gina Damico

Thorns and Vines


There’s something crawling along the sides or centers of these covers, be they thorns or vines or flowery twigs.

About A Girl by Sarah McCarry

Blood Will Tell by April Henry

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons

Poppy in the Field by Mary Hooper

The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead

Tear You Apart by Sarah Cross

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

Willowgrove by Kathleen Peacock

Light-up Place Signs


I can’t wait for two of these three covers to be continuously confused next year because they’re so similar.

Finding Paris by Joy Preble

I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Kissing in America by Margo Rabb

Fingerprints


While there are a couple of noteworthy covers featuring hands, I think the fingerprints on covers is more interesting to look at.

Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway

If You Were Me by Sam Hepburn

Soulprint by Megan Miranda

Cityscapes


This has been a trend for a while, probably because having a nice cityscape on a cover feels like it’s action-adventure or a good post-apocalyptic/dystopian story.

After the Red Rain by Barry Lyga, Peter FAcinelli, and Robert DeFranco

All Fall Down by Ally Carter

Bright Lights, Dark Nights by Stephen Emond

City 1 by Greg Rosenblum

City Love by Susane Colasanti

The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

Deceptive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

Feral Pride by Cynthia Leitich Smith (I love that this is the Austin skyline — I’ve never seen that on a book cover before!)

Fire Fall by Bethany Frenette

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

If You Were Me by Sam Hepburn

Infected by Sophie Littlefield

Invasion by Galaxy Craze

One Stolen Thing by Beth Kephart

Quake by Patrick Carman

Rook by Sharon Cameron

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

Skyscraping by Cordelia Jensen

The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek by Seth Rudetsky

Tracers by J. J. Howard (When your cover is made up of a ton of images collaged together, you’re going to fit into a ton of trends)

The Wrong Side of Right by Jenn Marie Thorne

We’re on a Boat


The popular mode of transportation on YA covers in 2015 is the boat.

The boat.

Love, Fortunes, and Other Disasters by Kimberly Karalius

The Nightmare Charade by Mindee Arnett

Tangled Webs by Lee Bross

The Trouble with Destiny by Lauren Morrill

Planes Aren’t Disappearing Though


Maybe it’s just popular to have a mode of transportation on a cover, since it seems as though planes are doing well, too. When you don’t want a bird, why not use a plane?

Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein

Breakout by Kevin Emerson

Deceptive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

Promposal by Rhonda Helms

Sophomore Year is Greek to Me by Meredith Zeitlin

Floating Heads on a Blue Background

Let’s end the first post in this two-part series with one of the weirder commonalities. This isn’t a trend, per se, but it caught my eye as I was looking through covers. I can’t wait to see how quickly these two become confused by readers and those who work with readers because they’re both weird and weirdly similar.

Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff

In A World Just Right by Jen Brooks

Fabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More Often

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There’s no big introduction necessary for this post. It’s not a post that requires a whole lot more than the title.

It’s a round-up of the awesome, diverse YA book covers that will be hitting shelves in 2015 that have been released so far. I’m including descriptions from Goodreads for each of the books, along with a link so you can add them to your to-be-read lists.

In short: I want to see more and more covers like these that embrace diversity right on the front cover. No shadows, no fading-to-black, no hiding, no sunglasses-covering-the eyes, no backs turned. More like this, please! If I’m missing any other recent cover reveals from 2015 that are this straightforward, let me know in the comments. I want to see them and I want to share them.

Endangered by Lamar Giles (April 21): Her name is Lauren, but everyone calls her Panda. What they don’t know is that behind their backs, she also goes by Gray. As in Gray Scales, the photo blog that her classmates are addicted to because of the secrets Gray exposes: a jock buying drugs, a teacher in a compromising position, the richest girl in school shoplifting. But no one knows Panda’s the vigilante photographer behind it all. At least, she thinks no one knows—until she gets a note from the Admirer, who’s not only caught her red-handed acting as Gray, but also threatens to reveal everything unless Panda joins her Admirer in a little game of Dare or … Dare. Panda plays along. Anything to keep the secrets she’s protected for years. But when the game turns deadly, Panda doesn’t know what to do. And she might need to step out of the shadows to save herself … and everyone else on the Admirer’s hit list, including some of the classmates she’s loathed and exposed for years.

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz (March 3): Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.

Everywhere she turns, someone feels she’s too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself? 

