Schedule Watch: Orbit and Tor UK

21 Responses to 'Schedule Watch: Orbit and Tor UK'

1. Darren on August 15th, 2007 9:32 pm

   Since it's football season, I have to say:

   Amazon 1 - Ariel 0

   It's the right artwork, Ariel. We've gone for a new approach to the Castor books - one that gives a much better sense of place and hint of the noir atmosphere of the series. THE DEVIL YOU KNOW and VICIOUS CIRCLE will be getting similar treatment in due course.

   I know I'm insanely biased, but I think the new look rocks!

   Cheers,

   Darren

2. Ariel on August 16th, 2007 7:13 am

   Sorry mate, you're watching the wrong match. The score is actually:

   Naff cover design 1 - Orbit 0

   The old covers were stylish and had a sense of identity, they were building into being an interesting series - like the Jim Butcher books. And the stylised graphic element also spoke to Mike Carey's background in comics; appealing to fans of his illustrated series and helping to encourage them to try his prose.

   The new one strikes me as being kinda boring, bit cheesy...

   New art director in the house throwing their not-very-imaginative weight around or something? In any case, Orbit have definitely dropped the ball there. Let's hope it gets better for the away leg, huh?

3. Darren on August 16th, 2007 9:21 am

   Uh-uh, my friend. 90 minutes *plus* time added on for stoppages:

   Orbit 2 - old cover design 1

   I agree that the initial design had an identity all its own, and I'm still fond of it, but it fell down in a few key areas, to wit:

   * Gave no sense of place, and Castor's London is as much a character in the book as Fix, Juliet, Nicky, et al.
   * Gave no hint to crime readers that here was a series dripping noir that they might enjoy if they gave it a go.
   * Blended in on the shelf, rather than stood out.
   * Only made sense if you'd already read the book.

   This last one was particularly important in making the decision (my decision, by the way - and our art director is a fine and talented gentleman - leave him alone!). The primary purpose - indeed, it could be argued, the only purpose - of a cover is to entice potential readers to pick up the book. On that basis, a stylish cover is not necessarily a good cover.

   Further to that line of thinking, in order to get the right people - i.e. potential customers - to pick up the book, the cover has to give a sense of what the book is about before you've read it - something the old covers simply didn't do. I'm glad you like the Jim Butcher covers, Ariel, but the thing about them is that apart from being very stylish and identifiable, they tell you exactly what to expect from them - a manila folder/file with a supernatural icon in the top corner and a tagline of 'Magic. It can get a guy killed.' When a potential reader's eye falls on that cover he/she immediately knows that they're looking at a book that is part PI/part supernatural. Job done.

   The old Castor covers didn't do that. The new ones, however . . . well, let's tick 'em off:
   Crime/noir-based story? check
   Supernatural element? check
   London-based? check
   Part of a continuing series? check
   Job done? Yeah, I think so.

   I'm not going to argue with you over whether the old covers were more imaginative or more stylish - they were. But the new cover will make the books appeal to a much broader audience, and I'm afraid my job is to sell a shed load of Mike's books, not win awards for innovative cover design.

   Sorry to go all Mammon-worshipping on you, but I'm afraid in a competition between aesthetics and commerce, commerce wins every time. Besides, I disagree about the new look being boring, I think it's very cool. And Mike agrees (which is also important).

   See you after the match for a pint ;-)

4. Ariel on August 16th, 2007 9:45 am

   Gaaah... so many potential points for argument meaningful discussion... so little time... I'll actually get on with some work for a bit while I gather my thoughts... but I'll be back!

5. Phil Boswell on August 16th, 2007 4:01 pm

   Can I be the only one who thinks that this is yet another stupid and misguided ploy by Orbit to get people to buy new copies of old books? Changing the cover style part-way through a series seems to be becoming a habit, and for those of us who like to have a uniform look to our bookshelves it's becoming a distinctly annoying one.

   I bought all of the Wheel of Time new until the restyling: no way am I going to go back and buy new copies to match the new cover style. So now I'm getting the US copies: better a slight difference in size than a total difference in appearance.

   At least Orbit managed to get the new look for The Dresden Files in place right from the start, although my cynical inner-snark wonders when they'll "have a better idea" and change that as well.

