I’ve been thinking about changing my Time Machine Girls covers for a while now. I just don’t think they stand up very well when I see them side by side, next to others in their genre. To me, they look a little “young” for the age they were written for (girls not quite ready for middle grade). But when I emailed my sister the new book cover I was working on, she said, “If everyone else is apples, there is something refreshing about being the lone orange.”
So now I know I’m the lone orange. And I started second-guessing myself because on the one hand, I like being “refreshingly different,” but on the other hand… it’s lonely being the only orange at an apple store.
I mean, let’s be serious. No one goes to an apple store looking for an orange. Once they open those doors and look out at the aisles and baskets stocked full of granny smith, pink ladies, and red delicious, who would even notice a plain-old orange off in the corner someplace? In fact, think of the poor salesman in charge of selling customers on that lone orange when they came in for an apple. “Hey, before you leave, have you considered something… squishier, less sweet, and requires a little peeling?”
Not to make light of the point, but it’s pretty hard being the orange at an apple store, and I love oranges. So I thought I’d try to find out what you all thought.
Here are the new covers and the old ones, side by side. If you have a moment, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave a quick comment on which one you like better. It might help solve this apples-oranges debate once and for all.
(I’m also thinking about changing the title for the second Time Machine Girls book to Never Give Up. I think it reads better than Follow Failure.)
I’ll probably “split-test” the new covers, which just means I’ll probably put the new covers up on Amazon and leave them oranges on itunes. So to recap — oranges on Apple and apples on Amazon. That wasn’t confusing, right?
