Sometimes books have unfathomably different cover editions-
Whoa!
Nipple warning!
-that make you question your entire life.
So today we're going to talk about why that is and judging them.
You actually have no idea what's coming up.
Today we're going to be judging books by their at times terribly tragic but other times slayyy
book covers.
You might be thinking 'what makes YOU qualified to make this video?'.
I present to you a chart...
it it flips around.
Booksellers, what do they want to do?
They want to sell.
Who do they want to sell to?
The average person and the average person reads 10 books.
Judging by this graph, you can see that I'm not even average -I'm below average.
So how about that?
How are you gonna get me to read, you know?
Another fact uh you might be able to see here.. what is that?
I have eyes.
And lastly- I've got a design degree so.
Why?
Why are covers different in the first place?
Number one.
Uh we gotta talk about- boom.
Look at that.
Different audiences.
Like someone from New York is probably not going to react to the same thing as someone
from like Bradford or something.
Sometimes the covers are all the same!
They'll look at a cover and they think, you know what?
Peng.
Different Publishers will just purchase the licensing rights to use the image and then
they'll just use that(!) So let's see what the first cover has to say.
I don't know how they got a picture of me leaving the Starbucks toilet after having
one sip of coffee but- My mans on the cover is having the roughest
hangover of his life.
At least they've got kind of the atmosphere of Dracula kind of right.
Let's just look at a better cover.
Look at the lush, vibrant kind of blood red.
This is a tragic slay because - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
To me it's just kind of giving daddy dom smut.
compared to something like this you've got the suggestion of decaying, beauty, aesthetic.
This is tragic because no.
These two slay and the middle one?
I just, I'm a hoe for teal.
Wordsworth Classics are kind of like the SHEIN of books.
I really hate faces on covers.
Ellen Degeneres and Pete Davidson are in a little a gay romance.
Some of them are pretty okay and then you just have things like The Iliad like crush
me with them THIGHS!
I don't want to crap on them too much because they probably don't have a big budget because
they're meant to be affordable.
The next one you have no idea you have no idea what's coming up- you actually have no
idea what's coming up-
Guess what book this is?
You won't get it.
You might get it but you won't get it.
Leave a comment - I'll give you three seconds three, two- it's Hunger Games.
What brief did the designer get?To me this reminds me of that weird couple in high school
who are just like a little bit too obsessed with Twilight and you're kind of like um should
you be doing that in public?
My boyfriend's an anaemic vampire.
My boyfriend drowned on a nude beach so I had to jump in and save him so I'm still wearing
clothes but he is not.
Look at the rest of the covers in the series.
This is Catching Fire.
This is Mockingjay.
Firstly there is rain in every single one of these, it's like whoever designed this
was watching The Notebook and they saw that kissing scene and they were like um you know
what?
You know what?
Very Hunger Games.
Is that Peeta?
Is that President Snow and why can't I tell the difference?
And who is she?
Because this woman has Ginger hair and green eyes and Katniss has gray hair and olive skin
and it has dark hair.
I kinda- slay kinda slay.
Do you know why?
Because it's so absurd.
This is the original [now standard but not first ever] covers.
Beautiful, simple, classy.
The symbol of freedom with the birds, the mockingjays... got the symbolism of even the
arena - Catching Fire we've got the 12 strikes and then we have Mockingjay Breaking Free
from the arena we're soaring flying, there's not a star in heaven-
These okay so Scholastic has a new edition.
This is me and the girls.
I'm not sure if it's exactly best for The Hunger Games where people are dying and there's
war and death and bombs and starvation for a special edition..
But for Collectibles you know what?
Kind of slay.
There's another kind of contentious book cover so these are the rebel editions of The Hunger
Games - pretty neon.
And you might think 'what does that have to do with a rebellion?'.
It's about non-conformism, it's about subversion.
I can see the kind of graffiti-esque influences of uh pop- pop- punk rock.
Anarchy.
Um, but there's some things that are missing for example in Catching Fire where's the 12
you know? and then Mockingjay is meant to be kind of Breaking Free and it doesn't
Twilight's got on an update in the cover as well and I want to show you I want to show
ah look at this.
Should have gone to Specsavers.
It's I think the best cover for that time period in which it was published.
You really know what to expect when you see these covers and you pick it up and you read
it you're like 'yeah that that fits'.
I think these covers are for like ebooks.
One thing that kind of irks me about this and is the way they've broken up the lettering
kind of doesn't make sense.
So we've got New Moon which is fine - it's like centre aligned.
We have Break-ing Dawn which is broken up by syllables.
But then we have Twili-ight.. and then we have Ec-lee-eeps.
A little life.
So I have this Edition.
So the photographer is Peter Hajar.
Is this about pain or is this about joy and it's so ambiguous that it's almost uncomfortable.
I feel like I'm intruding it on a space that I shouldn't have seen.
