1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Terry Pratchett - Going Postal (Review)

Discussion in 'Booktalk' started by Taluntain, Nov 22, 2004.

Page 2 of 2
  1. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2000
    Messages:
    23,486
    Media:
    494
    Likes Received:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    Remove all ads!
    [​IMG]
    That's not exactly true. Even those that have different cover layouts in US/UK are usually only slightly changed, e.g. in the US cover has the author and title strips larger and art smaller, and vice versa in the UK. But the art is usually the same (or similar) on both covers. And you also have to keep in mind that unless the book was released simultaneously on all continents, you're also dealing with different editions which usually have different art on purpose to distinguish the editions.

    But here we are talking about Discworld books which, even after numerous re-releases, have kept the original covers unchanged in the UK. All of them were changed in the US, however.

    There's just one problem with that theory. No American I know likes the US covers of Discworld books.

    Not really. The US covers of books originally released in the US are usually better than the UK ones. Discworld is an exception where it's exactly the other way around.

    No, it's not, just most of them. But this is mostly due to many different editions across continents, not purposeful changing of the covers as with the UK/US Discworld books.
     
    Taluntain, Mar 13, 2005
    #21

  2. Iago Gems: 24/31
    Latest gem: Water Opal

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2003
    Messages:
    1,919
    Likes Received:
    0
    I think the book-cover is one of the most important parts of a book. Every publisher has usually a uniqe style of cover art for all its books from one genre. And this style is by a big degree geared towards the visual-tastes of the people that are expected to buy the book. And of course a uniqe brand of originality.

    In cases were the publisher expects that a book will sell in his market, he will make a huge effort to get the best cover suited to his market. And this requires, in the case of books in English published in North-America and in the United Kingdom without a great time interval inbetween, that the author will have to sit with different artists and chose different covers for the different continents according to the respective visual-guidelines of the Publishers. That's a huge additional effort and I don't think they do that without thorough marketing considerations.

    That said, the covers for Terry Pratchett books are the same as the British ones in the German and French versions. And they are good. No need to change them ever.

    On the other hand, I have a presumption. If the cover is the same as the American cover, it's an awful translation. In this cases, the cheapest means were used and the translation shows. And I have some books in mind that had the American cover and were awfully translated.

    Well, most American covers I know make it too me quite evident, why they absolutely have to be changed. But they all seem to have some strange theme in common. They all seem quite alike. But I am not able to provide a coherent description. They just follow all some strange underlying design.

    I'd love to see some reasoning of a publisher of the considerations that drove them to make such awful decisions. Non the less, I am certain that their reasioning is sound, even if I am not able to endure the looks of it.
     
    Iago, Mar 13, 2005
    #22
  3. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2000
    Messages:
    23,486
    Media:
    494
    Likes Received:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    Actually, could be a pretty simple answer: the contract with the artist only allows the use of his art in the US/Europe, or with a certain edition or publisher and so on. Still, this doesn't really answer the question of why some covers (e.g. Discworld) are so radically different in Europe vs. the US. You'd think they'd want to at least use something similar if not the same art. It could also be that the US publisher doesn't want to pay royalties to the UK artists for the use of their covers, because they can get them made cheap in the US (which, considering how awful they are, I suspect is the case).

    The problem with Discworld is even more acute because the Kirby/Kidby covers really help you to get into the mood of the book and portray the main character(s), whereas the US ones are so disgustingly generic or focused on a single object they contribute nothing whatsoever to the text.

    Also, I think I remember reading an interview with Pratchett once when he was asked about the dreadful US covers and he said he had no say whatsoever there, that HC picked the covers themselves without consulting him.
     
    Taluntain, Mar 13, 2005
    #23

  4. Edithe Gems: 1/31
    Latest gem: Turquoise

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2005
    Messages:
    6
    Likes Received:
    0
    The change in the covers in different countries also depends on the publishing house. I know Harper Collins keep the same covers for the majority of their books, and the puffin books change theirs covers almost seasonally, also I can be the edition the book store has, stores like Amazon might have a faster turn over of stock compared to a small book shop.
     
    Edithe, Dec 19, 2005
    #24
Page 2 of 2
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.