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On Books Changing Titles

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Cover changes can be hit or miss for me. Sometimes, the redesigns are worlds better than the original and other times, the change doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. That’s why I love thinking about and writing about those changes — who will the new look appeal to? Does it better reflect the story? 

But one thing I can say I almost universally dislike is a title change. 
Titles are a marketing tool in YA. It’s what can grab a reader immediately. If you spend any time looking through author Q&As, you’ll see many of them talk about title changes that happened well before the book went to press. A number of authors have mentioned they’ve never once named a book themselves. 
So when a title changes, it’s most likely because it wasn’t selling well. The change in title, like the change in cover image, is an attempt to grab new reader attention in a way the original concept did not. 
But for anyone who works in a library or who works with readers in a bookstore, classroom, or similar situation, a title change is a big pain in the ass. Did you order the book already? Will readers be asking for one title and then be disappointed when they’re handed a book with a different one? While there are ways to indicate a title change — you see it on the cover itself and in most library catalog systems, there’s a line you can add for it — it’s not a change that’s necessarily beneficial to readers themselves. 
I know sometimes when an older title comes back into print, the title change can spark a new interest (especially with combined with a fresh cover). But over the last couple of years, it seems there have been a number of YA books getting the title change treatment when a book goes from its original hardcover to paperback. It’s getting sort of challenging to keep track of them at this point, especially when those title changes are paired with a cover change. Are you supposed to keep track? I suspect it’s not an issue to double order books, but it’s certainly not going to make confusion less of a problem. 
Here’s a look at some of the recent YA title changes. I’d love to know of others that you have seen or know about, so feel free to let me know in the comments. I’d also be curious what you think of this: pain in the ass or something you’re willing to deal with? Which of these changes do you think benefit readers better? And more, have you seen this happen much in adult fiction? While it’s not an arena I’m as familiar with, I can’t come up with any examples as I’m thinking about it. 
All descriptions are from WorldCat. I’m putting the original title and cover on the left, with the redesign and renamed book on the right.

Better Than Perfect is the renamed Wild Cards by Simone Elkeles. Interesting, this one is going to keep the idea of “Wild Cards” as the series name. 

Derek Fitzpatrick is kicked out of boarding school and must move with his stepmother to her childhood home in Illinois, where he meets Ashtyn Parker, who may be able to achieve her dream with Derek’s help.

Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans has been renamed The Memory of After. The same model who was on the original cover graces the redesign, too. 

Seventeen-year-old Felicia Ward is dead and spending her time in the hive reliving her happy memories–but when Julian, a dark memory from her past, breaks into the hive and demands that she come with him, she discovers that even the afterlife is more complicated and dangerous then she dreamed.

I Am The Weapon by Allen Zadoff is the renamed Boy Nobody in paperback. The cover changed a tiny bit and I actually think it made the retitling more confusing since they’re so similar. 

Teen assassin Boy Nobody is sent on a mission to assassinate the head of a domestic terrorism cell, but his mission turns up more questions about his job than answers.

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher will be renamed Yours Truly when it comes out in paperback in October. This one’s keeping the same cover. 

Zoe, a teenager in Bath, England, writes letters to a death-row inmate in Texas, hoping to find comfort in sharing her guilty secret over the death of a friend with someone who can never tell her family.

Christopher Pike’s Witch World was renamed and repackaged as Red Queen. But the “Witch World” phrase sticks around as the title of the series. 

On a high school graduation road trip to Las Vegas, Jessie, still in love with ex-boyfriend Jimmy, discovers that she possesses extraordinary powers and the ability to exist in both the real world and an alternate one.

Here are some backlist books that have gotten ye old title change: 

Nova Ren Suma’s Dani Noir was originally published as a middle grade title and was updated and repackaged/titled as a YA novel, Fade Out.

Imaginative thirteen-year-old Dani feels trapped in her small mountain town with only film noir at the local art theater and her depressed mother for company, but while trying to solve a real mystery she learns much about herself and life.

The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young was retitled and repackaged as Things I Shouldn’t Think.

Imaginative Massachusetts seventeen-year-old Dani Solomon confesses she has been troubled by thoughts of harming Alex, the little boy she loves to babysit, triggering gossip and a media frenzy that makes “Dani Death” the target of an extremist vigilante group.

Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle was rereleased as On The Count of Three. 

The friendship of three high school girls and their relationships with their friends and families are tested when two of them fall in love with each other.

Hardcover to Paperback Redesigns: 7 To Consider

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Are you ready for another round of YA design changes? Here’s a look at seven books — eight, actually, since one is a series redesign — that will be getting new designs in their paperback incarnations. Some of these are great redesigns and others aren’t as great as the original looks.

Sick by Tom Leveen is getting a new look in paperback that doesn’t do it better nor worse than the original. This is a zombie apocalypse story, set in a high school. The original cover on the left gets at that pretty well. I love the fact it’s only black, red, and white. It’s stark, and at the same time, it’s a little bit funny (because this book is a little bit funny, even though it’s horror). The font for the title works, and I dig how the “C” is in a different font than the rest of the letters, and the three boys wielding weapons are centered within it, somewhat protected but somewhat vulnerable, since a “C” isn’t a closed letter. This cover skews on the younger end of YA for me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and for younger teen readers who want a zombie story, I think this one is fine. This cover works.

