New Blog?
By all accounts there appears to be a new blog in town. I was sifting through my Galleycat and found the following bit o' info regarding Publisher's Weekly's revamped website; "The jury's still out on the other blogs, though Alison Morris's "ShelfTalker" can no doubt feed into the growing children's lit blog presence and market."
Growing kidlit blog presence? Why that applies to me!
So I hopped on over and saw that this Alison Morris person writes mighty well. Mighty. She has a piece (only one) in which she discusses the weird trend currently going on where publishers will change not just the cover but the NAME of a youth novel when it goes from hardcover to paperback.
The three novels I’ve recently purchased for our store that were apparently (in the eyes of their publishers) lamed by their own names are: Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, now appearing in paperback as Black and White; Gideon the Cutpurse by Linda Buckley-Archer, soon to appear in paperback as The Time Travelers; and Olivia Kidney and the Exit Academy by Ellen Potter, coming soon to a bookshelf near you as a paperback entitled Olivia Kidney Stops for No One.Woah woah woah woah. They're renaming Gideon the Cutpurse? Children, if you didn't read that book last year it was one of the finest children's fantasies of 2006. Beautiful cover too (we'll forgive Ms. Morris for putting it down). This trend seriously disturbs me to the core of my soul and I didn't even know it was going on. And that, in essence, is why a Publisher's Weekly kidlit blog is going to turn out to be mighty important. Let's all keep our eye on this one for a while, shall we?
Thanks to Galleycat for the link.
Labels: Covers, New Blogs, Publisher's Weekly, Titles
posted by fusenumber8 @ 12:21 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
REALLY interesting. My editor at Knopf mentioned something about that "new kidlit blogger thing," which I kind of laughed at (mainly since she doesn't know I, too, have a blog), but apparently this "growing presence" thing is big news - hopefully big enough for a blogging writer to keep her book title, but I doubt it!
Thanks for the heads up.
Alison Morris asks in her blog, "Why am I suddenly seeing publishers change the titles of underperforming hardcovers when these books are reissued in paperback?" Isn't that obvious? The publisher is hoping to achieve more sales with a new title. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
While I liked the book Gideon the Cutpurse, I was surprised by the title. The book isn't really about Gideon the Cutpurse. He doesn't appear in all the storylines/time periods. What's more, he's an adult character in a children's book that is being marketed to children. It did seem very odd to me. And while I loved the cover, I can't recall any scene in the book it illustrated. Or, if it was some kind of "concept" cover, I couldn't figure out what the concept was or what it had to do with the book.
Changing that cover and title make sense to me, though The Time Travelers is pretty generic, even lame.
Changing covers is one thing. I can think of lots of cover that need to be changed, but the book title? I agree that kids sometimes don't get books based on title, but more often they don't get books based on the cover. And changing the title loses any name recognition that book might have earned. Gideon, which I also loved, was just put on the Lonestar list here in Texas. It's the other big kid list TLA puts out down here. I can't wait to convince parents, that yes, I know that Time Travelers isn't on the list, but this really is the same book as Gideon. Look, the copyright page even says that it was once known as Gideon. Dandy.
You make a good point about Gideon the Cutpurse, Gail, however, I think the title is distinctive and piques your interest. As you say, "The Time Travelers" is SO generic and completely uninteresting. I mean, there's so many time travel books, what makes this one different and why should I read it? And while Gideon wasn't the main character, he was definitely the most interesting one, and his presence was part of what made this book unique.
I *loved* Gideon the Cutpurse! It was totally one of the best sci-fi/fantasy books of 2006! You can't change a book's name, even if the name sucks because it loses all recognition! I've been hand-selling that book like mad and now I'm going to have to convince all my co-workers that this new book is really the same one and to sell it! And it has a horrible name to boot! Arghhh!!!!!
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