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OH GOD WHEREFORE
Jan. 16th, 2011 06:20 pmOh, man, y’all, somebody in HarperTeen’s marketing department needs a raise.
Look what I shelved today:
That’s right. They Twilified Romeo and Juliet. And also Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and a bunch of others.
Do you think this works? Does slapping a big red thing on a pitch black cover and typing in fancy font actually trick teenage girls (and frustrated housewives) into reading any damn book they’d previously spurned? Maybe we should try Gothing up the covers of books like On the Origin of Species and see if it’s true! I really see no downside to tricking people into reading that.
At least there’s some color on these, though. The YA novels are looking increasingly gloomy lately. Every cover is washed-out greyscale. Although that is starting to serve as a warning: if you see a grey cover, you’re safe in betting you’ll find a bland normal girl torn between her One True Love, who is TORMENTED because he is a demon/vampire/fallen angel/demigod/time pirate as well as a jerk, and some other red herring rival dude, who is also a jerk. It’s just when this cover style starts bleeding into books I like that we have a problem. Can you just picture Beka Cooper looking all sad and greyscale, with bright red rose petals falling from her hand? Or god forbid Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegle?
Okay, yeah, neither can I. Nor can I picture that with my own OGYAFE. But if it does ever happen, I suppose SOMEBODY will read them.
They just won’t know what hit them.
Look what I shelved today:
That’s right. They Twilified Romeo and Juliet. And also Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and a bunch of others.
Do you think this works? Does slapping a big red thing on a pitch black cover and typing in fancy font actually trick teenage girls (and frustrated housewives) into reading any damn book they’d previously spurned? Maybe we should try Gothing up the covers of books like On the Origin of Species and see if it’s true! I really see no downside to tricking people into reading that.
At least there’s some color on these, though. The YA novels are looking increasingly gloomy lately. Every cover is washed-out greyscale. Although that is starting to serve as a warning: if you see a grey cover, you’re safe in betting you’ll find a bland normal girl torn between her One True Love, who is TORMENTED because he is a demon/vampire/fallen angel/demigod/time pirate as well as a jerk, and some other red herring rival dude, who is also a jerk. It’s just when this cover style starts bleeding into books I like that we have a problem. Can you just picture Beka Cooper looking all sad and greyscale, with bright red rose petals falling from her hand? Or god forbid Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegle?
Okay, yeah, neither can I. Nor can I picture that with my own OGYAFE. But if it does ever happen, I suppose SOMEBODY will read them.
They just won’t know what hit them.
