Comments on: A Book Buyer Complains About Books-to-Movies

By: T.

T. — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:07:00 +0000

I was introduced to LOTR through a magazine article (anyone remember EXPLORE Magazine?). Saw ads for the movies, but read the books first. Love the books, still haven’t seen the movies. I own two sets of the trilogy, and on the one with the “movie-based cover,” I used black marker on the actor’s pictures. :) Pretty? No. But at least Frodo still looks like Frodo in my mind, not like an actor.

Kudos to Novelr; I’m writing a report on the E-reader industry, and this site was very helpful!

By: In Which I Get Really Judgmental About Book Covers | The Portrait of a Would-Be Artist as a Young Woman

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:23:54 +0000

[...] pants on for one more day. In my StumbleUpon-ing, I came across a 2009 article from Novelr about how god-awful movie tie-in book covers are. Truly, they are heinous and many times [...]

By: Igor

Igor — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:31:54 +0000

Thank you for bringing it up. It has been on my mind since I bought McEwan’s Atonement and Enduring Love. It is extremely annoying.

By: Ben Atkinson

Ben Atkinson — Sun, 16 May 2010 19:13:03 +0000

I particularly hated the Atonement film cover, as the original was so much more a piece of artwork which gives no intention of the characters. It’s as you said, I would prefer to discover a picture of the characters on my own. Thankfully I have stayed away from this when designing my own cover.

By: AFish

AFish — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:33:39 +0000

I concur wholeheartedly
only so recently did I refuse to purchase a copy of Defiance because of the movie poster cover.
Also, thank you for your marvelous appreciation of the book binding, smell, and type. Every time I go to a book store and see a kindle or the nook or whatever it is, I die a little on the inside.

By: Eli James

Eli James — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:40:04 +0000

@Christopher:

Well, one option is to wait a bit for the movie hype to die down. Another option is to buy the book online.

By: Christopher T

Christopher T — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:20:05 +0000

I couldn’t buy I Am Legend because it had Will Smith on it!! And I really wanted a copy!

By: tom

tom — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:59:29 +0000

The only book I have with a movie cover is the Lord of the Rings boxset. I bought it without realising, I didn’t even know there was a movie coming out. I still think it looks nice though because it’s essentially just the title on a black background; they haven’t thrown too much of the movie on there.

By: Chubbles

Chubbles — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:52:51 +0000

Finally! Someone who understands me! *huggles*

By: Eli James

Eli James — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:45:23 +0000

Second-hand bookstores are a good idea I haven’t thought of. But I’ve just come up with another one: I borrow the book from a library, watch the movie, and if I really like it (the book, not the movie) I’ll wait for the movie fad to pass and buy a copy when the cover’s not all mangled-up anymore.

How’s that, for starters? ;-)

By: Tiffany

Tiffany — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:16:25 +0000

I have this same peeve! If I go to the bookstore and find that an original cover copy isn’t available, I would prefer to wait a few weeks, go home and order it online second-hand through AbeBooks.com. I also refuse to watch a movie before I’ve read the book so I’ve not seen a lot of movies these days.

By: Nc

Nc — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:44:34 +0000

It’s especially annoying when you’re collecting a series of books, and then they change the covers, so that the new movie-books doesn’t fit with the old ones…

By: Cindy

Cindy — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:01:18 +0000

I completely agree. I search forever to find the Lord of the Rings trilogy with no movie referenced covers. However I have yet to find a solution to buying books with the “Now a major television show!” label on them i.e. Dresden Files or Southern Vampire Chronicles….

By: G.

G. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:05:14 +0000

I strongly agree. Even if I liked the movie (rarely, it does happen), I like the book to be a separate entity. And to those who said that the post was about judging books by their covers, it seemed more to me to be about judging the covers of books.

By: Brett

Brett — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:42:15 +0000

It took me absolutely forever to find a copy of I, Robot without Will Smith’s face on the cover. Hate it.

By: Matthias

Matthias — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:24:31 +0000

Oh it’s the same mess over here in Germany. It doesn’t get me annoyed that often because I usually read classics but when it happens it hits even harder. You know “The Reader” by Bernhard Schlink? I wanted to buy it since it was on my list for a long time but then there was this huge sticker on the cover “Now in cinemas”. I got very angry.
Since that day I boycott this kind of books.

By: shawn walsh

shawn walsh — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:54:13 +0000

In the same vein, I hate it when publishers release a new edition of earlier books (especially in a series) with all new “flash” cover – this happens especially with Sci Fi and fantasy series, now that the genre is popular again, so here I have 5 out of 6 in a series all with the original pictorial covers and the last one is in a new “adult” cover.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:20:30 +0000

Hah- me too! I hate that… sometimes I’ll look for an older printing, so I won’t get that damn movie poster cover. The only thing more vile is a book based on a movie.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:48:53 +0000

my sentiments exactly… when I buy a book I refuse to buy the movie cover version. In fact, nowadays I’m prone to some searching to find older hardback versions; great cover art and usually very cheap.

By: Kris

Kris — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:34:03 +0000

@Frogergeist:

But do we not all judge our books by the cover to some degree? Each of my favorite books was once unknown; often the first copy was picked up because the cover art caught my attention. Not to say that I loved or loathed any given book for that reason…but an eye-catching cover is part of what will intrigue a new reader.

Perhaps that is the point of putting famous faces on books that have been made into movies: the off chance that someone will pick it up, read, and fall in love.

While I happen to agree that seeing a movie poster where my cover belongs is irritating, I also say that anything that gets a book picked up and read cannot be all bad.