Book cover makeovers are fascinating. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to land on a book cover for any new title, and that effort is important because, despite the saying, we judge a book by its cover. The cover is the first chance for a book’s success. It needs to connect with readers.
Cover trends come and go, and we’ve seen that cover design trends have shifted as more and more book publicity goes digital first. You want a cover that looks good on a tiny screen, whether it’s a thumbnail or in a book being held by someone talking in a TikTok video. What once worked to capture a reader’s interest is not always what captures today’s readers, regardless of how beloved a particular book, series, or author may be. Tastes and preferences change.
We’re now in the midst of entering a new era of book redesigns. While repackaging books isn’t new, the number of YA authors and series being repackaged right now may be more noticeable and more prolific than before. Numerous authors with name and title cache are seeing their books remade, helping them connect with new audiences (and, in some cases, giving longtime fans yet another physical object to add to their personal collections). It’s also likely that one reason we’re seeing several repackages is that the makeup of publishing is changing. Readers who grew up with these books and series are now working in the industry and are eager to revive some of their favorites for a new readership.
Let’s take a look at several YA authors who are seeing their covers redesigned and their series repackaged. These names and/or books will be familiar if you’ve been a young adult reader for any period of time. What stands out is how much they mirror the trends we’re seeing in covers for new books published for today’s readers.
Of note: there is a lack of diversity in these repackages. This is hard to ignore, especially given the way we’ve seen diverse books be targets of ongoing book bans over the last six years. Turning to older, tried-and-true books is one way to mitigate potential risks for publishers, particularly regarding LGBTQ+ books and content. What you’ll see below are stories centering heternormative relationships; this is but a sampling–there are many more examples of cover makeovers to share in future newsletters–but they all share that feature.
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It’s also hard not to notice the lack of diversity in where and how we’re seeing books become bestsellers right now. That said, several beloved authors of color have seen their books repackaged over the last several years for today’s readers, including some fantastic new covers for Walter Dean Myers titles.
Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to credit any design teams here. This information is still unnecessarily cumbersome to find, if it can be located at all.
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
The first book in the Jenna Fox series has had quite the evolution over the course of its life. First published in 2008, this dystopian novel explores biomedical ethics through the story of a teenage girl who wakes from a coma with little memory of how that happened to her.
The initial cover features a blue monarch-appearing butterfly–a slight twist on the blue morpho butterfly that dotted many covers of that era in YA. We’re given Jenna’s perspective, looking down at her hand in wonder and perhaps in a state of confusion.
That cover then got a makeover in its paperback edition. Now, rather than from Jenna’s perspective, we’re outsiders looking at Jenna as pieces of a puzzle come together to construct her face. It carries the blue coloring through, but gives it a very stark whiteness, too.
The cover on the right is the latest iteration. It was released on May 5 this year, alongside new covers for the second and third books in the trilogy.
They take an illustrative approach, and, like the previous covers, The Adoration of Jenna Fox leans into the white and blue color scheme. We’re again on the outside, looking at Jenna, but her fragmented perspective is captured well by the doubling of her profile.
While these covers feel too sharp for me, I can see where and how they stand out, even amid the proliferation of illustrated covers in YA. It’s a really great series, and I hope that they land on the radar of newer YA readers and/or YA readers who haven’t picked them up yet.
Nightshade by Andrea Robertson (series)
Published amid the YA paranormal romance surge in 2010, Andrea Robertson’s four-book “Nightshade” series received a total repackage and relaunch in July of this year. The evolution of the cover for book one is fascinating. It begins with a girl and some flowers, with a light purple grounding the image. There’s a clever use of a dagger in the “t” of the book title.
Both the purple and the dagger carry over into the paperback version of Nightshade. Like so many series at the time, the paperback was redesigned for the series; the initial look of the first book didn’t carry over into all of the sequels.
Now, with the series’ relaunch, all the covers have harmony from the start. As with the original two covers, the new one retains the purple but drops the dagger. It also drops the person entirely, choosing to stick with the werewolf (while adding back the flowers). While the 2011 paperback edition aligned with cover design trends in paranormal romance, the new cover now aligns with trends that differentiate paranormal romance from romantasy.
This redesign feels like it’s keeping up with current trends while also feeling more timeless than its earlier iterations. Interestingly, it doesn’t appear that the fourth book in the series was part of the redesign.
Let The Sky Fall by Shannon Messenger (series)
Last but not least for this roundup, Shannon Messenger’s popular series will see new editions in November this year. Let The Sky Fall, the first in the series, was published in 2013 with the golden cover shown above on the left. It features a boy and a girl swept into the sky, leaning heavily into the story’s romantic elements. The title font is thin, forcing attention to the couple.
When the book was released in paperback, it got a new look. While the book is a paranormal romance, the second iteration of the cover leans far more into the adventure side of the story. We have an electric person at the center, rising above the wind turbines. The font’s grown bigger, and the color scheme is very different from the initial hardcover design.
Let The Sky Fall and its sequels will be re-released on November 10 with new packages. What’s interesting is how the new design on the right marries the two previous looks. It’s gold, it’s romantic, and it’s got hints of an adventure to be had inside. The font is different from either of the previous covers, but it somehow manages to capture the feel of both.
All of the new editions will be released simultaneously, and they’re not just getting a cover treatment. The edges will be sprayed, too.
I’m not sure that the new covers quite capture that this is a paranormal romance series, but they certainly capture romance and fantasy. They’re definitely pretty, and they should land with readers itching for these stories.
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