Forum - View topicNEWS: Spice & Wolf Novel's J Cover Offered to Web Retailers
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neocloud9
 Posts: 1178 Location: Atlanta, GA |
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Oh, that's a relief. So I won't have to spend ten bucks on a magazine I don't want just to cover up that awful "localized" cover design. Thank goodness. Wonder which retailers they're referring to... Amazon?
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Ryusui
 Posts: 463 |
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It doesn't hurt matters that the version of the cover that did ship happened to be creased into unusability. I'm serious. They put the folds in the middle of the freaking cover.
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icepick314
 Posts: 486 Location: Back in the Good Ol' US of A |
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my thinking exactly.... i'm pretty sure most major anime online stores like Rightstuf should have those dust jackets but i don't know if Amazon will care enough to ask for them....they're probably too big to even know this is happening.... |
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FeralKat
Posts: 402 |
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I was just about to go by Yen Plus tomorrow just for the cover. Glad I know this now. =/ |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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They really really really should have just done a reversible cover, but I guess it was too late to implement. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I'll probably still get the magazine since I don't know when I'll be able to get the book itself and I'll make do, the creases won't kill me.
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Kalessin
 Posts: 931 |
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So, they're trying to please the pre-existent fans and still sell to the mass market. Seems like a good move to me. I certainly wasn't go to shell out for the magazine (I never read any kind of magazines anyway), but if I can get my hands on the original cover by buying it right away instead of waiting like I might have done, then I'm definitely going to buy it as soon as the versions with the original cover are available.
In any case, I'm glad to see that they actually care about the fans, but I still think that it was a good move on their part to get a new cover for the book. It will almost certainly sell better this way. There's nothing really Japanese about the book itself, so there will probably be plenty of people who will pick up the book with the non-Anime cover who not only wouldn't have touched it otherwise but might not even figure out that it was Japanese in the first place. |
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Juhachi
 Posts: 228 |
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Despite the fact that the author's name is clearly visible on the cover? 
Anyway, I am very pleased by Yen Press for this. I was actually just going to buy the novel in town, but now I'll order it online through one of these "special" retailers. And who knows, maybe it really will get popular and then Hollywood will make a movie out of it with Keanu Reeves as Lawrence... |
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Ashen Phoenix
 Posts: 2943 |
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I just recently spoke my piece on this subject over at Yenpress.com so I'll keep it brief here.
"Perfection" in any way, shape or form, in my opinion is an illusion, so with that in mind I think the extent Yen has gone to to please as many Spice & Wolf fans as possible is truly commendable. Bottom line: The series' already-established fanbase now has options, and if the alternate cover art does indeed attract more non-otaku readers into the fold, then how can that be anything but good? 
Yen Press is run by businesspeople; men and women who understand what needs to be done in order to sell these series to the public. In the same breath, Yen Press is run by fans; folks with a vehement love of manga, light novels, and the subculture therein. To my eyes, both these qualities are needed for a company to truly thrive. Both in the opinions of the masses and of the retailers. |
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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Wow, the new cover IS awful. And I hope I'll be able to get the original artwork with the jacket,
And no, a different cover won't help with the sales. They're delusional if they think that. This kind of novels gather to a specific niche market, Now I have doubts on the quality of the adaptation too. If they were so willing to change the cover, who can say what will happen with the actual content? A book is not a manga (even if it's "just" a light novel). I'm tired of seeing this kind of stuff. Also, I hope the jacket is not something stupid like US-only. |
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Kalessin
Posts: 931 |
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Well, there are plenty of people in the US with very un-American names. I'm sure that it wouldn't take much for someone to figure out that it was translated, but if there's nothing from the author or editor in the book (like a forward), then there won't be any discussions of the fact that it was translated or that it was written in Japan, so it wouldn't be immediately obvious. The original cover would have made it fairly obvious (or at least far more noticeable), while the new one looks like generic American stuff, so it's not immediately noticeable. I expect that most people who read it will figure out that it was translated, but many may not. But just because something was translated from Japanese doesn't mean that it has any relation to anime, so any stigma that the average reader in the US who might come upon it in their local bookstore might have for anime really affect book sales - which was likely the main purpose for the cover change in the first place. |
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Kalessin
Posts: 931 |
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It's a generic fantasy cover. There's nothing particularly great about it. It's just not anime or anime-related, so no one is going to avoid the book because they have no interest in anime. And Spice and Wolf really isn't a typical anime story at all. It's the sort of thing that an American writer who had never seen any anime at all or even heard of Japan could very well have written. So, it probably has as good a chance of doing well in the American market as any similarly-sized American novel of a similar genre does. It really isn't particularly niche - at least no more so than any similar American novel. As for altering the material, since when are translations of novels drastically altered. Things can and will get lost in the translation - it happens in virtually every translation ever - but that doesn't mean that the content is going to be significantly altered. There's certainly no way that they'd be looking to edit the content. They changed the cover to try and attract a wider audience - which is good considering how poorly your typical light novel translation sells. There will be fans of the series who are anime fans who will be ticked about the change in cover, whether they get the original one or not, but honestly, is the cover all that important? Yes, I'd like the original cover, as would most of us, but I would rather that the book sold well so that we got the rest of the novels translated rather than getting the anime-style cover. |
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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It isn't, however, the cover the author wanted. And I repeat: this won't help sales. If I can't get the jacket, I won't buy it. Other companies already disgraced the format too much (Tokyopop, Seven Seas).
If people are so willing to put off a book based on the cover, well, perhaps there's no way of it to succeed.
Did it ever work? Shana, Boogiepop, Kino failed miserably. What I don't like, is that this has to be done since the readers are considered so idiot that they cannot understand something different.
Sorry but no, I don't give money to companies that consider me so stupid that they have to change the cover to let me "understand" it. |
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PingSoni
 Posts: 195 Location: Lansing MI |
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The cover bound into Yen Plus has one fold in the front of the cover and one fold in the back. To have had the cover folded for insertion in other places would have required the cover to be printed on a larger sheet of paper and folded in three instead of two places, substantially increasing the cost. (The cover is 8 x 18 inches; how is an online seller going to deliver that? Are they going to fold the cover and put it on the book, or what?)
Though I personally love anime and manga art, I know from experience that if one puts something that looks like a 'cartoon' on the cover of a book in the North American market, way too many folks, including reviewers, are going to assume it's a children's book. As the Yen Press folks say in the editorial in that issue of Yen Plus, the challenge right now is to expand the market to people who don't usually buy anime and manga. If they believe the cover is an important factor in whether someone will pick up a book and look at it, then they need to use the cover they believe will work in this market. I think it's wonderful that they've decided to make the original cover art available to folks who will appreciate it! |
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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You don't expand the market by bending to the questionable rules. You have to raise the awareness of the product as it is, this is just a "cheap" (they had to spend on the cover after all) way out, and will just make it bomb harder. |
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