   My advice to Orbit: stop buggering about with makeovers and just get on with publishing stuff in proper time. Why does it take nearly a year for us to get White Night?

   (meta-query to whoever runs this blog: whyTF does the edit-box I'm entering text into keep changing size and hiding behind the adverts? just asking…)

6. Ariel on August 16th, 2007 4:59 pm

   Hi Phil -

   I do have to agree there, that's a major bug-bear for me, too. Not so bad with paperbacks, when I buy them I tend to buy second-hand so I can read them quickly and pass on to someone else to enjoy (or despatch to the charity shop, depending) so I'm used to having a mix of cover designs on the shelf... but I really, really hate it when publishers change the cover design on a hardback run. Or even large-size, trade paperback - the worst example I've seen recently being Gwyneth Jones' publisher, who completely changed the aesthetic for the fifth and final book in her Bold as Love series after maintaining a reaosnably coherent look up until then.

   Anyhow, I'd suggest that it's a blind-spot for a lot of publishers - they're far more focused (as Darren freely admits, to be fair) on the short-term commercial elements of a book's production than they are on the long-term aesthetic value that a complete set has to the reader and collector. Books have object value long after their immediate sales period, and if I've enjoyed a book, or a whole series, and want to add it to the hardback-library, it's because I want to see it on the shelf, and seeing a good set of books is part of the pleasure. But that's not necessarily going to help sales in the very short window that a book has at front-of-store (if it's lucky enough to make it that far...) which is what the publishers do have to focus on.

   So, it's damn annoying, but I don't think it's something that'll change, alas.

   And to respond to Darren's comments:

   * London - I for one had barely noticed that the books were set in London; one of the things I enjoyed about them was their apparent ubiquitousness of place. And I fear you're forgetting the potential irrationality of Northerners - how many people outside the M25 will be put off trying the book precisely because the London Eye is on the cover? ;)

   * Crime readers - Hard-core crime readers won't go near the series because it's 'polluted' by the supernatural element - as John Connolly explained at a Fantasycon panel last year. Huge fans of cross-over crime / horror (like me) will probably know about it and have read it already. And horror readers might be tempted to give it a go if that can spot it among all the other look-alike covers on the shelf. But the audience you were previously appealing to with the strong visual element was Mike Carey's established comics readership... not so much anymore, surely?

   * Blending in - Come one mate, if the old covers blended in, the new ones are going to be all-but anonymous... :D

   * Making Sense - Eh? Since when did a cover have to make sense? The role of the cover, as you say, is to attract the attention of the potential reader who isn't specifically looking for it already, right? And once they've seen a cover they like (and again, the old ones were far more striking and stylish, as you admitted) and picked it up, then either they'll read the blurb on the back or - given how many spoilers you buggers tend to stick in the blurb - will avoid the blurb and start reading the book to see what they think of the prose.

   At which point, the cover-as-sales-tool has either done it's job or not. Nobody stands in a bookshop staring at a cover and using that as the sole basis for a purchasing decision, do they? Unless it's so cringeworthy that on reflection the potential reader decides they'd be too embarassed to be seen reading it in public (embarassment value of a glowing inverted pentagram, anyone?) in which case they might think about it and put it back... but either way, 'making sense' doesn't come into the equation, surely?

   (Sincere apologies to the Art Director, by the way. I know from his track record that he does a fine job, that's why I thought you'd been lumbered with a new one....)

   As for the check-list:

   Crime/noir-based story? Check - Um, nope. Stock shadowy figure? Could be anything. Looks like some sort of bog-standard vampire thing to me.
   Supernatural element? Check - Well, I'll give you that - glowing pentagram, obviously - but I'm still thinking 'vampire'...
   London-based? Check - Yes, but London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, who cares? He can set it anywhere as long as it's a good read.
   Part of a continuing series? Check - Um, nope again. Unless there's a big, fat '3' on the spine (always advisable, by the way) there's nothing on that front cover that suggests a series...
   Job done? Yeah, I think so. Well, if you say so... I'm still not convinced though.

