Kevin's Watch

Sorry if this was already a topic. I know that it's been mentioned in the gradual interview.

What in the is Del Rey thinking about with those new paperback covers? The only thing I can think of is that they are trying to capitalize on the popularity of The Lord of the Rings movies, and hoping that if a casual observer notices a book with a big gold ring on the cover, they'll take a look, and upon realizing that it's not a Tolkien retread, might buy it. Other than that explanation, I can't make any sense out of it.

Being the dork I am with book collecting, I ran out and bought the paperbacks with the panoramic scenes. I normally only collect hard cover copies, but with those about to disappear, the Last Chronicles coming out, and the horrendous decision that Del Rey made to bastardize themselves, I felt it necessary.

Can you put up a link to these covers? thanks.

I just bumped a thread we had on the re-releases. I wrote to Del Rey, and got a response. The fact that I got a response was pleasantly surprising. The response itself left something to be desired.

Dear Ms. [Myste]:
Thank you for writing in. We certainly know that Thomas Covenant's ring is made of white gold. Sorry you think our covers show it as too yellowish.
Mr. Donaldson was delighted with them!
Sincerely,
Betsy Mitchell
VP/Editor-in-Chief, Del Rey

Oh, and welcome to the Watch!

Myste wrote:

Sorry you think our covers show it as too yellowish.
Mr. Donaldson was delighted with them!

And yet

in the Gradual Interview was wrote: and the misleading blandness of the forthcoming covers for the first "Covenant" trilogy [...] beggars description ("Hi, folks. Here's an extremely pale imitation of LOTR. Try it if you don't have anything better to do")

That doesn't sound like delight to me ...

Maybe it's a new kind of delight we haven't heard about yet.

Delight 2.0: Resignation to Mediocrity

You can look at these ridiculous covers on amazon.com.

I've been bitchin' about bad covers for a while, and particularly these God-awful covers.

Maybe Mr. Donaldson was being diplomatic, and they're used to people freaking out about the gawd-awfulness of the covers they pick, so they took his diplomacy as delight...there's my random theory for the day...but anyway, yeah, I do like the panoramic ones done by Michael Herring...I kinda wish he was doing the Last Chronicles, too, but Mr. Donaldson seems pretty pleased with the guy he has doing those, so I suppose I can't complain too much...

I happened to be at a bookstore today and saw these new paperbacks with the not-quite-white gold ring covers. Yes, I'll join the chorus: the covers are thoroughly bland. I guess Del Rey was going for a streamlined, contemporary look, but I'll still take the original Darrell K. Sweet covers any day.

What really disappointed me, though, was the print quality of the text in these new editions. The ink is thick to the point where some of the words seem like smears on the page, but at least they're still legible. Not so the map of the Land. It is one inky, blotchy mess! I couldn't make out many of the names on the map--the letters just run into each other. This will test the patience of first-time Chronicles readers, who are left on their own to try to decipher the map as they read the books--that is, if they have actually gone ahead and purchased the books despite the blurry mess inside or the uninspiring blandness of the covers outside. This is NOT the way to make a good first impression on people new to the Chronicles or Donaldson! Shame on Del Rey. SRD deserves better than a cheap, substandard production run of the Chronicles. (Okay, technically, Del Rey can do whatever it wants, since it owns the publication rights...)

When you compare these new paperbacks with the original paperbacks with the Darrell Sweet covers, the difference in print quality is startling. The text is crisp and the maps clearly rendered in those earlier editions. Ah, those were the heyday of SRD's relationship with Del Rey.

I can only hope Putnam does a very professional, high quality job when the time comes to put Runes in paperback. Mass market does not have to mean cheap quality!

Amazon are using the new covers for the thumbnail views of the first two books, although the larger views are still the panoramic ones.



They're horrible. Look like someone dashed them off in Photoshop in 5 minutes flat.

Gahhh... those rings don't even look slightly white!

I ordered one off amazon for a friend expecting it to show up with the new cover but it didn't! I was thrilled.

I saw these in Waldenbooks yesterday. The covers are horrendous. 'Nuff said.

Daughter of Regals has also been re-released in a new paperback - I bought my first copy yesterday.

On another point of interest - obviously I know the release date of Runes, but I asked the girl behind the counter when the release date of Runes is. She looked at her Coming Soon list, which was dated through October 26, and it wasn't listed. She then looked it up on the computer, and told me that it was coming out sometime in October. She told me that as soon as they get it they will put it out on the shelf.

My point is - isn't Putnams adverstising this release? Why would a major bookstore chain not have a release date for Runes, with less than 30 days to go?

dlbpharmd wrote:My point is - isn't Putnams adverstising this release? Why would a major bookstore chain not have a release date for Runes, with less than 30 days to go?

They are advertising it--I've seen ads all over the place in things like Publisher's Weekly, which Waldenbooks should have. Maybe the store just hasn't kept up? Although for a big chain, it does seem weird that they wouldn't have it on their list. Putnam is doing a very big first printing considering Runes isn't mainstream fiction.

Edge wrote:

They're horrible. Look like someone dashed them off in Photoshop in 5 minutes flat.

What the hell is THAT?!

Ugh, those are the most monstrously hideous book covers I've ever seen! And could they be any less suited to the story they contain? Talk about bland! Hellfire and bloody damnation. And the not-white white gold just adds to the offence. Someone needs a good, sound slap for disgorging such a malformed travesty of a book cover into an unsuspecting world. I'm beginning to believe they may have been created with the assistance of the Illearth Stone.
[/rant]

I apologise. I haven't eaten all day. Like a small child, hunger tends to leave me vitriolic and intolerant.

No need to apologize, I agree with everything you said.

me too *grimace*

Guys, it's just the cover. Who cares as long as the book is up to Donaldson's par, I could care less about the cover.

The cover is part of the package. I care very much about the appearance of any book that I'm about to buy. If they have to use a ring as the focus of a cover, is it too much to ask that the ring be at least similar to the ring in the story? I don't think so at all.

Look at it this way: Suppose I am about to publish a book about the history of Mount Rushmore. I've researched every detail, and I've written the book as best I can. When the book is published, the cover has a beautiful picture of Mount Rushmore, with Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR shown in splendid detail. Do you think I would have a right to be just a little upset? Damn skippy. I would not expect a single copy of my book to be bought by any self-respecting patron of my work.

I think it's an absolute insult to the author to put so little time and care into marketing his work. The point of marketing is to attract new readers - and how are they going to do that with slapdash, inaccurate covers like these? The cover is, after all, supposed to be in some way a graphic representation of the contents of the book.

Purely to prove a point (i.e. how little effort they put into it): this took me about 20 minutes, from scratch.