DIY Revising books with outdated covers

[Reyna]

I have a collection of paperbacks with outdated covers I did not think I could sell in good conscience, since my new cover was significantly better. To make these old versions worthy of putting on my table during book events, I came up with the idea of covering the old cover image with a sticker of my new cover image. I ordered 6"x9" (my cover size) stickers from a company called Sticker Mule (they had this as a template; I'm sure other companies could also work) and uploaded a jpg of my new cover. After processing, I ended up with a 5.85" x 9" thick vinyl sticker (like a good quality bumper sticker) that looked fantastic for about $3/sticker. I was fortunate in that sticker edge closest to the spine blended with the original cover colors. For your purposes, you could design a border on one edge or all around to make it visually appealing. The end product looks wonderful and I would not be ashamed to put these books up for sale. Just be warned, it takes patience and some skill to align everything properly and to smooth things out as you remove the backing and glue down the sticker. The major problems are puckering (trapped air bubbles) and misalignment. The good news is that you can peel off (within reason) and try again without ruining the sticker or the cover (glossy cover - not sure how it works on other types). Hope this helps someone else.