A Tale of Two Prestiges
I really want to see The Prestige in the theaters. (I mean, Bowie as Tesla!!!). However, do check out the two versions of the novel cover. The first is from the trade paperback that came out in the late nineties:
Truly a beautiful cover.
Here is the ARC-lite version that came out for the “movie tie in.”
Alrightey. And btw, they’re both from Tor, so there wasn’t a change in publishers.
The rumor is that Tor was holding out for the standard movie still cover, but the studio was having none of it, and by the time that was shaken out, it was too late for anything clever.
Not sure that makes any sense, mind. But it’s what I’ve heard.
(I like the old cover, too.)
That makes sense, but if that’s true, then why not use the old cover with a “now a major motion picture” starburst?
Because that would make sense?
Yeah, I couldn’t believe it when I saw that ugly new cover in bookstores. I agree, why bother changing at all for the movie reference? Stickers are certainly cheaper than a cover redesign and new print run.
Maybe Tor wanted to teach Christopher Priest a lesson about being too uppity.
The original Tor trade paperback seems to still be in print; the movie tie-in has not supplanted it. The movie tie-in is also a mass market paperback, while the original is a trade paperback.
And, for a movie tie-in, having a still from the movie is practically required; usually, the aim is to look as much like the movie poster as possible. There’s really no other way to do it. A movie tin-in edition also increases sales hugely, as the audience for a book that was made into a movie is massively larger than the audience for that book in and of itself.
Stickers are what you do when something (like an award) happens that might increase sales modestly if readers knew about it.
Wow. That’s got to be the dullest Tor cover since the paperback Stories of Your Life. And they’re charging 14.95 for it? Ew.
(The UK tie-in is a fair bit better.)
Anyway: we’re seeing it in Austin, yes?
Andrew> The version with the new, fugly cover is a trade paperback. I saw it with mine own eyes (on the front-of-store table at a chain). And I don’t necessarily mean a sticker-a starburst image embedded into the cover could have worked too. Or, heck, anything else besides what they had.
How many 10 year old, mid-list books get a second shot like this?