The publishing industry is a complicated beast.
Covers are an integral and interesting part of that animal.
A great deal goes into covers. I’ve spent time talking about it before. From the initial idea usually offered by the author or editor, to the choice of the artist, to the scene or direction of the cover, to the execution of the art, to the art’s layout on the book and the corresponding fonts used for title and author name… it is a long process.
There is usually one more thing that happens after a book gets its hardcover cover.
It gets another cover.
Another cover? Huh?
To capitalize on drawing as large a readership as possible for a book, the publisher will also order a second cover that is different and geared toward a different demographic than the first one. This cover goes on the paperback or trade paperback book.
Here is an example:
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The book is A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks. The hardcover, on the left, was released August 2009. With its cool blue colors and blond girl standing on the pathway to Sterling Silver castle, it was created to draw the main demographic of Landover series over the years—girl and women readers. It did its job. The book placed at #15 on the New York Times list despite Princess being the first Landover book in 14 years.
But that is not the only demographic that Del Rey and Terry want to entreat…
Terry does have a large male readership though, and I'm happy to see the art department at Del Rey reach out to them via the new mass market cover, which you see on the right. The blues are replaced by more aggressive reds and oranges—the color scheme used most recently on The Gypsy Morph, a Shannara book with more male readers—and the blond girl is lost from the cover entirely.
Since the book is a wonderful read for both genders, it makes sense to change the covers!
For the record, this is merely me surmising what happened between the two covers. I don't have direct knowledge, but it makes sense.
Whenever you look at covers, take another look when the mass market comes out. Look to see what has changed. Sometimes that can give you a clue to the rationale behind the people working behind the scenes at the publisher.
Personally, I love the new mass market cover for A Princess of Landover.
Now I can't wait to see the US cover to Terry's next book, Bearers of the Black Staff!
Stay tuned!
Ahh, the wonders of photoshop. I've noticed this too, although usually only with the differences between British and US releases. Stand them side by side and US editions definitely have a more gumball quality next to the more drear and somber Brits.
Aside from removing the girl, it is interesting how they brought out the dragon and darkened the pathway leading into it.
But blue for the girls edition? Maybe it's not as blunt as bright pink but blue to me seems to be the epitome of masculine colors, cold and offputting as well. Maybe they chose it because its the complement of the red used in Brooks name and therefore more likely to contrast and be outstanding. Likewise, with the gold tinted clouds, they probably would have rather gone with blood red but the authors name would disappear into it. Could it be that the one thing they can't bring themselves to change is the banner of the authors name?
It does make you wonder what goes on in the rooms where these things are hammered out.
it's a cool cover, but to me the title with the word "princess" would be more a deterrent to male readers than any color scheme would..... just my two cents.
Very true, Jason. Very true.
The color thing is wholly subjective on my part, an opinion and nothing more. You are spot on about the word PRINCESS though.
Which brings up another interesting tid bit. From what I can tell, many of his readers love the cat Edgewood Dirk. He is a Prism Cat. The original title by Terry was The Princess & the Prism Cat. I wonder if that would have done a better job or worse job of bringing in readers?
Having the word Landover in the title helps though, as it had been 14 years without one. Maybe that's what they were going for. I don't know.
Either way, it's interesting talking about it. I do have to say, for the record though, that orange and reds are more male oriented than cool blues. Just my opinion, of course.
yeah, it is interesting to hear some of the titles that have been bounced around!! i've read the Shannara series at least twice and the knight of the the word series as well..... both fantastic. i have yet to read the landover series, but i know terry writes a great book so i'm looking forward to checking them out!
Because gods forbid a man might read a book with a -GIRL- on the cover. Especially when the title is "A PRINCESS of Landover".*rolls eyes* I'm going to go ahead and take a wild guess- when they want women to read their books, most of the time they don't take any male figures off of the cover? This is kind of lame in a sexist sort of way.