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As you probably know, cover art is a favorite topic of mine, and I always find these design changes interesting for the new perspectives they provide. Here are a dozen pairings below: original hardcover design on the left, new paperback on the right. I've listed just a snippet about the setting as background for readers not familiar with the books. Which ones draw you in the most?
A dual period mystery centering on the ancient Amazons.
Gender-bending Civil War novel.
Magical Regency-era adventure.
A female illusionist in Gilded Age America.
A family in Depression-era and WWII Appalachia.
Story of a Rembrandt painting, set during the Dutch Golden Age.
Literary family saga, set in Revolutionary-era North Carolina.
The tragedy of the Great War, as seen through four men's eyes. UK edition.
A teenage girl in an 1840s Shaker community.
A US army nurse in WWII Italy.
Novel-in-stories centering on an English country house.
Multi-period romantic mystery set in 2009 and in pre-Raphaelite England.
I'm drawn to the new covers for The Twelfth Enchantment and At Break of Day. I prefer the original covers for Ashenden, Neverhome and The Story of Land and Sea. Sadly, the original and new covers for the other books do not tempt me at all. Just as well I don't select a book to read just by its cover!
ReplyDeleteThe new design for At Break of Day is dramatic. It's gone from looking like a war novel to something more female-focused, in the Downton Abbey mold. I agree with you on Neverhome and Story of Land and Sea - I much prefer the originals. I admit I bought a copy of The Anatomy Lesson in paperback because I liked that cover better. I'd been thinking of getting it anyway.
DeleteExcept for The Story of Land and Sea, I find the revision more intriguing. I would be worth studying to figure out why that is.
ReplyDeleteOverall, there's more of a human element in the revisions - people are at the forefront. Which I think is deliberate.
DeleteIt's so interesting how different covers evoke different feelings or interest in a book. I'm still surprised at how many images are re-used. I admit cover art is something I really miss when I read on my Kindle.
ReplyDeleteOne reason I prefer my Kindle Fire over my (long defunct) original Kindle is because I get to see the cover art in full color. Black and white doesn't have the same impact.
DeleteExcept for Ashenden The Visionist, and The Lost Sisterhood, I prefer the original covers on all.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts, Debbie! I have a copy of The Visionist in hardcover and am torn on that one. It doesn't come across well online, but the dust jacket on it is clear, with the title and tree printed on it, while the actual book has the photograph printed directly on it. It's very different and stands out. I do like the pb redesign for it, though.
DeleteHmmm. I mostly prefer the original covers, with the exception of That Summer, The Anatomy Lesson, and perhaps The Lost Sisterhood because I'm all over that current motif of projecting the background into the human figure.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I find myself wondering about the business model of running two different covers. Cover design really does have a lot to do with choosing a book to read, so doesn't using two different designs have the potential for reducing sales? Or at least confusing the heck out of the reader. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the marketing meetings that produce these changes. I also see a potential for manipulating hardback vs. paperback sales...and am very glad I'm an indie author who chooses her own covers, for good or ill.
The new cover for That Summer is so different that it made me wonder if it was the same book I already owned in hardcover or something new. It definitely confused this reader!
DeleteI think some design reboots can increase sales and make readers take another look at a book if the original hb didn't do well. (The cover for Twelfth Enchantment, for example - the hardcover makes it look like a Jane Austen pastiche, and that same image has been used many times elsewhere. The redesign, though, seems a better match for the content. I bet it will sell better.) Since paperbacks come out 6 months to a year after the hardcovers, and shelf life is pretty short, they usually aren't on display in bookstores at the same time. But observant readers who remember the original will still be confused.
I like many of the paperback redesigns. But at the same time, I think most are less innovative than the originals were.
Logically, you could spend more on a hardback cover design as there's more profit. Or at least it used to be that way in the pre-Amazon days. And there are some designs that look better on the larger area of a hardback than on a paperback.
DeleteI agree. Changing the design for the paperback requires an additional investment in time and money, too, so if publishers go that route, they must think (hope) that it'll be worth it.
DeleteExcept for The Story of Land and Sea and Neverhome, I find the revisions draw my attention. By the way, Neverhome is a wonderful novel!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed it very much also! And the pb design for Neverhome does the opposite of wanting to make me pick it up; I don't like it at all. I know others who prefer it, so there must be something to it.
DeleteI know that I do a ton of book choosing by looking at the cover (yup, I'm a cover slut! :)). I actually like that sometimes they use a different cover for a different edition 'cause that second cover might catch my attention where the first didn't. I've re-caught works a second time around that my eyes just skimmed over the first time. That changing for marketing works.
ReplyDeleteSame here. There are a few paperbacks here that caught my attention for that reason. My copy of the pb of The Anatomy Lesson arrived in today's mail, for instance!
DeleteThis is ever-so interesting. Thank you, Sarah. I discovered that what calls to me, from a cover, is the suggestion of a sympathetic character/protagonist. While I know that story-wise this has always been a selector for me, I didn't realize that it extended to covers! And, naturally, I am now thinking about the cover of my lown book which shows only landscape. Maybe I select differently, for non-historical novels? Or maybe it's time for ME to do a second cover! 8)
ReplyDeleteI like many landscape covers, although I think it's true that some readers are drawn to covers with a depiction of the protagonist (or other sympathetic character, as you've said). I know some authors who have done some initial testing with readers to see what they'd prefer.
DeleteTo go a little off topic, "Ashenden" is also the title of a book by Somerset Maugham. I have not read it though. That is an extra source of confusion I suppose, though it is not one of Maugham's better known books.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that information - it's not one of his books that I'd heard of before.
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