I haven't read the book yet but from what I've been told it's like the most harrowing,
life-changing Canon event.
I think it fits perfectly with that notion of like, are we trespassing into their lives
when we're reading this?
So I have a video coming up where I'm just going to read a bunch of TikTok sad books.
It will be coming soon keep an eye out but look at the UK cover!
What?
There's nothing wrong with it.
UK loves type they love Graphics.
You can see a little bit of like the US Flats over here which is fine but just when you
compare the two is there really even a competition?
Let's play a game called guess what book this is.
I'm thinking it's some sort of ya dystopia.
And actually this- compared to the Hunger Games, I think German Edition, make a whole
face with that!
But guess what book this is?
Leave a comment below I'll give you three seconds: three, two, one-
It's the song of Achilles.
This is the U.S this is the UK version um so I'm loving the gold and the blue of this
one.
But this one is just- I love the heart symbolism with the arrow.
Composition of it is slightly neater and my eye gravitates towards this one.
So clearly these two books went to the Twilight School of marketing.
The the tagline says 'the love that started it all'.
Okay cool cool cool you got three seconds leave your comments below three two one-
it's Pride and Prejudice.
Love Never Dies.
Okay we've got a beautiful flower, what could that be about?
It's Wuthering Heights.
Now imagine being 12 years old you've just read Twilight yeah and you're in Waterstones,
you see these covers and you read it and it's Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
because that was me that was me as a 12-year-old!
To me this is tragic.
Now I need you all to reset because you're really not prepared for what's coming next.
This is six of crows by Leigh bardugo.
Let me reiterate- this is Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.
Have I mentioned the fact that this is six of crows by Leigh B- Six Crows.
Why is Six of Crows a heist book set in the God knows when, uh pink and blue?
It's giving baby shower babes.
What is going on?
For anyone who doesn't know what the original cover looks like here's the original cover
um I love it when Silhouettes turn into other Silhouettes because I think you know what
so smart.
So this is by Indigo publishing and they've done it again!
I guess this one's not so bad but the first one's so cute.
It's kind of giving like Shakespearean play but they're trying to like make it hip for
the youth and that.
The Bell jar by Sylvia Plath this one is very controversial and I'll tell you why.
This is a sort of autobiography, sort of not and it's really about women kind of spiraling
into depression with the pressures of society and just it's a very depressing book...
also kind of racist.
There's a view that this is not a very feminist viewing of the Bell jar and it kind of reduces
it to oh pretty woman putting on makeup.
Personally I don't like this cover I think it looks dated compared that to uh these other
versions.
I think the concentric circles works well because it's kind of like the spiralling into
depression and Madness almost.
There's a bit more it's I like the simplicity of the graphics.
A certain hunger by Chelsea G summer.
Cannibal, serial killer.
I love the tight crop so I love the use of like a classical painting with a modern font.
It just has a really cool dark Academia aesthetic to it.
That's the US version but then let's look at the UK version.
So to me, the UK version gives a little bit more comedy like I'm not exactly sure what
this pineapple is representing.
I don't think it's the worst cover but if I was in the bookstore I would definitely
pick up this one up.
Tonally very completely different
It's time to play that game again.
Three, two, one.
Guess what book this is?
It's The Great Gatsby.
For reference this is the original Great Gatsby cover.
This one is Jazzy it's New York.
You've got the lights, you've got the nudes in her eyes, you've got the the green light
which also looks like a tear, we've got beautiful painting.
It is slightly dated not necessarily marketing towards a younger audience but the cover is
without a doubt iconic... and then you have this.
Like firstly, like, whoa!
Nipple warning- just it's a jump scare.
I have not read The Great Gatsby but I imagine that this doesn't necessarily represent the
book.
I really love this one.
Now this one isn't even an official published edition.
You've got the gentleman.
I love yellow.
The fact that he's holding the Y and it's a cup like just graphically it looks amazing
um and yeah let me know if you want this to be a series or if I should do a UK versus
USA boom.
Thank you for coming to my presentation.
Speaking of presentations I've been presented with an opportunity to fix my overcooked shrimp
posture I'm glad that I now have a proper desk to do that.
So Flexispot actually gave me the stunning desk premium series E7 in exchange for review
and after using this thing for like 20 years and this is my new setup.
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Installing was pretty easy I'd say you do need two people because this kind of heavy.
It has a really cool under the desk cable duct where you can hide messy cables, I mean
ignore the rest of those cables I still need to sort that.
As a certified shorty I find that desks in general are just not built for us.
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height that you set up.
I've actually been using it a lot and it's pretty sturdy.
I'd say the higher you go, it does wobble very slightly it has a feature called anti-collision,
I think it needs to be a little bit more sensitive like it works sometimes and it doesn't work
all the time.
If you want to purchase your own Flexispot product I'll put the link in the description
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Thank you because you're really helping my shrimp posture.