The paperback, available August 26, takes the look in an entirely different direction and yet, it still contains a lot of the original elements. This cover is more stark but still has the red, black, and white as the only colors. Rather than feature the zombie hordes, it features a lone, disgusting zombie at the top. The zombie’s mouth is dripping blood right into the “I” of “Sick,” which is kind of a neat effect. But I wonder: why is the zombie wearing nail polish? That’s not blood; that’s polish. Would a once-alive, now-zombified person’s nail polish look that good? I have some doubts about that.

I appreciate that the cover kept the “C” the same as it was on the original image, with the boys in the middle. The tag line stayed exactly the same, though the paperback features a pull quote from one of the trade reviews: “Gore and action will leave enthralled readers thrilled.” I think that quote actually grounds the cover a bit, giving it — and the bloody letter — an older and edgier look than the paperback. What really separates the two covers, though, is that the original doesn’t give a huge indication this is a zombie story. It tells you something bad is going on, but the figures aren’t perfectly clear in terms of what they are; you could guess, but it’s not super obvious to the casual reader or browser. In the paperback copy, you know pretty well that the sick creatures are zombies.

Neither cover does it better for me. They’re built for different readerships: the first probably for those who’d want a lighter zombie romp and the second for those who are seeking a ZOMBIE STORY.

Leslie Stella’s Permanent Record is a book I talked about a little over a year ago when a few of us did a read along to Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, as it’s a great read alike. The original cover, though, would not tell you that, nor would it tell you anything, really, about the content of the story. Is it a book about tagging? Graffiti? About paper bombs? Explosions? Even the blurb on the cover indicates nothing: “A smart, funny, complex novel . . . Leslie Stella is a brilliant writer.” To the average browser, this means nothing. To even the more well-read, that blurb tells you nothing except it’s supposed to be a smart, funny, and complex book. But what is it?

While I think the cover doesn’t say anything, it’s still an attractive cover. I think it almost works in making someone pick it up because they’ll be compelled by the image to find out what it is about. It’s ultimately a story about fitting in and about bullying, and it’s contemporary realistic. The paper bomb on the cover fits with a part of the story, and the title, Permanent Record, is about Badi, the main character.

The paperback edition of Permanent Record, available August 14, is a slight improvement on the original in that it grounds the story a bit more with a genre. You know it’s going to be a realistic novel because it features the lower-half of a trio of real people. It looks like so many other realistic YA titles out there that use stock images of people. I’m not entirely sure, though, I understand this particular stock image. The kids look like they’re going camping, not attending school deep inside Chicago proper. What’s interesting, though, is it looks almost like the two boys in the picture are people of color — it’s interesting because that’s a rarity but, unfortunately, we don’t get to see their faces to know if they really are. And since this is a story about a person of color, it would have been awesome to see that head-on. The font for the title, as well as Stella’s name, are a marked improvement from the hardcover. It looks like the blurb is gone from the paperback, as well.

For me, the winner is the paperback in this round. It looks more polished and tells a little more about the book itself.

Maureen McGowan’s “The Dust Chronicles” series, which is a trilogy comprised of Deviants, Compliance, and Glory, got easily one of the best makeovers when the third book was published last month. Gone are the somewhat cheap, young images of the original look. They’ve been replaced with covers that look fancy and much more like a compelling dystopian world. I really don’t have a whole lot to comment on beyond saying that this is a marked improvement in cover design and it actually piques my curiosity in the series.

All of the redesigns of this one are available now.

Interestingly, this series, as well as Permanent Record, are titles published by Amazon’s YA imprint. Part of me wonders if when they began this publishing arm, they didn’t quite have a grasp on cover design. Because now that they’re a little deeper into the territory, they’re doing a better and better job (have you seen this great cover for Gwenda Bond’s forthcoming Girl on a Wire? It’s outstanding).

I read Bill Konigsberg’s Out of the Pocket way back when it came out in 2008. I loved this book then and it’s still one I think about all the time. It’s about a football player in southern California who also happens to be gay. No one knows that yet, except his best friend. But when his best friend doesn’t keep a lid on it, the story leaks and suddenly, he’s in the spotlight not just with his team, but with the whole country. It’s a well-done story about sexuality and football and what it means to be a gay football player when that’s far from an easy place to be because of what football is culturally.

The original cover for this one depicts that it’s a football story. It’s quite similar to another book that came out around the same time: Tim Tharp’s Knights of Hill Country. It’s not a bad cover by any means, and it speaks to those readers who like a good football book — and Konigsberg’s book fits that bill.

But I have so much love for this paperback cover. Released earlier this year through a different publisher than the hardcover, the paperback gets at not only the fact this is a book featuring sports and athletics, but it really nails that it’s a story about one boy who happens to be an athlete. He looks rugged and tough, but there’s something in his expression that also renders him a bit sensitive, like there’s something beneath that surface begging to be drawn out.

The paperback looks like the kind of cover that would speak to a much wider range of readers than the hardcover because it’s not limiting itself to readers who want a book about sports. It still says sports story to me, but that’s not all that it says. It’s a winner.

I used to ask my teen readers about book covers a lot as a means of finding out whether what I was thinking about covers and cover design was in line with what they were thinking. One particular cover I asked about a few years back was Siobhan Vivian’s Not That Kind of Girl. It was a cover my girls in particular disliked because it didn’t fit the story at all — to them, it said this was a romance, rather than a feminist novel about a girl who happens to experience a little romance in the story. The “just about to kiss” was a trend then, and Vivian’s cover looked quite a bit like the one on Sarah Mlynowski’s Ten Things We Did.

