Book cover changes.
Why they change
From what I have gathered, sometimes publishers changed book covers because they feel a book’s look needs to be “revamped”. Sometimes, they change the cover to celebrate an university, a book birthday. Sometimes they change the look of a whole series because the cover artist who designed the first few covers is not able to design the rest. Sometimes, in the case of self published, covers are redesigned to look “nicer”. Sometimes book covers are changed to help promote it’s book to movie adaption. Whatever the reason, book cover changes have a tendency to annoy me, which brings me to…
Why I cover redesigns annoy me
Okay, to be honest, book cover changes aren’t the worse things that can happen in the life of a reader. And truthfully, the changes only bother me when they deal with series that I own. Redesigned standalones really don’t bother me that much. It’s when the part of a series that I own gets redesigned, that’s when I get annoyed. Because when I buy the rest of the series THE COVERS WON’T MATCH! And then I’ll feel as if I have to buy the first part of the series again, which usually involves money that I want to use on other things (like food… hey, a girl’s gotta eat). But… but then the books don’t look like one series when they’re sitting on my bookshelf – they look like two! This problem drives me nuts… which would probably explain why I’m always late to the party in terms of buying books because I’m always afraid they are going to be redesigned in the middle.
And even if you forget the matching problem, my other issue is that sometimes I like the old design better. I fall in love with the covers of a series, and next thing you know, they are all being redesigned and no longer sold in Barnes & Noble. Uhhh.
What do you think?
How do you feel when book covers are redesigned?
[…] Emz investigates redesigned book covers. […]
I think the first time we see something, we tend to associate with that. So the first book cover we see is how we associate the book or series. When the people in charge go and change the covers, well, it feels like the wrong book to me. Plus, like you said, the new covers won’t match the older versions I have on my shelves. That just isn’t very nice.
[…] Icy Cold Reads discusses cover redesigns. […]
I don’t like when this happens in the middle of a series- but if it happens after I have the whole set I don’t mind. I have two leather bound Harry Potter books (#1 and 2) and then they didn’t make any more! I still love them- but I wish I had the set. It is right up there with changing covers! 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
I so agree! What really kills me is when they redesign based on format. If I started collecting a series in paperback, I’ll stay in paperback (or hardcover if hardcover). So when I’ve started collecting a series in paperback and they do an awesome cover for the first hardcover and they use that same cover for the paperback I’m happy. But when they have an awesome cover for the second book but then redesign to a cover I don’t like at all for the paperback, I get so bummed 🙁