Wednesday, April 04, 2007

International Covers

I thought this might be interesting. On the left is the Italian
cover for Secrets In The Marriage Bed. Below that is the Japanese cover for the same book. On the right is the original North American cover.

Sitting behind me is the Korean translation, which I can't find an image of online but which is a deep purple with no picture. I'll try and take a photo of it and add it to this post later.

Interesting differences, no?

11 comments :

LesleyW said...

I rather like the Japanese cover. :)

LOL - I got all excited that this was a new book Nalini before I realised it's one of the Silhouettes that are quite hard to get hold of. I have them on my Amazon wishlist and keep monitoring them in the hopes someone will have them.

Will catch up with you guys in ten days, I'm off on holiday to Scotland. And won't have internet access, I'm not sure how I'll cope. LOL.

Anonymous said...

Cool, Scotland! Excellent accents. Don't get why anyone would actually want to eat haggis, though. Blech! Gag!

As for covers, it's interesting you brought that up, Nalini. I've wondered myself why different countries have different covers for the same book. Do you know? I've been on Sherrilyn Kenyon's web site before where she's shown the German cover for one of her books or from someother country. They are completely different.

It makes me go, "Hmmmm. What's up with that?" If the cover's different, does that mean what's inside is different, too? Do they edit/add/delete things for other countries? What if MY country has taken out something that someone else gets to see? That's not right. I want it all.

You can see how I obsess on stuff. *rolls eyes*

BTW, Nalini, I think it is SO wrong that you have Tanner's Scheme. What's even wronger (I just decided that's a great word and should be in the dictionary) is that you didn't immediately pounce on it and devour it. *sigh* You should post an excerpt from Judd's book, or the one you're working on now, just to make it up to me, er, us. I meant us. ;)

Anonymous said...

Sorry to get your hopes up, Lesley! The international editions come out at dif times so the Italian one's just released. :)

Have fun in Scotland!

Jennifer - re Tanner's Scheme, muwahahahaha! I decided I needed to space out my Breeds reading or I'd melt from the overheating ;) Plus it's nice to know it's there for me to pounce on. And stroke. And you know, taunt other people with *grin*

As for the covers, dif countries choose dif covers according to a number of factors. For example, I know one of my Japanese covers was changed because it showed too much skin (Awaken to Pleasure - couple in bed) because the readers would feel too shy to pick it up. The interesting thing was, the book sold fantastically well in Japan because it was so hot. So there the outside didn't echo the inside in terms of heat but it worked for that country.

And sometimes, I know things are deleted/changed in other editions. Occasionally this is because of page restrictions, but sometimes it's because something is impossible to translate.

Anonymous said...

Do you know who makes the decision as to what is too hot in a cover for a particular country? Is it the publisher? Does each country have a hotness police/censor agency? I wonder how you get that job? And if the cover's too hot, wouldn't the book be considered too hot for readers, too? And what about stuff like MFM or MMF or gay erotica? Are those outright banned in some countries? I guess they would be. But doesn't manga and stuff come from Japan? How can two people in bed be too hot for them?

The publishing business is kinda confusing to me. You don't have to answer all those questions. I'm kind of wondering aloud ... in writing.

And it's really mean to tease people with what you have and they don't. Really, really mean. :(

Shannon said...

Oh I really like the Italian cover!

I've always thought it would be a lot of fun to try to collect all the editions of my favorite author's books, but it seems that gets really expensive really fast! LOL

Thanks for sharing some of yours! I'd love to see more when you have the time (hint hint).

ShellBell said...

I always have a chuckle when I am on Sherrilyn Kenyon's website - the Thailand edition of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Fantasy Lover is the same as the US(?) edition of Stephanie Steven's Defiant Angel.

danetteb said...

I was leaning toward the Italian cover too. I wonder why many international covers are better than the american ones.

Anne said...

I like the Italian one best *G* Very nice.

Barbarita V said...

I guess, I kind of have different taste. I like the American and the Korean covers because the Vicki shows her pregnancy while the Italian is more catchy it give me the impression of been at a ball.

ShellBell said...

Forgot to add that I prefer the Italian cover also!

Nadia said...

Nalini,

I would be interested to know how faithfully the book was translated into Japanese. I don't read Japanese, so oh well.

When I get published and get a Korean translation, I think I'll set aside a couple of hours and read it. Strangely enough I can read Korean faster than I can English. *wry grin*