During a lock in one night, I had my girls redesign covers of books they read and they thought were misleading. Vivian’s was one they chose to redesign, and what’s most interesting to me now is how close their imagined design was to the newly repackaged cover of Not That Kind of Girl, coming out July 29. Rather than play up the romance, the new cover plays up the fact this is a story about a girl who doesn’t see herself like the other girls around her (and yes, that annoying aspect of “not that kind of girl” is purposeful and undermined in the story because this is a whip-smart feminist novel). This new cover captures that to a T, with one girl singled out among the ranks of her classmates who appear to be the same, even though they are the same only in clothing.

While I think the outfits may make the girls in the background look a little corporate and maybe a little beyond high school age, the girl at the center is one of the rare times I’ve seen a model on a YA cover that screams teen girl to me. Often, they look like 20-somethings, rather than teens. This girl, though? She’s a teenager.

I love, too, how this cover fits nicely with Vivian’s cover for The List. It’s a really strong repackaging and I hope when Vivian’s other two novels are recovered, they follow in this trend. It’s a good one.

The original print run for Katie Cotugno’s How to Love surprised me when I looked it up. It was much bigger than I thought. This is a book I’d heard about and have a review copy of (still) but it’s one that I saw few reviews of that compelled me to pick it up. I actually saw few reviews period, though I have been fascinated in the publication journey of this particular book, since it’s a partial Alloy product.

The design for the hardcover might have been one of the first font-driven, image-only covers to publish before the trend took full-hold of the YA world. It’s clean, but it’s not particularly unique nor compelling. It’s the kind of cover that tells you there’s romance — the title and the heart alone would do that — and it looks like the kind of cover with great crossover appeal to adult readers.

But maybe the font-driven, image design isn’t for all books, since this is going the opposite direction in its paperback makeover, due out next March. The paperback returns to the stock image, this time of a couple not just kissing but in full-out holding each other mode. I have to say I’m not really paying a lot of attention to the couple though (which, they don’t look like teenagers, do they?). I’m too distracted by that obnoxious wallpaper in the background of this cover. Where are they? Who made that wallpaper choice?

Does this girl have really long arms, too? The way her hand is able to reach around his neck and clasp onto her opposite shoulder makes me think she has the longest arms in the world. Or maybe that guy has the world’s smallest neck.

Neither of these covers really does it for me, though I think if I had to pick one, it’d be the original cover. The paperback, save the wallpaper, is really generic.

The last cover in this roundup worth talking about is the one for Vikki Wakefield’s Friday Never Leaving, a book that came out last year and not enough people talked about (I enjoyed it a lot and am sad more people have not picked it up).

This is an Australian import which got a new look in America in the hardcover on the left. It’s a girl underwater, but unlike a lot of books that have the girl underwater look going for them, that’s actually an important part of the story. But as it’s done on the cover here, I don’t know that it’s compelling, and I don’t think the very thin, very spread out font for the title helps much. The whiteness of the title fades out, and more, Wakefield’s name is very easy to miss since it’s so tiny. While I think the cover says it’s a literary novel — and it is — I don’t think the cover is particularly appealing. It’s understated to a point where it just fades into the shelves and every other book out there.

The paperback of Friday Never Leaving will be available September 9 and . . . it looks like a cover that missed the “girls laying in water” trend from a few years ago. It’s dated. But what’s worse is that it’s also really unattractive in its color palate. It looks dirty, rather than polished. The girl would actually melt into the water if it weren’t for her odd placement on the cover, just below the bottom of “Leaving.” The font here is still not great, as it’s too thin and too easily overlooked, and while Wakefield’s name got larger in the paperback, it’s still very easy to miss, as it fades into the image.

It looks generic and forgettable.

What’s interesting is that the original cover for Wakefield’s novel from Australia, as well as the UK edition, are so good:

These covers stand out, they’re fresh, and they’re relevant to the story itself. They’re much more eye-catching than what’s been created in the US. I can’t help but wonder if the bland designs have been part of why I haven’t seen more talk about this book — it’s easy to overlook and easy to write off.

Hardcover to Paperback: 5 YA Changes to Consider

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Another season of catalogs means another round of YA books getting new looks in their paperback editions. Some of these cover changes are good ones, while other ones seem to miss the mark. In addition to the four books I’m rounded up to talk about, I thought it would be fun to also include a book that got not one, not two, but three different cover designs before it even got published (and it’s not publishing until this summer, so it may even see another one).

As always, I’d love your thoughts on any of the changes, and I’d love to see if you’ve found any recent changes worth nothing. Original hardcover designs are on the left, with their paperback redesigns on the right.

The recovering of Lauren DeStefano’s Perfect Ruit is not only one I’m behind, but I think the paperback edition might be one of my favorite covers in a long, long time. The hardcover isn’t bad, but it’s pretty similar to a lot of other covers in YA right now. It’s a girl in a dress, and the design around here looks sort of steampunk, even though it’s a utopian novel. The font for the title isn’t my favorite; the “Perfect” lettering is too boxy and stiff, and that’s carried over into the author’s name, too. While I don’t mind the way “Ruin” looks, I don’t like how the bottom of part of the “R” is cut off for the line running from the bottom of “N” and down around the edge of the cover and back.