7. Joe on August 16th, 2007 6:39 pm

   Hmmm, I have to say, when I put the new style cover on the FPI webstore I was a trifle disappointed - sorry, Darren, but I have to agree with Ariel for the most part and I think the original designs were far more striking and unusual. The new one looks like pretty much any of the multitude of supernatural thrillers (a growth area after all at the moment), which to me as a reader and bookseller seems retrograde. I understand what you mean about trying to make it more appealing to more readers - I'm pretty damned keen to have more folks reading them too, as you know - but in my experience a lot of readers of both SF&F and crime like their series to have a strong visual identity in the cover and can get a bit annoyed when they are changed, so I'm not sure it will do the broader appeal thing. Although naturally I hope it will because they are bloody brilliant books and I'm looking forward to reading Dead Men's Boots.

   Oh and on the London identity thing, I have to say that's never really occurred to me and I doubt it would in any way influence my choice of reading. Besides take someone like Ian Rankin - not all of his Rebus books have a cover which shouts "Edinburgh" to the reader, yet they are bestsellers in many countries, mostly because they are fine crime novels rather than the location. Anyway, none of this will prevent me from standing on a virtual soapbox to say "read this book!"

8. Darren on August 17th, 2007 12:58 pm

   Hmm. Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree, but there's a few points I'd like to answer.

   In order:

   "Can I be the only one who thinks that this is yet another stupid and misguided ploy by Orbit to get people to buy new copies of old books?"

   You're certainly entitled to that opinion, Phil, but you're 100% wrong if you think that's the motivation for any publisher to change covers. That would be a brilliant strategy if publishers wanted to go broke. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of readers don't see matching covers as a huge priority. It's very easy to take what's said on forums and in the comments sections of fine sites such as Ariel's and Joe's and extrapolate them to represent the entire readership. They don't.

   And I dispute that it's become a habit. With the exception of The Wheel of Time, where else have we done it? And in the case of The Wheel of Time, how long were we expected to wait? The illustrated style was dated and embarrassing and in desperate need of a face lift. I will argue until the day I die that if the only reason a potential reader won't pick up a book is that they're embarrassed by the cover, then that book has the wrong cover on it.

   "Why does it take nearly a year for us to get White Night?"
   All kinds of factors can be behind a delay in UK editions - because the publisher acquired the series after several books were already out in the US and needs to catch up in a sensible and sustainable manner, because US publishers often publish in hardback first and can be reluctant to allow mass market editions ahead of their own - but one of them is definitely not because we're all sitting round dreaming up ways to get people to buy old books with new covers.

   "they're far more focused on the short-term commercial elements"
   Not just short-term, Ariel. I'm sorry if commerce sometimes gets in the way of aesthetics - really I am; I'm a collector, too - but if publishers don't keep things commercially viable, they go out of business and then you don't have any books to put the coverson. Publishing is a business and, on the whole, I think we get far more right than we get wrong. In any case, there are far more deserving targets for your ire than publishers - for instance, I bought a copy of Word for the Mac in 1999 (I think) and pulled it out to load on the Macbook I bought earlier in the year. Would it run on my new machine? Would it f***. At least when we put new covers on books we don't print them in a different language. We don't demand you go out and upgrade your eyeballs so you can read them. Some perspective, here, please. . .

   Ariel and Joe, you know I respect your opinions, but you are the converted. Striking and unusual covers make no material difference in wooing you (in a purely commercial sense! I mean, I like you and all, but . . .) because you're already predisposed to buy the books. Your views are valuable, your knowledge formidable, and your feedback always welcome (I wouldn't have bothered weighing in on the issue if I didn't think that), but we have to publish for the whole market, not just a highly engaged segment of it.

   To illustrate: how many people go to Eastercon each year? 500? 600? Let's say 600 - hell, let's say 1,000. 1,000 highly engaged, deeply committed, extremely knowledgeable readers. But both of you know the fate that awaits an author who only sells 1,000 copies of their book. But let's say those 1,000 people can be considered opinion formers, with a reach far beyond their own buying power - books clubs, blogs, forums - let's say each of those attendees actually influences another ten people. So, we now have 10,000 readers reached by that highly engaged core market. How many copies of their books do you think Iain Banks and Peter Hamilton, for instance, sell? It's a lot more than 10,000. In fact, a Banks or Hamilton that only sells 10,000 copies is a disaster. See where I'm going with this?