 
Under The Lights by Dahlia Adler (June 30): Josh Chester loves being a Hollywood bad boy, coasting on his good looks, his parties, his parents’ wealth, and the occasional modeling gig. But his laid-back lifestyle is about to change. To help out his best friend, Liam, he joins his hit teen TV show, Daylight Falls…opposite Vanessa Park, the one actor immune to his charms. (Not that he’s trying to charm her, of course.) Meanwhile, his drama-queen mother blackmails him into a new family reality TV show, with Josh in the starring role. Now that he’s in the spotlight—on everyone’s terms but his own—Josh has to decide whether a life as a superstar is the one he really wants.


Vanessa Park has always been certain about her path as an actor, despite her parents’ disapproval. But with all her relationships currently in upheaval, she’s painfully uncertain about everything else. When she meets her new career handler, Brianna, Van is relieved to have found someone she can rely on, now that her BFF, Ally, is at college across the country. But as feelings unexpectedly evolve beyond friendship, Van’s life reaches a whole new level of confusing. And she’ll have to choose between the one thing she’s always loved…and the person she never imagined she could.

About A Girl by Sarah McCarry (July 14): Eighteen-year-old Tally is absolutely sure of everything: her genius, the love of her adoptive family, the loyalty of her best friend, Shane, and her future career as a Nobel prize-winning astronomer. There’s no room in her tidy world for heartbreak or uncertainty—or the charismatic, troubled mother who abandoned her soon after she was born. But when a sudden discovery upends her fiercely ordered world, Tally sets out on an unexpected quest to seek out the reclusive musician who may hold the key to her past—and instead finds Maddy, an enigmatic and beautiful girl who will unlock the door to her future. The deeper she falls in love with Maddy, the more Tally begins to realize that the universe is bigger—and more complicated—than she ever imagined. Can Tally face the truth about her family—and find her way home in time to save herself from its consequences?

The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler (August 4): The youngest of six talented sisters, Elyse d’Abreau was destined for stardom—until a boating accident took everything from her. Now, the most beautiful singer in Tobago can’t sing. She can’t even speak.


Seeking quiet solitude, Elyse accepts a friend’s invitation to Atargatis Cove. Named for the mythical first mermaid, the Oregon seaside town is everything Elyse’s home in the Caribbean isn’t: An ocean too cold for swimming, parties too tame for singing, and people too polite to pry—except for one.

Christian Kane is a notorious playboy—insolent, arrogant, and completely charming. He’s also the only person in Atargatis Cove who doesn’t treat Elyse like a glass statue. He challenges her to express herself, and he admires the way she treats his younger brother Sebastian, who believes Elyse is the legendary mermaid come to life. 

When Christian needs a first mate for the Cove’s high-stakes Pirate Regatta, Elyse reluctantly stows her fear of the sea and climbs aboard. The ocean isn’t the only thing making waves, though—swept up in Christian’s seductive tide and entranced by the Cove’s charms, Elyse begins to wonder if a life of solitude isn’t what she needs. But changing course again means facing her past. It means finding her inner voice. And scariest of all, it means opening her heart to a boy who’s best known for breaking them.

This Side of Home by Renee Watson (February 3): Identical twins Nikki and Maya have been on the same page for everything—friends, school, boys and starting off their adult lives at a historically African-American college. But as their neighborhood goes from rough-and-tumble to up-and-coming, suddenly filled with pretty coffee shops and boutiques, Nikki is thrilled while Maya feels like their home is slipping away. Suddenly, the sisters who had always shared everything must confront their dissenting feelings on the importance of their ethnic and cultural identities and, in the process, learn to separate themselves from the long shadow of their identity as twins.
 
Scarlett Undercover by Jennifer Latham (May 19): Meet Scarlett, a smart, sarcastic, kick-butt, Muslim American heroine, ready to take on crime in her hometown of Las Almas. When a new case finds the private eye caught up in a centuries-old battle of evil genies and ancient curses, Scarlett discovers that her own family secrets may have more to do with the situation than she thinks — and that cracking the case could lead to solving her father’s murder.
The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds (January 6): Just when seventeen-year-old Matt thinks he can’t handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who’s dealt with a lot more—and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down—in this wry, gritty novel from the author of When I Was the Greatest.


Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died—although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can’t handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad’s snagging bottles of whiskey, Matt’s snagging fifteen bucks an hour. Not bad. But everything else? Not good. Then Matt meets Lovey. She’s got a crazy name, and she’s been through more crazy than he can imagine. Yet Lovey never cries. She’s tough. Really tough. Tough in the way Matt wishes he could be. Which is maybe why he’s drawn to her, and definitely why he can’t seem to shake her. Because there’s nothing more hopeful than finding a person who understands your loneliness—and who can maybe even help take it away.

 

Bright Lights, Dark Nights by Stephen Emond (August 11): Walter Wilcox has never been in love. That is, until he meets Naomi, and sparks, and clever jokes, fly. But when his cop dad is caught in a racial profiling scandal, Walter and Naomi, who is African American, are called out at school, home, and online. Can their bond (and mutual love of the Foo Fighters) keep them together?

With black-and-white illustrations throughout and a heartfelt, humorous voice, Bright Lights, Dark Nights authentically captures just how tough first love can be…and why it’s worth fighting for.

Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed (March 24): This heart-wrenching novel explores what it is like to be thrust into an unwanted marriage. Has Naila’s fate been written in the stars? Or can she still make her own destiny?

Naila’s conservative immigrant parents have always said the same thing: She may choose what to study, how to wear her hair, and what to be when she grows up—but they will choose her husband. Following their cultural tradition, they will plan an arranged marriage for her. And until then, dating—even friendship with a boy—is forbidden. When Naila breaks their rule by falling in love with Saif, her parents are livid. Convinced she has forgotten who she truly is, they travel to Pakistan to visit relatives and explore their roots. But Naila’s vacation turns into a nightmare when she learns that plans have changed—her parents have found her a husband and they want her to marry him, now! Despite her greatest efforts, Naila is aghast to find herself cut off from everything and everyone she once knew. Her only hope of escape is Saif . . . if he can find her before it’s too late.

 

The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell (May 5): Japanese teenager, Sora, is diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Lonely and isolated, Sora turns to the ancient wisdom of the samurai for guidance and comfort. But he also finds hope in the present; through the internet he finds friends that see him, not just his illness. This is a story of friendship and acceptance, and testing strength in an uncertain future.

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older (June 30): Sierra Santiago was looking forward to a fun summer of making art, hanging out with her friends, and skating around Brooklyn. But then a weird zombie guy crashes the first party of the season. Sierra’s near-comatose abuelo begins to say “No importa” over and over. And when the graffiti murals in Bed-Stuy start to weep…. Well, something stranger than the usual New York mayhem is going on.

Sierra soon discovers a supernatural order called the Shadowshapers, who connect with spirits via paintings, music, and stories. Her grandfather once shared the order’s secrets with an anthropologist, Dr. Jonathan Wick, who turned the Caribbean magic to his own foul ends. Now Wick wants to become the ultimate Shadowshaper by killing all the others, one by one. With the help of her friends and the hot graffiti artist Robbie, Sierra must dodge Wick’s supernatural creations, harness her own Shadowshaping abilities, and save her family’s past, present, and future.

* While this isn’t a final cover concept, I love it and hope whatever the final choice is, it’s in this direction. 

Hardcover to Paperback Makeovers: Backlist YA Covers To Consider

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We talk a lot about cover makeovers when it comes to new books, and recently, I talked about a slew of books that had their titles changed when they were rereleased. But after spending a little time with recent publisher catalogs, I noticed a pile of older YA titles — those which aren’t front list but have been out for quite a few years — being rereleased with new paperback editions. Some of these are for anniversary editions and some are being redone in conjunction with a new release by the same author, often as a way to garner attention for the older title for when readers get hooked on the new book.

Some of these redesigns are winners and some of them aren’t as great. While the designs tend to mimic trends going on in the moment, it’s always interesting to see which of the older designs managed to become somewhat iconic in reader minds and to conjecture whether the same can be said about the newer designs. If we’ve read a book in the past, do we tend to prefer that cover? Will a new cover bring new readers who haven’t otherwise discovered the book before? 
All descriptions are from WorldCat. As always, I’d love to hear what covers are speaking to you and which ones were better left in their older versions. All of these are single titles being repackaged, except for one, which is a trilogy. In some cases, this isn’t the book’s first redesign, so I’ve tried to grab the original hardcover and original paperback design. 

