Shannon Hale Fan Club discussion
Book of A Thousand Days
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Zandy
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Jan 18, 2009 02:49PM

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How far are you? Whats happening?




Yeah I thought My Lord was gray too. ??


Think of it this way: The Goose Girl has been out for about six years, correct? Bloomsbury knows how it sold in those six years, about four of which the novel has been out in paperback.
People DO judge books by their covers. Someone who didn't find the scenic cover of The Goose Girl attractive might not even flip the book over to see what it's about. However, that same person might prefer to see real people's faces and decide to give the novel a shot with the new cover.
It's marketing. Publishing is a business, and publishers want to sell as many books as possible, which means updating book covers if it's deemed necessary. And fans' opinions, sadly, don't mean much.
But I don't understand changing Book of a Thousand Days's cover. I know that plenty of times, the covers are changed between hardcover and paperback versions (again, the publishers now have a sense of how the book sells with a particular cover, except hardcovers and paperbacks probably sell differently, which would be another consideration, I think. You're kind of going after two different audiences, I believe), but I do feel that the hardcover cover of Book of a Thousand Days is pretty modern-looking and eye-catching, whereas the the older Books of Bayern covers would appeal to a smaller percentage of the population.
If you look at current YA covers, especially those of people books, there's not many that are like the older Books of Bayern covers. The new ones fit in much better, and the publisher doesn't really care if the fans like them or not. The fans are already going to be buying the books and recommending them; they're after a new audience.
But the hardcover Book of a Thousand Days? That cover seems to fit in with the covers of YA lit today.
People DO judge books by their covers. Someone who didn't find the scenic cover of The Goose Girl attractive might not even flip the book over to see what it's about. However, that same person might prefer to see real people's faces and decide to give the novel a shot with the new cover.
It's marketing. Publishing is a business, and publishers want to sell as many books as possible, which means updating book covers if it's deemed necessary. And fans' opinions, sadly, don't mean much.
But I don't understand changing Book of a Thousand Days's cover. I know that plenty of times, the covers are changed between hardcover and paperback versions (again, the publishers now have a sense of how the book sells with a particular cover, except hardcovers and paperbacks probably sell differently, which would be another consideration, I think. You're kind of going after two different audiences, I believe), but I do feel that the hardcover cover of Book of a Thousand Days is pretty modern-looking and eye-catching, whereas the the older Books of Bayern covers would appeal to a smaller percentage of the population.
If you look at current YA covers, especially those of people books, there's not many that are like the older Books of Bayern covers. The new ones fit in much better, and the publisher doesn't really care if the fans like them or not. The fans are already going to be buying the books and recommending them; they're after a new audience.
But the hardcover Book of a Thousand Days? That cover seems to fit in with the covers of YA lit today.
