A book cover by any other design wouldn’t read as sweet.

Wasn’t that Shakespeare? Marlow? Middleton?

Moriarty?

(See that’s a joke cause Moriarty was actually Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis – so not only a fictional character but also 300 years later.)

(Though some argue that Shakespeare was also a fictional character.)

(And I guess that would now just be considered a pen name and/or ghost writing, and not a *gasp* horror and a conspiratorial literary tragedy to even suggest such a vile thing.)

(Cause Bill’s gots fans.)

Anyway, hi there dear readers and blog consumists!

Today I want to chat covers. Book covers.

And how sometimes publishers will sally forth and tally ho into creating NEW covers, completely different designs than those that peaked out between my fingers as I lovingly clutched them in my hands, my index finger itching to turn the page.

What!?! A whole new design.

Traitor. TRAITOR!

Traitor to all fandom you are!!

How dare thee!

How darest thou serve-up thy nerve-eth and smear your creative change all over my treasured…ah,-eth…book.

(Yeah, it’s manifesting into a Shakespearean Pig Latin of sorts. Hang in there!)

Was thine heart ever true?

Oh, dearest publisher?

…oh, dear—I’m a publisher!!

And I am currently rebranding almost every book and every series in our reading arsenal as fast as I can get me hands—and time and team—on it.

(Yeah, I caught that “me hands.” My Shakesperean PigLatin is morphing into a sporadic Pirate.)

(Arrrr, my feisty readers! Shiver me paperbacks.)

Now, as a publisher I am psyched to get out new covers and branding and designs. I am creating many of them, so it is a joy and one of the favorite things in my job.

But as a reader…

Even if the design WAS better, I would still be Elizabethan-ly displeased and express myself accordingly (and sometimes in verse).

But that was also over 20 years ago.

(…ahem, 30 years ago.)

I have since matured (aged) like fine cheese (whine).

And also—and I think more hitting the nail on the head and driving it into the Globe Theatre announcement board with this one—I now have more funds to purchase said new covers with joy. ADD them to my collection, as opposed to being so vehemently (and prosaically) against it.

Still keeping the old beloved covers.

Those covers I have relationships with. A history with.

We’ve been through a lot together and traveled some places, met some people. We’ve gots a past!

We’re reading bros.

A team.

The Read Team!

(Yeeeeah, that got a little away from me there.)

(If you’re new to this blog, that happens.)

(And swooning.)

(Swooning probably won’t happen in this blog, though it is a bit time-period appropriate. But a swooning blog this way comes!)

(“Please sir, may I swoon some more?”)

(What the Dickens?)

Aaaaaand, I’m back.

But the new covers (Remember that? What we’ve been talking about. Yeah, I can be distracting.) are the perfect excuse to read my favorite books again.

Not that I neeeeeed an excuse.

But I’ll hang my codpiece on that.

(…)

(…awkward…)

(For so many reasons.)

So love ’em or hate ’em, new branding and covers will come and go on your favorite books. Especially if they are also the favorites of many other people.

It’s truly a tale of two covers, both alike in interior-ity.

In your fair bookcase, where change can be obscene.

Have a wonderful week, dear readers.

One simply beyond words.