On the left is the original hardcover design for Gail Giles’s Shattering Glass and on the right is the original redesigned paperback. They maintain a lot of similar elements. It’s just the perspective and focus changes a bit. In the hardcover, the boy’s face is hard to make out behind the glass. In the paperback, the shattered glass is focused around his eye and the rest of his face can be made out. The design for the title and author name differ quite a bit, too.
Out January 6, 2015 is the new paperback design of Shattering Glass. This cover goes in an entirely new direction, and it’s a positive one. There’s no longer a face nor a pane of glass. Instead, we have broken glasses. It showcases the violence within the book, and the fact there’s blood on the cover is enough reason to pause. How often do we see that? How often do we see a book with such a violent cover written by a woman? This cover is reminiscent of Winger and that’s not a bad thing. 
My only issue with the new cover is that the alternate coloring for “Shattering” isn’t extremely clear. It took me a long time to pull out that the red says “Hate,” and maybe that’s because it’s an uneven spacing between the letters — I kept reading it as “Hatte,” rather than “Hate.” I almost think the impact would be greater if that weren’t how they chose to color the title. 

I always thought the cover for John C. Ford’s The Morgue and Me was pretty good. It tells you everything you need to know about the book: it’s a murder mystery. But the new paperback on the right, out February 19, 2015, is such a winner. It’s creepier than the original, but it’s creepier in a way that has tremendous appeal to fans of murder mysteries. Where I think the original cover is a little young, the redesign has more appeal to a wider range of readers. I’m a big fan of how creepy toe-tags are on book covers, and the redesign still managed to get the money into the image (you can see it just below the “E” in “Morgue.” The fact this is void of most color is what makes it most eye-catching, too, and it sets the tone for the book. 

Jandy Nelson has a new book out this month, and so it’s not really a surprise to see the cover of her first book getting a redesign. Above are the original hardcover design on the left and the original paperback redesign on the right. I’m not a particularly huge fan of either cover, though they both fit the tone of The Sky is Everywhere and both definitely give off the “literary YA” vibe. Both also do a pretty solid job of making clear this book is meant to have crossover appeal to teen and adult readers, perhaps more so in the hardcover edition than the paperback. I think it’s a little bit of a stronger, more iconic cover, as well. The paperback falls into the trend many paperbacks at the time had: a girl who is on the cover, and in this case, she’s lying down (asleep probably more than dead in this instance). 
Penguin’s catalog keeps trying to tell me that the newly redesigned paperback, as seen above, came out in 2011, but I know that’s not the case. You can see it as available for purchase on retail sites, too, though on Amazon, when you look at the back cover of the “view” feature, it shows the original paperback redesign image. And the kicker for knowing this isn’t an older redesign? It notes that Nelson is the author of I’ll Give You The Sun, meaning that this book is either just out or won’t be out until her sophomore title comes out. That also tells you why the redesign: they’re banking on I’ll Give You The Sun to be the reason people would want to pick up The Sky is Everywhere, which now looks a heck of a lot like the second book in terms of design. 
The new paperback look is neither here nor there for me. It’s pretty enough and clearly, it’s angled toward literary readers and being put in a position to capture crossover readership. While I think it’s also going for an iconic look to it, it looks too much like I’ll Give You The Sun to be really memorable for me. It’s nice, but it’s not particularly special. 
Polly Shulman’s Enthusiasm has been a staple selection for “clean reads”/younger YA but the cover hasn’t always done it a whole lot of favors. On the left is the original hardcover and on the right, the original paperback redesign, which didn’t change a whole lot from the original, except to superimpose the image atop a well-known Jane Austen cover. The hardcover always felt a little too enthusiastic to me in terms of color choices, though that’s toned down in the paperback. The jumping girl though, I’ve never quite understood. I do appreciate she’s not wearing heels and instead has gym shoes. She’s rebellious. Note the Stephenie Meyer blurb beneath the girl on the paperback — that was an especially big deal when the book published in 2007.

Like The Sky is Everywhere‘s new paperback, I can find no information about the new paperback for Enthusiasm. It appears to be available now. This cover is a refreshing change from the originals, though I am curious about the fact there’s now a boy in the foreground and the girl has been relegated to the mirror in the background. The design of the mirror, as well as the wallpaper, really do get at some of the classic influences of Austen that fit the novel. More interesting, the blurb for this book is no longer the one with Stephenie Meyer’s name attached. It’s been changed to a Time Magazine blurb — in many ways, that’s a smart change. Not because Meyer isn’t still important, but because Meyer’s influence on today’s teens, as opposed to the teens who may have been compelled to read this in 2007, 2008, 2009, is definitely different. This redesign is a winner. 