If you look closer at the original cover, there’s a lot going on. There’s a couple of dangling keys, a firefly, constellations in the background, and what look like small ornaments hanging in the tree branches above the girl’s head. They’re a little obscured for me because my eye is drawn right to the center of the cover, to the bright red “Ruin” and red dress the girl is wearing. I suspect those small elements play a role in the story, but it’s very easy to overlook them.

The paperback for Perfect Ruin though — it’s eye-catching in its minimalism. The all-black background with a crisp, white bird statue being shattered is immediate and it’s immediately captivating. The smaller-than-expected title done in all white, along with the smaller-than-expected author name is understated to a great effect. While the cover doesn’t tell a whole lot about the story, it’s engaging and piques my curiosity. I know there’s a story here, and I want to know why what looks like perfection in the form of that ceramic bird has been shattered. This is an excellent redesign, and the companion book, Burning Kingdoms, is getting a similarly striking design.

Perfect Ruin will be available in paperback March 2015.

I read Julie Berry’s All The Truth That’s in Me last year and felt pretty middle-of-the-road about it. Great writing, but the story itself didn’t necessarily work for me, and I found the ambiguous time period setting to be more irritating than creative. That translated to how I felt about the cover, too. The girl on the cover has a very modern look to her in terms of how she’s wearing her hair and her makeup (the dark eyes especially). She didn’t match up with the image of the main character I had in the least. More, though, the girl on the cover is wearing an ambiguous shirt that could either translate into something that members of a cult might wear — that’s fitting, maybe, with the story — or as an outfit worn during a specific historical period of time, which would contradict the very modern style of the girl’s makeup and hair. The cover doesn’t tell readers more about the story than the story does, and in this case, some of the questions I had and other readers had (via reviews) aren’t cleared up.

What does work on the cover is the tear across the girl’s mouth. That’s a huge part of the story, and I think the design nails it. This is a book that digs into what it means to be silenced and what it means when your capacity to speak up is taken from you, and I think it’s conveyed here.

In paperback, the book has an entirely different look and feel to it. The girl is gone, replaced instead by a flower. There’s one petal that isn’t “pretty” like the rest of them, as it looks like it’s infected. Gone is the blurb on this cover, replaced with a tag line that’s more interesting: “Her words could ruin him, but her silence will destroy them both.” While I think the tag line does tell the story, I think it’s a little too “sexy” for what the story actually is about.  I’m not a huge fan of the gold font, nor the gold coloring of the flower, as I think it might be trying to convey that ambiguous time period setting again.

Maybe most interesting to me is that the paperback looks like it’s appealing to an entirely different readership than the hardcover is. The hardcover looks like many other YA titles (big face of a girl style), whereas the paperback looks much more literary and like the kind of book you’d find in the adult section of a bookstore or library. I suspect without the girl, it might better reach adult readers, who will be curious what the story could be about since the cover doesn’t tell you a whole lot. This is a good cover — better than the hardcover, I think — but it’s not necessarily one that gives a whole lot of insight into the story. In this case, that might be a positive thing, as it’s also not further complicating some of the story’s unanswered questions.

The paperback edition of Berry’s All The Truth That’s in Me will be available August 14, 2014.

I’m not sure what to make of the redesign of Lauren Kate’s Teardrop. The hardcover for this one is pretty standard, popular YA cover design. It’s not bad, but it’s not necessarily the most memorable or striking. The thing is: it works. The readers who are fans of Kate’s work will know this is the book for them and be drawn to it.

The paperback redesign, though, is even less memorable. It’s a giant face, with a closeup of a blue eye, and the title of the book is made so huge to take away from the image behind it. The new design adds a tag line that isn’t on the hardcover — “One tear can end the world” — which doesn’t really tell readers a whole lot, either. The author’s name is in a crisper font, but beyond that, I’m not sure this cover is any better than the hardcover. In fact, I would say that the hardcover in this case does better at speaking to teen readers who love these kinds of books. The paperback doesn’t even offer a pretty dress (one that’s disappearing!) to enjoy.

Teardrop will be available in paperback October 28, 2014. The hardcover of book two in the series, Waterfall, will be available the same day and carry the same design to it: a big face with a big title.

I think books that are published at the very end of the year can be easily missed. Part of it is that it’s just a busy time of the year, and part of it — at least in library and school land — is budget cycle. If you’re in a library that requires trade reviews for books, and your budget needs to be spent before the end of the year, it’s easy to not know about the December books unless there’s huge marketing behind them.

Audrey Couloumbis’s Not Exactly A Love Story came out in December 2012 and . . . I didn’t even know this book existed until I was doing some catalog browsing for cover changes to write about. Reading the description and looking at the original cover, it’s not clear this is a historical novel in the least (it’s set in 1977). The title doesn’t tell a whole lot about it either, except that it’s not your typical love story, despite the fact the image on the cover is of a couple partaking in what could be called a typical love story embrace. The color choices in the cover and the use of non-standard shapes to highlight some of the words in the title are jarring. This isn’t your standard YA cover, but it’s also not the most appealing one. Perhaps that’s because it doesn’t look like every other cover. I would see a good argument that this design dates the cover in a way that might be telling of the story’s setting. 

