Tayari's Blog: Can They DO That???
Posted by TayariJones on September 10, 2006 02:45 PM
Filed under
it yet. (Review to come.) But the post of this post are the book covers you see here. The first is the cover of Claire Messud's novel, The Last Life. The second is Lee Smith's The Last Girls. I had no idea that your bookcover could be hijacked like that! (As if writers don't already have enough to be paranoid, territorial and competitive about.)
![[divider]](http://www.tayarijones.com/images/divider.jpg)
There are 5 comments on "Can They DO That???". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.
Comment #1, by Lester Spence ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.tayarijones.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
as long as the original creator is paid i don't see why they couldn't. did the books come out at the same time?
September 10, 2006 03:10 PM
Comment #2, by Jackie
This same thing happened with a book by Lolita Files. I browse bookstores a lot (I really mean a lot) and I kept seeing a cover that looked familiar, but upon closer inspection the book was NOT Tastes Like Chicken, but some other book. I wondered if this was intentional or not. I don't like it. I need my visual cues and a high jacked bookcover is disorienting.
September 10, 2006 10:43 PM
Comment #3, by Ladylee
Well... the fact that authors don't have much control over their covers coupled with the ease of swiping royalty free photos from the net... I'm suprised that this doesn't happen more often!
September 11, 2006 08:31 AM
Comment #4, by edi
I think some author's have more control than others over the covers of their books. If you look inside the jacket cover, you should see who the illustrator is. This person may or may not hold the copyright, depending on how established their career is. I would imagine a publishing company would re-use really good work that they've paid for on a couple of unrelated books, thinking we wouldn't notice, in order to save money or maybe to experiment with marketing concepts.
September 12, 2006 07:50 PM
Comment #5, by Shalema
Here is an example of two books with the same cover art:
Alice Walker's The Color Purple (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780151191543&itm=3 ) and Nancy Rawles' My Jim ( http://www.amazon.com/My-Jim-Novel-Alex-Awards/dp/1400054001/sr=1-1/qid=1158297597/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-4735946-0101717?ie=UTF8&s=books )
September 15, 2006 11:45 AM