..while one of Irvine Welsh's awful, awful books got a range of colour choices.
And then there are examples like the Harry Potter books, whereby an 'adult' cover is released at the same time as the children's version, so that grown-ups reading second-rate children's books in public can ineffectually hide their embarrassment.
But with print-on-demand technology, the extra printing cost of having two--or even 10--different covers disappears. Hence this new release from OR Books, which was pointed out to me by Will of the phenomenal A Journey Round My Skull. Each copy is printed as it is ordered, with the buyer's choice of cover.
As I say, there could easily be a choice of more than two. It also ought to be very easy to have a facility whereby buyers design and upload their own covers, whcih would then be printed and bound onto the final book. I don't know of anyone doing this yet, but surely it's only a matter of time.
6 comments:
John Green also had a double cover for his YA novel Paper Towns. Since the book is about appearances and self-fashioning, both covers are supposed to represent equally false representations of the narrator's love-interest, Margo Roth-Spiegelman. When you ordered the book online, you got one or the other of the covers, without choosing.
http://heatherlo.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/paper-towns.jpg
Thank you for that--I sought out the covers, and it's a clever idea. By the way, I also just read your Millions piece, and I loved it. And I love your poems, and find myself intrigued and amused by the concept of WILFs.
Did I say that before? I forget.
Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You -- very simple design: text on solid color -- comes in, well, four different colors: green, pink, yellow, and (I think) orange. Or blue. Anyway, this is one of my favorite books, and I had to fight the urge to get all of the colors [I have the green one]. Kind of like shoes. Sigh.
Thank you James, I must say that I am an avid follower of your blog. You've made me discover so many new designers and writers.
As for WILFs, well, I think you're right, there is something there... Perhaps we should compile a list of some sort?
You should check out my prose fiction too!
The new trade paperback release of Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of Poets comes in three different colors.
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