   So. I'm sorry neither of you like the new cover style, but it was something that resulted from a great deal of thought and I still think it's the right move. And since Orbit's taken a bit of a bashing in the thread above, I would like to balance that by pointing out that we are actually quite good at this. Wheel of Time sales increased by a third with the new cover look, Tom Holt's sales doubled with his. It's early days but Christopher Moore's sales are already increasing with the new look. And before anyone leaps in to accuse us of being nothing but a grasping corporate entity, let me point out that those sales also represent the authors' income. I might be very old-fashioned in this regard, but I take the careers and livelihood of my authors rather seriously. Time will tell whether or not I'm right in this regard, but rest assured that fleecing completists and annoying aesthetes were the last things on our minds when we set this in motion.

   Lest that seem like I'm ending on a grumpy note (I'm not, by the way; a couple of unnecessarily snide comments aside, I welcome the feedback and debate), let me also say that I appreciate everything you fine gentlemen do to help us spread the word on our authors. More power to your pixels!

   P.S. Sorry, Ariel, I can't resist: "there's nothing on that front cover that suggests a series..."
   Er . . .'A Felix Castor Novel' . . . ? Surely . . . ?

   Enjoy the weekend! May your team win handsomely (unless they're playing mine!)

9. Ariel on August 17th, 2007 2:11 pm

   Firstly, Darren mate, allow me to thank you very much indeed for taking the time to respond fully to our comments instead of saying 'sod it' and going off to do something more important, like, I dunno, publishing books...

   But I'm afraid I can't resist weighing in one more time on one or two points:

   Re: Wheel of Time covers - No matter how cheesy and awful they were, I think changing the covers probably pissed off a lot more people than you realise; it's just they might not have been so vocal about it at the time (pre-Blogging etc. for a start). But I was still working at Waterstone's at the time, and I remember there being a lot of disgruntled fantasy fans around, not to mention the Voyager rep who reckoned you'd just ripped off the Lord of the Rings covers... :)

   And speaking of which...

   Re: Wheel of Time sales - yes, the sales went up (George showed me the ball-park figures once) but how much of that was to do with a change of cover design, and how much was to do with factors like the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, the Harry Potter frenzy etc.? See, that's the problem with this sort of thing - the raw sales data only tells half the story. Hell, as long as sales do go up, who cares, right? But still, I'm suspicious that the sales went up because of the cover-change. I'm not sure that would have been the main driving factor when you take everything else into account...

   Oh, and it says "A Felix Castor novel" on the old cover, mate. The new one just says "Felix Castor knows..." etc... unless you've changed it again since it went to Amazon..? :D

10. Joe on August 17th, 2007 3:07 pm

    I think we are in a classic example of "you can't please everyone" here; SF&F publishers, especially in the past, have been roundly criticised for staid, unimaginative, formulaic covers (not least by myself and Ariel too over the years) but when they do change them inevitably someone won't like the new version. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Remember the hassle JJ had when Earthlight put out the original hardbacks from Jon's excellent Arabesk trilogy?

    I thought they were superb - fairly simple, uncluttered, minimal design, quite elegant, beautiful and enticing the read to pick it up and think, "what is this?" A lot of us liked them but he also had folk who hated them; I recall him remarking one fan complained "they don't look like SF covers". Presumably he wanted a robot carrying a woman in an atomic bikini on the cover. And overall I think Orbit has made a good effort to improve covers in the last decade or so too. But as I said, individual taste being what it is you'll never please all of the people all of the time (not until the new generation of novels with built-in hypno-pages come online, anyway), but at the end of the day, if it does indeed get more attention and more sales for good books then that's what's important.

11. Ariel on August 17th, 2007 3:16 pm

    Joe, you're exactly right, mate. Cover design is always going to be entirely subjective and down to individual taste, of course. And Orbit have been making great strides forward, generally-speaking. The new Winterbirth cover, for instance, is cracking, and the old one wasn't too shabby already...

12. Darren on August 17th, 2007 5:10 pm

    I'm embarrassed to say, Ariel, that it has changed again. I love the shoutline (well, I would, wouldn't I? I wrote it . . .) but it cluttered the cover. The finished item simply says 'A Felix Castor Novel'.