The original hardcover design for Chris Lynch’s Inexcusable was fairly risque when it came out 10 years ago. The bra on the cover! While it was certainly eye-catching, I do wonder how that design choice impacted the readership. Would boys pick up a book with a bra on the cover? I’m not entirely convinced. The paperback redesign of the book, on the right, easily has more appeal for a wider audience. There’s the football field under the lights. There’s the half a face of a girl, her mouth covered by the title, which in effect silences her. Laurie Halse Anderson’s blurb is a big boon on the cover, too: the design feels a little like Speak and that only further gives insight into what the book is about. The hardcover, on the other hand, is less effective to that point. 
On January 13, 2015, the tenth anniversary edition of Lynch’s Inexcusable will be published with another new cover. This one is exceptionally eye-catching and powerful. Design-wise, it’s great. But I don’t love it for this book. Although the title tells you that what happens isn’t excusable, the bed with the rumpled sheets almost makes this look too romantic. The tone feels off and at a disconnect with the title, and I think it might be a bit of a hard sell to teen readers (especially boys, for the same reason noted with the original hardcover). I think were this an adult novel, it would work much better than it does as a teen novel. I’m a much bigger fan of the original paperback look. 

Here’s what the first two books in Margaret Peterson Haddix’s “Palace of Lies” series look like. These are definitely on the younger end of the YA range, if not considered outright middle grade books. The covers remind me quite a bit of Meg Cabot, and that’s not a bad thing. I think there’s some good appeal for these titles with fans of Cabot’s The Princess Diaries.
There’s a third book coming to the series April 7, 2015 titled Palace of Lies, and with it, all of the books in the series are getting a redesign. They’ll all be available on the same day.

These are gorgeous, well-designed covers that will appeal to the same group of readers who loved the series initially. That’s not a bad thing. But what makes these covers even more special is that they are much more timeless than the originals, which look a bit dated design-wise because they used models on them, rather than illustrations. The colors are fresh and memorable. If I were buying books for my library collection, I’d order the entire redesigned set and retire the older covers. 

I can’t track down the exact timeline on the cover evolution of Let It Snow, the holiday short story anthology featuring John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle, so here’s a look at the three cover designs it’s hard. All three have been pretty straightforward in what the book is about. These are holiday short stories. The book features three heavy hitters in YA. I don’t have a whole lot more to say about the designs since they all get right to it, and I think they’re all pretty good. They’re all the kind of images that work and will work for a long time.

But there’s a redesign coming September 30 of this year. And you know what this redesign does that none of the other covers did? It gets to the romance angle of these holiday short stories. It’s definitely a pretty cover, and clearly, there’s some love going on here. But to me, it’s less of a long-lasting cover image than any of the other three, and I wonder about the ages of those models (teenagers? I have a hard time buying that). I suspect part of why this book gets redesigned like it does is because it does feature such big names in YA, so the new looks get it to new readers who may not know about it in the same way they know about the authors’ other works. More, in this case, I suspect the fact that there’s a new anthology of holiday short stories written by New York Times Bestsellers and edited by Stephanie Perkins, out in early October, helped fuel the redesign (and focus on romance).

I remember when the redesign for E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks came out, the paperback was such a disappointment to me. I love the hardcover. It embodies the story so well, and it’s got something iconic to it. The paperback, on the other hand, features a girl who looks far too young to be Frankie. The entire design of it, including the school in the background and the way that the title is rendered on top of a piece of old, torn paper, feels mismatched. 
Recently — and, as far as I can tell, available now — there was another paperback redesign of Frankie. This one is better than the original paperback, but it’s still not as iconic as the original hardcover. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, though, and I’m not sure it tells me anything about the book nor about how feminist it is nor about how awesome Frankie is as a character. Sure, those things aren’t evident in the original hardcover, either, but this redesign looks like so many other books that I’m not sure it does anything special or new. In fact, Frankie, if that’s her on the left, is wearing pretty nice clothes and toting a nice purse for someone who is who she is in the story. Or maybe Frankie is the one on the right? If that’s the case, I can be into that a little more. 
But I want to know: what happened to the dog emblem?