When I saw the paperback edition of the book, my first thought was that it was going for the Eleanor & Park look and low and behold, the description for this book in Edelweiss said this: “This quirky, flirty, and smart story will appeal to fans of Frank Portman’s King Dork, John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park.” They know exactly what audience they want to target with this new look, and I think they nail it. As I’ve talked about before, there’s no question that the new trend is to compare everything to Green and Rowell and that cover designs are increasingly trying to mimic the illustrated covers of Rowell’s books. 

 I quite like the new look, and I dig how the houses sort of look like faces that are close to one another (this is maybe more obvious with the house on the left than the one on the right). I like the use of the landlines in the lit-up rooms of both homes, and I think the font that was used for the title gives a sweetness that is missing in the original cover. Interestingly, I think that the redesigned cover appeals to a much younger audience than the original cover does. Perhaps because of how it’s designed, how the focus is less on the paper or the love story, and how the font selection and starry sky just look like many a middle grade novel. 

Not Exactly A Love Story will be available in paperback July 22. 

The final cover redesigns I wanted to talk about are for a book not even out yet: Miranda Kenneally’s Breathe, Annie, Breathe. The cover on the far left was the first iteration, and it mirrored the trend of illustrated designs. It was interesting to watch the feedback that came from readers on this cover. While it wasn’t disliked, it didn’t match the other books Kenneally had written. Though this new book is set in the same world as Kenneally’s others, the books aren’t sequels. They don’t need to look alike, but many readers wanted them to maintain a similar look and I agree — at least when it comes to reader’s advisory and when it comes to getting books into the hands of teens, having that similar look helps a lot. This is especially true when you’re time-strapped or can’t read all of the books out there (who can?). The cover here isn’t bad, but it’s unexpected and contrasts with the look and feel of Kenneally’s other books. Note the tag line: “The finish line is only the beginning.”

The cover in the middle was the second iteration, and it looked much more like the rest of the books set in this world than the first cover. We know this is going to be a novel about an athletic girl. It’s not necessarily the most memorable, but it fits both the story description and the world in which the story is set. Not the tagline: “Sometimes letting go is the only way to hold on.” That’s quite different than the initial tag line.

Just days after the second cover was revealed, a third redesign came up for the book. This one might be the best one, though: it not only fits the rest of the books set in this world, but it’s striking and memorable in a way that the second one wasn’t. It’s clear the girl is an athlete here, but what’s most notable in the design is the large use of a blue background. It’s bright and will stand out on shelves the way that the girl running into the distant sunset wouldn’t. The design went back to the font used in the initial cover design, too, and to good effect. Perhaps this cover is the marriage of the illustrated cover — the clouds on the blue background — with the stock image cover — the girl on the ground, post-run. Tag line: “The finish line is only the beginning . . .”. The tag line works well with this cover, and I kind of like that there’s an ellipsis to round it out.

Breathe, Annie, Breathe will be available July 14, and worth noting: this is a hardcover release, whereas Kenneally’s prior releases were paperback originals. Perhaps that was part of the initial decision-making in changing the cover look so drastically? Whatever the reason, I think the final compromise is the strongest.

Hardcover to Paperback: YA Redesigns to Consider

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In this installment of YA books getting new looks in paperback, I’ve included not only standalone titles getting new looks, but I’ve included a series getting a new look, too. As usual, some of these redesigns are great and some of them I am not entirely sure I understand nor think have improved upon original ideas. Likewise, some of the cover redesigns have been clearly inspired by new trends, and whether that’s a positive or a negative for that particular book is up for debate.

All original covers are on the left, with their new looks on the right.

Beta by Rachel Cohn came out back in October 2012 and honestly, I kind of forgot about this book and the fact it’s the first in a series. I think some of it has to do with the fact the hardcover isn’t memorable. In fact, I think this cover looks like many other covers that came out at the same time — it’s a single girl’s face and that face isn’t necessarily memorable. Sure, she’s got a floral design on her skin, but that’s not enough to make this cover stand out from the crowd. When a book has a cover like this one, while it might be on trend, it’s also remarkably boring and forgettable. What is this book about vs what other books featuring a big face are about? I’m not sure. I have no idea what genre this book is, and even the blurb on the cover from Melissa de la Cruz doesn’t offer a whole lot. It’s a riveting novel about what? What the cover does have going for it is the title and font, which suggest this is perhaps science fiction of some flavor.

The paperback redesign of Beta came out last summer; like I said, this is a book I kind of forgot about because while it may have made a splash initially, it didn’t get on my radar nor have I read a lot about it. The redesign is much better than the hardcover, though I don’t know if I love it, either. Rather than make use of de la Cruz’s blurb, the redesign uses a tag line that . . . also doesn’t tell you a whole lot about the book, other than there will be romance (which can be the hook for a lot of readers, regardless of genre). I do like the color scheme going on, and I like the feel of the cover, since it’s clearly set in a warm, tropical, and likely exotic place. I like that the original font from the title carried over, as I do think between that and the image itself, there’s a little bit better genre placement. It’s still not perfectly clear, but it’s better.

But can someone explain to me what’s going on with that model’s foot? Why does it look bent in the wrong direction? She looks exceptionally uncomfortable like that.

For me, the paperback edition of Beta wins for better cover, and I think it’s fitting with the second book in the series, Emergent. When you look at that cover, the cover for Beta makes a little more sense, as the people look more robotic than they do human.