    Re: Wheel of Time: as you know I was still at Earthlight when that was done, but I do know it was the product of a lot of thought and consideration. Yes, it annoyed some people - maybe more than we (they?) thought, but it also appealed to a whole lot more. I'm afraid I refuse to accept that it was The Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter effect that upped sales so dramatically (and let's also remember that the baseline wasn't too shabby!) for the very simple reason that every other fantasy author's sales didn't also go up by a third. It was the covers.

    It's probably time for me to go and do other things, now - for a start that pile of manuscripts isn't going to read itself! - but I think we've come to broadly a similar conclusion, namely that you can't keep everyone happy. As long as people realise that we do take series cohesion into account in our publishing strategies; it's just that sometimes other concerns prevail - and of course you never hear about the times we decide against repackaging; why would you?

    And I'm afraid we will continue to repackage - as will every other publisher - because the market conditions change and we have to change with them. What we try to do, whenever possible, is to wait until a series is published out before repackaging - as we did with Terry Brooks.

    By the way, Jo, I joined JJ in pouring scorn on the "they don't look like SF covers" fan but, in hindsight, I think he had a point. Not saying he was objectively right but if he saw Pashazade in his local bookshop and didn't pick it up because he didn't realise it was SF then, for him, that cover failed. And he almost missed out on one of the great SF series of recent times.

    Bon weekend, gentlemen!

13. Ariel on August 17th, 2007 5:31 pm

    LOL :) I knew we had to be critiquing different covers... :)

    Re: Wheel of Time - I'm going to stand by my LOTR / Potter sales bump theorem, and for the following reason:

    If you go into the vast majority of high-street bookstores (and I'll begrudgingly include WH Smith in there because they help to illustrate my point) then the selection of fantasy authors is going to be limited - by the available shelf space, mainly - to the likes of Tolkien, Eddings, Brooks, Goodkind, Pratchett, Martin, (and maybe a few current newer authors) et al etc etc

    So I contend that the reason why Jordan's sales would've bumped in a pro-fantasy, 'we've seen LOTR and read Potter, I wonder that else there is?' atmosphere whilst the same effect didn't accrue to every other fantasy author - is that Jordan, as one of the biggest names on the shelf, is an obvious next-step choice.

    I will concede that the new Wheel of Time covers are less embarrasingly cringeworthy and therefore less prone to the dreaded 'bloody hell, I'm not reading that in public' syndrome, but I still maintain that anyone walking up to a sales assistant in Smith's and saying "What else is like Tolkien then?" would be told something along the lines of "well, that Robert Jordan seems to be popular" and that's where your sales bump will have come from.

    If you can show me comparative sales figures for the other major fantasy authors in the same period and they show a markedly less steep increase, then I'll admit I'm wrong and eat my slice of humble pie quite happily. But speaking as a front-line bookseller at the time, I thinks I knows my onions on this one...

14. thomas conneely on August 17th, 2007 10:29 pm

    How about what Bloomsbury have done with the undeniably genre Jonathan Strange ? A good identifiable genre/fantasy cover, but which manages to avoid certain cliched design elements? I think it's in the lettering actually, as i recall seeing some of those horrendously overblown DAW Us editions over the years and even i would hesitate to buy them. Some times less is more. Not that anybody wants a return to plain Yellow Gollancz Sf jackets of my library borrowing youth ( yes, i was that sad lonely boy.. but i'm better now). As an example, look at the new jacket faber have done for new UK dystopia the Carhullan Army. Classy paper, good design, but not one that puts the book into an immediate straightjacket ( sorry!) as being one thing or the other. Now maybe Fber consider themselves 'above ' genre publishing, and so the words fantasy or science fiction don't appear on the jkacket. But anyone who picks up that book and reads the blurb will know what it is. This year three of the AC Clarke awards nominees appeared without 'genre' jackets, which didn't stop them being nominated, or worthy nominees. And I must admit that I'm a bookseller, and I putnew arrivals into whatever section I think they'll sell in, or sometimes into two....

15. Darren on August 18th, 2007 9:21 pm

    So everyone who saw LOTR and thought "I'll have some more of that!" went into their local bookshop and bought Robert Jordan's books and no one else's? Seriously? Ariel, I'm going to give you a moment to retract that. I'm as keen as anyone to win an argument but you're clutching at straws here. . .

