Friday Short Post--More on Cover Changes, Bookplates for Our Featured Storytime Book, and Ice Sculpture Action.

Yesterday's discussion of cover changes got some interesting feedback. What did we think of the Louise Erdrich change? Another rep told me he'd just come from sales conference, and he could only think of two books on the list that didn't have a dramatic change from hardcover to paperback.

The most interesting comments came from Richard Rhorer at Simon and Schuster, who followed up on my comments about Brain on Fire. The two jackets side by side are on yesterday's blog post.

"In case you’re curious, we wanted to simplify the cover and come up with a variation that looked more sophisticated and less alarming than the red with the bold, san serif font. The UK publisher had used yellow with the image so we picked up their color pallet and went with a serif font."

"We’re currently working on paperback covers for The Rosie Project. That one will have a more dramatically different look than the Brain on Fire conversion. We agonize more than you might expect whether to change or keep jacket art on paperbacks. When I worked at HarperCollins many years ago, they drastically reworked the cover for the paperback edition of Bel Canto. I think that decision was instrumental in making that book a blockbuster."

Jannis also got a pleasant response to her inaugural edition of storytime, coming this sunday, December 8, at 11 am. Having heard that Jannis was featuring Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, Sherry Duskey Rinker sent us a care package with signed bookplates for both that book and Steam Train, Dream Train, as well as temporary tattoos, and stickers.

Finally, just a reminder that Festive Friday is going on tonight. This year we remembered to sponsor an ice sculpture, and hey, it will be cold enough so that it doesn't melt.  Above is a photo of said sculpture, pre-carving.