I loved Whoopi Goldberg's SUGAR PLUM BALLERINAS. I also thought the galley cover was quite nice:
And then the book came out, and this is the cover, and I hate it:
It's kind of hard to see their faces, but man, I really don't like them at all. I like the having-multicultural-color-on-the-cover part, which we definitely need more of, but I really, really wish the art was better.
Okay, so if you go down to the last post I wrote on the new covers of John Green's books, you'll see that he commented with an explanation for the branding: he is apparently better known as a videoblogger than he is as an author. I didn't know that - I've watched a couple of the videos he traded back and forth with his brother Hank, but somehow missed the part where it became a Big Thing. So if having his name so huge on his books sells more of them to videobloggers - well, that's a pretty damn good reason, and I appreciate that John took the time to stop by and explain that to me.
(That's one pretty website he's got there. I've never seen it before, because I read his blog syndicated on Livejournal.)
I want to say something up front lest anyone think I am picking on John Green: I like his books very much, including Paper Towns (whose cover I trashed earlier), which I think may be my favorite. Also, I met him briefly at BEA once and he was very nice and personable. Thirdly, his new book (with Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle) is very good, and I am going to say just that when I get around to writing it up.
Okay, all that said: what is going on with the new covers of his books? Why is his name so huge? It makes me crazy when publishers try to make brands out of authors. John Green is not a brand. Stephenie Meyer sells about ninety bazillion more books than he does and her name isn't sixteen times as big as the title of her books. Heck, Nora Roberts' name is barely bigger than the titles of her books, and if anyone's a brand, she is. The new trades of Green's books make it look like they're all called JOHN GREEN.
Generally I like what Penguin does with their covers. I'm not entirely sure what's going on here.
(I should say that while I'm generally disapproving of hardcovers that change to picture covers when they are pubbed in paperback, these are at least pretty picture covers. Again: not hating on John Green, just the art director or whoever decided this was a good idea.)
Despite reading more YA than anything else, somehow I haven't yet read anything by John Green. The galley for PAPER TOWNS came in from our rep wearing a little post-it that said "his best yet" so I decided to give it a shot.
The good? The book. It's fantastic. The main female character is really unlikeable, but I don't think it's her book - I think it's Quentin's book and as such it's fantastic. His writing is truly wonderful, good voice, believeable characters, good plot. The whole package.
The bad? The cover. UGH. What the hell with all the picture covers? Not only is it a girl's face, but there are two options and both are bad - one bluish and sad, one yellowish and happy. The book isn't really about a girl, first of all. I mean, I understand that Green's readers are primarily female and they need to appeal to that. But do they really need to appeal to that with an enormous picture of some random girl's face? I guess I should be glad that it's not some headless girl, but whatever happened to just a good cover? What happened to art direction? What happened to imagination? Seriously, slapping some random girl's face on a book doesn't really take any major thought.
This cover has nothing to do with the book whatsoever and its choice, I believe, is a big point against the book itself. Something to be overcome while handselling, certainly - if they wanted to ensure that not a single boy would read this book, they definitely succeeded!