    All Jordan? No Terry Brooks? Raymond Feist? David Eddings? Robin Hobb? I'm not doubting that your bookshop sold more fantasy - but we both know that Deansgate is far from typical as far as SFF sales go. I was at Earthlight at the time and both John and I eagerly awaited the fantasy boom that we were sure would follow the amazing success of the LOTR films. And waited. And waited. And waited. Didn't happen. At all.

    Sorry, mate, but it was the covers, pure and simple. Orbit (for 'twasn't 'we' at the time) removed the cringe factor and more people bought the books. Besides, how do you explain Tom Holt? Thought I'd forgotten that one, didn't you? ;-)

16. Ariel on August 19th, 2007 10:31 am

    No, no, no. You're putting words in my mouth there, mate. What I said was that anyone who saw the LOTR movies and fancied reading some more fantasy, and went into one of the vast majority of UK bookstores would have been presented with an extremely limited choice of top-name mega-selling fantasy authors (I did miss out Feist and Hobb from my previous list, didn't I?) I didn't say that Jordan's were the only books that would have experienced a sales-bump as a result.

    What I actually pointed out was that we don't have sales figures to hand to demonstrate the effect on the other authors' titles - who's to say that Hobb (Voyager), Feist (Voyager), Goodkind (Millennium at the time, Voyager now?), Brooks (Orbit - you should know that one), Martin (Voyager again) didn't have the same bump as a result?

    And I'm sorry, and really mean no disrespect whatsoever, but unless my memory fails me completely (always a possibility) Earthlight didn't have any top-name mega-selling fantasy authors on their list, did they? You guys were always much better at publishing interesting new sf (Grimwood) and new authors with potential for future growth (Lau, Cobley), the tragedy being that the list was cut off before it had a chance to reach its prime.

    But that likewise illustrates the point I'm making - Earthlight's authors didn't get the same LOTR bump because if you went into any bog-standard bookstore at the time then there was a good chance that they weren't on the shelves as frequently - or in anything like the same quantities - as the big names.

    And neither did I say that the new covers had no effect, I completely agree with the cringe-factor being one element in the mix. But "it's the covers, pure and simple"? Seriously? No other factors whatsoever?

17. Linker’s Run « Torque Control on August 23rd, 2007 10:41 am

    [...] There's been a bit of a debate about cover art at The Genre Files [...]

18. Sayuri on January 7th, 2008 2:04 pm

    I am going to pop in with a few cents really late in the day.

    I will buy a book solely on it's cover, or at least I use it as a barometer. If I like the cover art I will see if it appeals to me.

    I recently discovered the Mike Carey novels exactly that way and I loved the old style covers and I have to say if the new ones had been the covers I'm afraid I would have passed them by completely. It's a moot point now because I am hooked and will buy any Felix Castor novel. Hell bind it in hessian and I'll buy it.

    I'm not saying a new cover is not needed, but I do think the new covers look cheap and tacky. Sorry, just my taste.

19. Darren on January 7th, 2008 2:21 pm

    Hi Sayuri - Think you've hit an important point on the head there. Once you've tried and liked one of Mike Carey's books then there's a good chance that you'll be hooked whatever the cover. Whereas news readers who haven't yet taken the plunge and made up their mind still have to be persuaded.

    So maybe the most important cover of all is always going to be the cover of the first book in the series, because even though the Felix Castor books can technically be read as stand-alone's there's a lot of background information that a new reader would miss if they didn't come in at #1.

20. Sayuri on January 9th, 2008 6:25 pm

    Was Dead Men's Books ever released with the original artwork, the one that matches the first two books?

    Because I have just seen the other cover and was hoping it would be nicer up close, but man, it is U-G-L-Y!

    I would really rather hold off and pay over the odds for the original artwork.

    I suppose it doesn't matter because the forth book will also have an ugly cover but....

21. Darren on January 9th, 2008 6:41 pm

    Um... no. They released a version of #3 in the original style (see my comparison post) but then changed it before it ever saw print.

    But hey, the good news is they're re-printing #1 and #2 in the new style as well, so at least the spines will match on the shelf...

    :)

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