Speaking of Rachel Cohn, three books she co-authored with David Levithan are getting recovered for the fall.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares

Naomi & Ely’s No-Kiss List

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist 


There’s nothing particularly remarkable about any of these cover makeovers. They’re all pretty nice, though I’m not sure how much up to date they are compared to the original looks. One of the reasons it was noted that these books were getting redesigned was to play off the popularity of contemporary YA in the vein of John Green and Rainbow Rowell (of course). I don’t know so much that I see the influence of either of those authors’ books on these covers, especially since the original covers were themselves pretty iconic — maybe if I see it at all, I see a little of Will Grayson in the Nick and Norah cover. What I do like on all of the redesigns, though, is that the font is the driving force for the cover, and I think that good fonts are at play here. I also do like that both authors — who are each known for being pretty prolific — have had the size of the font for their names made bigger.

Interesting tag line of sorts, though, on Nick & Norah that I’m not sure I entirely understand: “The He-said/She-told New York Times Bestseller.” What’s the difference between he-said and she-told? I have read the book and saw the movie but I’m not sure I get that.

All of these Rachel Cohn and David Levithan paperback redesigns will be available September 23, 2014.

The Art of Wishing by Lindsay Ribar is getting a redesign that I don’t think is better nor worse than the original. I think that they’re maybe missing the right audience for this book all together, as the hardcover reads really young and the paperback reads much more adult. Neither sort of hit that middle ground of young adult. I kind of like both covers, but I like them in context of one for younger readers and one for adult readers.

The original hardcover on the left has a tag line to it that, when you read it and look at the cover, doesn’t add or mean much: “He can grant all her wishes. But only she can save his life.” It looks to me like those are two girls laying on that bed, but I suppose it could be a guy on the lefthand side there laying beside a girl. If that’s the case, maybe the tagline makes a little more sense. I do love the font and placement for the title quite a bit.

On the paperback, the tag line is gone, but now there is a prominent blurb beneath the title. What stands out is how big and loud Tamora Pierce’s name is on the cover — it’s more obvious to me than the author’s name, which sort of fades into the background because the font is so thin and it’s hidden on the bottom (at least with the hardcover, her name is dark and easily pops out). The font choice for the title here confuses me a bit because there’s almost too much going on. For four words, there are three different fonts, including one that uses a mixture of capital and lowercase letters. As for the image, it’s clearer now that it’s a male and a female on the cover than it may be on the hardcover (I still think it’s two girls) but their stance is much more defensive than it is inviting to readers. Are they angry? I can’t say I am a huge fan of the red dots along the right-hand side, nor am I particularly keen on the faded effect. Is that snow on the ground or just how the image looks? I’m not entirely sure.

I don’t think either cover is great, and I don’t think either is terrible. Both are sort of middle ground. The paperback for The Art of Wishing will be available June 12, 2014, and the second book in the series, The Fourth Wish, will retain the style of the redesign (and, I think, looks much better than the paperback redesign).

Like with The Art of Wishing, I have a lot of neutral mixed feelings about both the hardcover and the paperback redesign of Alex London’s Proxy. On one hand, the hardcover is pretty distinctive, even if it’s not the most visually appealing. It’s distinctive because it’s jarring and because it forces you to pause and try to make sense of it. It makes use of a mirrored effect, but it’s not a perfect mirror image. The font is, but if you look at the two faces on the cover, they’re much different — and that is, in many ways, really eerie to see. I’m not a huge fan of the bars running on either side of the split, but again, I think that’s what makes this cover pretty distinctive and memorable. I can see a teen asking for this book by asking for the book with elements of this cover (i.e., it’s red and white, kind of like it’s a reflected image and there are a lot of black lines). I dig how the tag line, “Some debts cannot be repaid,” is right in the middle of the cover, splitting it in two. I also think it’s just a nice tag line, even if it’s not particularly memorable nor telling of the story inside. It’s catchy.

The paperback, on the other hand, looks like a dystopian novel and that is one of the big things that works both in its favor and against it. This book looks like a lot of other books out there, and for teens who love that genre, this will be what they’re looking for. The redesign also features a blurb quite prominently, and that blurb from Marie Lu is pretty smart — readers who like Lu’s books will likely want to try London’s series. I think it was smart to carry over the same color palette to the new design, though the use of a cityscape for the driving image here isn’t particularly memorable (a teen comes to the reference desk asking for the book with a city on the cover is going to yield too many results). I find the placement of the tag line and how it’s in two different sized fonts to be a little unsettling and I think it overwhelms the cover. For some reason, the period there bothers me a lot. It’s not there in the hardcover, and it looks out of place. Why is “some debts” so much bigger than “cannot be repaid?” I’ll also say that the font for the title isn’t my favorite. The lack of a center for the P, the R, and O makes it feel uneven.

Again, neither cover is terrible but neither knocks it out of the park. Proxy will be available in paperback on May 1, 2014. The second book in London’s series, Guardian, will follow in line with the design in the paperback makeover.

Here is a series for younger teen readers that’s getting an entire facelift:

Last Shot 

Vanishing Act 

The Cover-Up

The Rivalry 

Change-Up


If ever a series needed a redesign — one that would bring unity and cohesion to the series itself — it’s John Feinstein’s sports mystery series. I’ll be honest and say that I’m not even sure I’ve collected the original cover images on the left. I know I have in some cases, but I feel like I’ve seen other covers for these books, too. For readers who might not be familiar with this series, it’s a really good choice for those who like sports books or mysteries, and it’s a good choice for readers (or parents) who are concerned about content. It’s not written down and because it’s a series, it’s a way to get readers who might be a little more reluctant to get hooked and keep reading. The catalog calls this a series for readers 10 and older, but in every library I’ve worked in, it’s been shelved in YA. It’s fine for younger readers, but I think the prime audience is that 12-16 or so range.

