Time to play Which Cover do you Like Better? I received two ARC (advanced reader copies) in the mail yesterday, both of which had one cover on the ARC itself plus a color printout announcing that the book had a new cover. Interesting!
I tweeted the covers last night and wondered what caused the change. I wanted to share with you because the change in the cover art is remarkable. If you like faces on your covers, prepare to be disappointed. What's fascinating for me is that the new covers are for later books in a series, and represent a significant departure from the images used in earlier books. Have a look.
In May 2012, Katherine Longshore's Gilt was released, with the following cover:
This is the old cover for her book Tarnish, which will be released in June of 2013:
And here is the new cover, which matches the redesigned paperback cover for Gilt – the paperback will release in May 2013, just before Tarnished:
Quite a difference, isn't it?
Old covers:
New covers:
Both of these books are Tudor-set YA novels coded for “Ages 12 and up.” Gilt is about Catherine Howard; Tarnish is about Anne Boleyn. So both are aimed at a young female market. Which cover do you like better? Any young ladies within arms reach? What do they think?
Here's another presto-change-o example of cover art redesign.
In October 2012, Fiona Pauls' Venom was released with the following cover:
Here's the redesigned paperback version, due out in June:
Much like Gilt and Tarnish, the sequel to Venom has two covers, one old, and one new. The old cover, which is on the ARC I received, looks like this:
The new cover matches the style of the paperback version:
Old covers:
New covers:
This is also historical YA romance, set in Italy. I can see that the second set of covers try to emphasize the place, but the images are so bland compared to the faces.
You can see some of the other covers for the Fiona Paul series on her website sidebar.
I've always been fascinated by the differences in cover art between the US and UK markets, but these changes are so remarkable, I'm not sure what to make of them. The new Paul covers are drab and look like romantic suspense to me, but the new Longshore covers are very eye-catching with all the metallic backgrounds and the jewels.
Which do you like better? Do you think the new set will appeal to the YA market more or less?
Last night I showed both sets of redesigns (as well as Stephanie Perkins’s redesign) to my 11-year-old voracious reader, who reads some YA. She strongly preferred all the new covers to the old ones. She said she doesn’t like photographic covers that show characters’ faces, because she prefers to conjure them up in her head, and also she feels that covers featuring photos of girls’ faces and pretty dresses are just too prevalent. I wonder if kids who’ve grown up with photographic covers (which were not a THING when I was growing up) now see them as tired and even babyish. (Sadly, fwiw, I strongly prefer the old, non-photo covers of the Chocolate books—and btw, I really liked The Chocolate Thief, haven’t had time to read the Chocolate Kiss yet.) It’s funny, photographic covers feel newfangled and disposable and instantly dated to me, while my kid hates them because they seem old-school to her. Ah, generational shifts!
I don’t like either cover for Gilt and Tarnish. Neither seems that striking or appealing to a YA audience. The face covers are pretty pedestrian & mismatched, which seems weird for a series & the metallic covers are just boring. The designs for Venom and Belladonna are much more striking. I would expect the face covers to be a tad more appealing to a YA audience, but I personally really like the location covers. I’m just a sucker for silhouettes.
My 14 year old daughter says she prefers the new covers for Gilt and Tarnish but the original covers for Venom and Belladonna. I’m inclined to agree with her.
I’ve always been partial to objects over face book covers. One, it is kind of a pet peeve to have a cover with faces that do not match the physical descriptions of the protagonists inside the story. For me, at least when I first started reading romance, having the disparity could pull me from the book. Two, when I was a young adult reading any book, seeing that the heroine looked nothing like me (racially, facial features, body structure, etc.) made connecting with the protagonist more difficult. Having objects allowed me to tweak the small details in my mind’s eye, creating the small connections to help me overcome the feeling that heroines couldn’t look like me.
I actually thought the original Venom and Belladonna covers just look like masquarade balls would be involved or swashbuckling Three Muskateers type antics. I guess I don’t associate masks automatically with BDSM. Too many books that involved masked people doing things other BDSM, I suppose.
My preference is for the new Gilt and old Tarnish along with the old covers for Venom and Belladonna.
I really like the covers with the faces because it attracts attention to the book. The newer covers are silhouette’s and backgrounds. The faces make a whole lot of a difference so i think it was kinda stupid for the publishers to change the covers. Although, i don’t like the front cover for “Gilt”. It seems really boring and it stands out in a bad way.