Another Boys and YA Thread

Polenth · Dec 18, 2012

It is a trend to make books look like paranormal set in the present day, even when they're not. Books either get the modern girl close-up or the symbol-on-black treatment, regardless of actual content and setting.

I get the marketing angle, in that paranormal is big, so they're hoping to draw in those readers. But in doing so, they do make it less likely that someone who already likes the other genre will pick it up. This isn't likely to be an issue for Anne McCaffrey, as a science fiction reader will know her name, but it'd be disastrous for a new author.

The_Ink_Goddess · Dec 18, 2012

also LIAR by Justine Larbalestier: the ARC apparently had a white girl on the cover. A lot is made of the MC being biracial. The ARC readers were so pissed that it was changed to reflect her skin as brown.

thebloodfiend · Dec 18, 2012

I don't like these covers. Mostly because they reveal nothing about the book except a lack of imagination on the designer's part.

Liosse de Velishaf · Dec 18, 2012

I'm perfectly happy to have the discussion widen to include other issues of covers, genre, and marketing.

But I would rather this didn't turn into another thread on white-washing. The LIAR thing happened quite a while ago, and has been discussed to death here.

Polenth, that is the kind of thing I was wondering about. Whether or not it's Anne McCaffrey, I'd still be concerned about turning off readers.

ThatKnight64 · Dec 18, 2012

To be honest I love the Tower & The Hive books, one of my favorite series but I've always though the covers were bleh. The old ones and the new ones. The stars in the new ones are more 'sparkly' than space like and even the old ones didn't really cover the scifi elements of the story.

The Talent series (Prequel Series) had much cooler covers that were more identifiable as scifi.

A good cover can often be the divide between someone picking up a book or putting it back down so it feels kind of haphazard that the cover 'remakes' were just sparkly close ups of the original character covers.
:Shrug:

That's just my opinion though.

Liosse de Velishaf · Dec 18, 2012

ThatKnight64 said:
To be honest I love the Tower & The Hive books, one of my favorite series but I've always though the covers were bleh. The old ones and the new ones. The stars in the new ones are more 'sparkly' than space like and even the old ones didn't really cover the scifi elements of the story.

The Talent series (Prequel Series) had much cooler covers that were more identifiable as scifi.

A good cover can often be the divide between someone picking up a book or putting it back down so it feels kind of haphazard that the cover 'remakes' were just sparkly close ups of the original character covers.
That's just my opinion though.

I side with the old covers just for the lack of sparkly-ness, really.

KSavoie · Dec 18, 2012

After spending some time at my local B&N, I have noticed a majority of YA readers are girls, along with my best friend who is an avid YA reader. I have talked to my best friend and she has told me that because she read one book with a cover similar to those depicted in the OP's post, and she enjoyed those books, she tended to gravitate towards books with similar covers in hopes that they would also be good. I guess maybe that's just a my best friend thing, but who knows!

Liosse de Velishaf · Dec 18, 2012

KSavoie said:
After spending some time at my local B&N, I have noticed a majority of YA readers are girls, along with my best friend who is an avid YA reader. I have talked to my best friend and she has told me that because she read one book with a cover similar to those depicted in the OP's post, and she enjoyed those books, she tended to gravitate towards books with similar covers in hopes that they would also be good. I guess maybe that's just a my best friend thing, but who knows!

No, it's an interesting observation. That is technically how marketing works.

ThatKnight64 · Dec 18, 2012

Yeah, the majority of YA readers are girls so I guess it's reasonable that they aim for a female audience.

KSavoie · Dec 21, 2012

I also feel that if the reader is a girl and there is a girl on the front, it makes it easier for them to put themselves in the place of the character.

Another Boys and YA Thread

Polenth

Mushroom

The_Ink_Goddess

we're gonna make it out of the fire

thebloodfiend

Cory

Liosse de Velishaf

ThatKnight64

D.R. Grant

Liosse de Velishaf

KSavoie

Liosse de Velishaf

ThatKnight64

D.R. Grant

KSavoie