I’m a huge fan of the redesign, as I think it nicely unifies all of the books in the series while also making it clear they’re about different sports. While we get that from the other designs, what we don’t know from the other covers is that these books all go together and that they’re a series. There’s not anything unifying them in their looks. The new covers are very clean and crisp, with just a minimal amount of coloring. What’s interesting, too, and what I think is maybe smart is that because the players on the new covers aren’t easily identifiable, they look ageless, if not older than teens themselves. That can be a big factor of appeal for a lot of readers, who may feel like they’re reading much older books.

This series redesign/rebranding is a big win in my book. John Feinstein’s books will be available in their new looks on August 5, 2014. If you’ve had this series languishing on your shelves, I would consider springing for the series again with their new look. I bet it’ll spark new interest — plus, it just looks really good.

Let’s round out this post on a cover redesign I’m not entirely sold on because I’m not sure it nails it in the way that the hardcover does. David Iserson’s Firecracker came out last year, and it’s one of those books I keep meaning to read but haven’t picked up yet. It’s supposed to be a funny story about a girl who is told by her parents she’s being moved from her boarding school to public school. The reviews I’ve read have suggested it’s quirky without being “quirky,” and it’s a fun read. The hardcover nails that feel. I love the fact we don’t see a whole girl, but I do love the fact we see a girl on the cover, and she’s
wearing a bright, fun, and yet really wild collection of clothes. The rocket in her hand is representative of a big element in the story, which is that the main character lives in a rocket ship in her parents backyard. The way the title is angled across the lower half of the cover, along with the somewhat billboard-esque font choice is fun and eye-catching, and Iserson’s name also stands out because it’s angled and done in a contrasting font. Everything This is a bright, fun cover that is super eye catching because it’s so different and yet, it’s really not that different at all. The slighter things — her clothes, the rocket ship, the font and layout — are what make it stand out.

The paperback for Firecracker is boring. It lacks the life and verve that the hardcover has, and I think it’s because it’s sort of a lifeless pink, with a lifeless — and faceless — girl in the middle. It feels like they were going for a design that mirrored the hot and trendy illustration wave, but in doing so, they removed the fun from the cover. Even the title placement and the font used is dull. If anything, this book will have a much better appeal to adult readers than to teens, which might be the point since, like with the paperback, it’s noted that Iserson’s a writer for New Girl and SNL (both are shows I think that appeal to the 20-something audience more than the teen audience). This cover makes me miss the spunky girl on the original quite a bit, since this girl…she’s got a loose tie and no face and thus, no expression whatsoever.

Hardcover wins this round without question, and in fact, every time I see that hardcover I’m reminded how much I want to pick up and read this book. Firecracker will be available in paperback June 12, 2014.

What do you think? Which cover redesigns here are winners and which ones aren’t going to be making the most memorable list?

Hardcover to Paperback: Six YA Redesigns to Consider

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Cover redesigns are maybe my favorite thing to think about. Obviously, I like to blog about them since I think I do one of these about once a month. Let’s call today’s installment cover redesigns with a bit of a twist. The twist is two out of the five not only got a cover makeover, but they also got title makeovers in the process as well. Some of these are great makeovers and some are maybe not as great as the original.

Melissa Marr’s Carnival of Souls got a new look in paperback in September, along with a new title. Rather than being Carnival of Souls, it’s now Untamed City: Carnival of Secrets. You may or may not remember, but this is a book that had a lawsuit brought upon it by someone who claimed to have trademarked the title Carnival of Souls. So it’s not really a surprise that the paperback got a new title all together to avoid the mess (if you haven’t read the story linked above, I suggest you do because it’s a doozy).

In terms of the cover change itself, I didn’t have an issue with the original, though it’s not necessarily original or memorable. The paperback on the right, I think, is an improvement, though it certainly changes the entire feel of the book itself. In many ways, the redesign reminds me of the cover for Amy Garvey’s Cold Kiss. I like how the cover does feel a little bit cold, which fits with the book’s title and “secrets,” if you will. In many ways, the paperback redesign also feels a little bit older to me, and it might have appeal to more adult readers than the hardcover design.

Abigail Haas, who you may know better as Abby McDonald, will see her psychological thriller Dangerous Girls get a new look in paperback this summer. I’m reading this book right now (which I’ll talk about in a post later this week) and part of what attracted me to the book in the first place was the really standout hardcover image. It’s so different. I love the use of sand, as it not only gives a sense of the story’s setting — it’s on a tropical island — but there’s also something mysterious, intriguing, and maybe more than anything, there’s something unsettling about the impermanence of the sand letters and handcuff. This is a story which looks as trust and mistrust, and I feel like the hardcover does a good job portraying that.

The paperback, which will be available May 6, gives a very different image on the cover and yet still somehow captures the feel of the story well. In many ways, it’s more telling of what happens in the story (there is a dead girl) though I’m not sure it’s different enough to stand out on shelves in the same way that the hardcover is. Is that a bad thing? Maybe or maybe not. Readers who like thrillers will easily see that in this cover, and maybe even more noteworthy, readers who like female-driven thrillers in adult fiction, like Megan Abbott or Gillian Flynn, may be tempted to pick this up because it’s reminiscent of their covers. I love the font for the title a lot: it’s fun in a way that is almost uncomfortable in context of the story and words themselves.

Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler was one of my favorite reads last year, and I’m really excited to talk about it a little more now that the Outstanding Books list is out and this book is on it (that’s a spoiler for a future post). The cover on the left is the hardcover. It’s not a bad cover, but I don’t think it’s the kind of cover that has people clamoring to pick it up by looks alone. It’s pretty basic, and it doesn’t give a whole lot of insight into what the story is about. You know the title — which, while a great title, also doesn’t tell you much — and the tagline, “My one-way ticket to salvation” suggests this is a book about a person coming to terms with their faith.

That paperback though.

That paperback.

This redesign might be one of my all-time favorite redesigns because it nails the book perfectly, and not only does it nail the book, but it has massive reader appeal to it. Readers see this and they want to know the story. The boy on the cover just did something bad by cutting his tie. And his tie has a cross on it, so you know this is something serious. The tag line for the paperback changed quite a bit, too, and for the better. Rather than claiming this is a story about the author’s salvation, it’s instead “A true story about growing up gay in an evangelical family.” That absolutely nails the story, and not only does it nail the story, it does so in a way that’s really appealing and allows readers to know exactly what they’re getting into. Perhaps they relate! Perhaps they’re just curious! It’s much more enticing and engaging than the prior one.

Also added on the paperback is a blurb from Maria Semple. What’s interesting is her book, Where’d You Go Bernadette? is adult fiction, but it earned an Alex Award. So there’s a less-than-subtle attraction to this YA memoir for adult readers, too. The image and tag line are completely teen friendly but that blurb invites older readers into the story too.

Rapture Practice will be available in paperback on June 10, and I think even though I bought a copy of the hardcover for my library’s collection already, I’ll also be picking up a paperback because it’ll bring the story to even more readers.

Here’s the second of the six books in this roundup of cover makeovers that not only got a new look in paperback, but it also got a new title. Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff came out last summer, and the cover is on the left. Again, not a bad cover at all. The tagline doesn’t tell us a whole lot about the story, but the image on the cover itself does a good job explaining what the story is about. It’s action adventure and this has definite appeal to male readers (though I don’t think in any way it is a cover that would turn off female readers).

The paperback, which will be available May 13, has a new title: I Am The Weapon. I think I like the new title, as it does a much better job telling readers what the story is, and as can be seen on the cover, there’s no longer a tagline. Perhaps this is because the title is explanatory enough without further elaboration. The image on the cover changed, but it’s not so drastic a change that the feel of the cover or story is different. Rather than being black, it’s got a blue hue to it, and the character who is running is much more in the forefront than on the hardcover. There is a blurb from the Publisher’s Weekly review on the paperback, and while I don’t tend to love blurbs on covers, I feel like it works really well here. That it highlights the story is hard-edged and entertaining should sell the story to the exact right readership. This paperback also tells readers this is the first in a series, “The Unknown Assassin,” which itself is printed on the cover.

The sequel to the book also got a bit of a title change, too, and it’ll fit with the new one for this book: I Am The Mission.

Would you ever guess by the title, tag line, or image that the hardcover on the left was not a dystopia but instead a psychological thriller about a cult? Because I wouldn’t, and that’s why when I was given a copy of Amy Christine Parker’s Gated, it fell and fell and fell to the bottom of my pile of reading. I love cult stories, but I am not huge on dystopia. And the cover didn’t compel me in the least either. Simply stated: it blends in. It’s boring. I think the tagline doesn’t do it any favors either: “She thought the evil lived outside the walls. She was wrong.” It’s generic.

But the paperback. I love the paperback. It has an entirely fresh feel to it and it feels like a psychological thriller, rather than blending into the sea of dystopians. I love that it’s a font-driven design, and yet, I also love the girl who is on the cover. She’s in a dress, but it’s not a fancy one. It looks pretty generic, like the kind of thing a girl in a cult might be forced to wear. I love how the blue font plays against the orange-hued wheat field the girl is standing in, and I also think that the blurb use on the cover is a huge enhancement. You know immediately it’s a psychological thriller.

We’ve seen a million covers with girls who have hair blowing in their faces, but it works here so well. You know there’s something more going on here. That it’s purposeful. This cover also seems to have a lot of crossover appeal to it, and again, like the Haas cover, I think that it is being done in a smart way. I’m much more tempted to pick this book up now than I was with the original cover. And since I don’t think I bought this one for my collection when it was out in hardcover, I’m eager to get this series going at the library with the new look.

Gated will be available in paperback on May 27.

I don’t even know what to say about this cover redesign, so I’ll keep it pretty simple: why? Why did they insist on putting a girl doing duck face into the background of the paperback edition of Mindy Raf’s Symptoms of My Insanity? It is not only scary but it also almost undermines the title, as well as what the book itself seems to want to be tackling. I’m positive there’s some humor in this story, and perhaps that was the thinking behind it, but no. No. This was a real huge step back and makes little sense. I like the addition of the tag line, the removal of the oddly-darker-than-the-rest smiley face, but that girl. It kills the paperback cover for me.

I really wish the US edition of this book had gone with this look because I feel like it captures the feel of the story so much better without being a little … horrifying.

What do you think? Which cover and title redesigns nailed it and which ones fall flat?