Book covers: the popular and the paperback

March 16, 2010

Goodreads has a list of books people have judged by their covers and I was kind of surprised to see how many of them are YA book covers. Does this just reflect the Goodreads userbase, or is it indicative of the ability of YA novels to draw people in with their covers?

I’ve been thinking recently about the way book covers change when the book comes out in paperback. Earlier this month The Compulsive Reader wrote a post about just that with a number of examples and offers her opinion on improvements or disappointments in the change, and Alea of Pop Culture Junkie has a number of posts that show the differences between cover versions.

Since librarians and hardcore fans are the primary consumers of hardcover novels, they’re the audience publishers consider when designing the cover the first time around. But since libraries mostly purchase hardcover books, the paperback covers are designed to appeal to book store browsers and changes often reflect that. This is my no means scientific, but it seems like a lot of the time when books written for girls have their covers redesigned for a paperback release, the cover features a shot of a real girl on the cover rather than an illustration or an inanimate object. This may be related to the hypothesis proposed by a friend in my earlier post touching on the depiction of larger female characters on book covers that publishers think women need to identify with the protagonist.

I think the most disappointing paperback covers I’ve seen so far are those for Shannon Hale’s PRINCESS ACADEMY and THE GOOSE GIRL:

I like the illustration style for the hardcover versions a lot, but beyond that they’re distinctive. The paperback versions just reminds me of every other medieval-style fantasy book I read growing up a decade or two ago, especially CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY and THE MIDWIFE’S APPRENTICE. I suppose publishers know what they’re doing–their profits depend on it–but the paperback covers of YA novels, especially those aimed at girls, often disappoint me. I guess I’m not the target demographic!

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Tags: book covers, children's books, ya lit