Not judging the books, but their covers...

I've always found book jackets terribly interesting (especially after hearing from Chip Kidd at the CPC). So much work goes into choosing the perfect photos or graphics, the right feeling of font, colors that mesh well. So many people have a say in whether they think a certain cover will make a book sell. Publishers also face the challenge of rebranding popular books when people take a new interest in them, whether a new volume comes out in a series, or a book is turned into a movie.

I love the first two versions of Gregory Maguire's Wicked. The first (with a cool circular cut-out) gives a great feeling of the magical elements of the series. The second features the poster art of the Broadway musical inspired by the book. I'm not often a fan of media tie-in covers, but this one is just graphically awesome. It also features bright green page edges, which makes it really eye-catching on bookstore displays.

One would think two was enough, but the other day I came across the third round of Wicked covers... and it seems the publisher wants to recall "Little Witch on the Prairie." Why why why??

Scones and Sensibility (aka Pie and Prejudice)

Back at the CPC, during the book workshop, one of our tasks was to participate in a faux agent bid for a middle-grade novel called Pie and Prejudice by the fake author Lea K. Ecauldron*. We had a lot of fun with it, staging a sub rights auction and creating marketing and publicity campaigns. One of our designers came up with this awesome cover:

As it turned out, we were working on a real book, actually titled Scones and Sensibility, by debut author Lindsay Eland. We never saw the real cover, so it was really odd that both designers chose to use a silhouette image.

Scones was released today by Egmont USA. Congrats to Egmont and Lindsay!

* Get it? Harry Potter nerd alert.

Twilight insanity at Borders

What with the opening of New Moon (in the movie theater next to my store, no less), Twilight insanity has been renewed at Borders. The books have been HUGE sellers, of course, but the promotional items have gone a little too far...

The stuff comes in three varieties:

1.) This has nothing to do with New Moon, but let's slap on the movie title!

2.) Who wouldn't want to walk around/sleep in something with a creepily huge oily Robert Pattinson face on it?

3.) Well... actually I find these kind of amusing, vampire bloodsucking and all.

Blah... at least it's all good for sales, right?