[UPDATE] In the comments below Katarzyna Chokecka-Jedrasiak (who blogged on this subject ten days ago) has pointed me at the forum comments on the Polish publisher's website where the publishers announced yesterday that because of contractual issues with the artwork they will now be going with a different cover and the release of The Way of Kings in Poland is to be pushed back a month.
I should note once more, I've made (and have) no complaint about the use of Jason Chan's cover for Sanderson's book. It's common practice to get multi-use out of covers, generally there are no contractual issues, and it's a great image that deserves to be seen. I blogged about it to share the news - it's fun to have something in common with such a big name - and to note my surprise owing to the level of book specific detail on the cover. [/UPDATE]
According to many sources - including the publisher's facebook page, this is to be the cover of Brandon Sanderson's novel, The Way of Kings, in Poland...
King of Thorns in Poland has this cover:
so the original Jason Chan art is definitely unused in Poland, and Jason is to be congratulated for getting his work on as high a profile book as The Way of Kings. I do wonder, though, what Sanderson fans will make of the cover detail specific to King of Thorns and full of meaning for that book, but presumably a bit random for any other work...
The dog skull...
Jorg's view ring showing the planet from orbit...
Jorg's burn scar...
Oh dear.Covers are always very difficult, but I do sometimes wonder what publishers think they are playing at. They obviously liked the Jason Chan artwork, enough to use it on a different book, so why did they re-jacket for Poland?
ReplyDeleteWow. Just . . . wow.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite strange. I love this KoT cover--it's what got me to buy into your series--but it is a terrible fit for a Sanderson book.
ReplyDeleteThat's some creative recycling for sure. Granted, few novel covers are 100% relevant to the novel they adorn. For example, the cover of The Eye of the World contains an extra character because at the time there was an extra character in the draft. He was later cut from the novel, but not from the cover art.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that they are going to use the cover of "King of Thorns" just after they released the news on their FB. I criticised this decision on my website and got a lot of rather rude comments from the publisher's fans because of that... But this cover is so related to Jorg that it is impossible not to think about him while looking at it :)
ReplyDeleteAnd eventually, it turned out that the publisher will use another cover for the Way of Kings :)
Interesting news Katarzyna, thanks! Do you have a link to the decision to change away from Chan's art?
DeleteYou're welcome! It was posted on the publisher's forum:
Deletehttp://mag.com.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2937&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=2130&sid=b900c2ac769c3e89ce5b8c3ced37ac3b
And here is the link to my post if you are interested in it:
http://www.kacikzksiazka.pl/2014/01/jedna-okadka-dwie-ksiazki-czyli.html
This is the German cover for "The Curse of Chalion": http://www.amazon.de/Chalions-Fluch-Chalion-McMaster-Bujold/dp/3404204867
ReplyDeleteBut the cover is from Game of Thrones, this is actually Melisandre, it's one of the original UK Game of Thrones covers by Jim Burns:
http://www.salonfutura.net/2011/05/the-salon-making-a-book-cover/
Another Game of Thrones cover uses Fitz from the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb.
This shows with how much love and care covers get selected, I see a lot of cover images displayed on a laptop and a bored publisher clicking the first that comes to his mind, that's my mental image of the selection process. :)