The Great Book Cover Debacle

I am perplexed as to why the decision is made to redesign the book covers of a series part way through said series and this is something that continues to piss me off, quite frankly.  I HATE when my books don't match but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay AGAIN for a book I already have.  I already spend too much money on books as it is!  From what I can see, despite constant negative feedback from fans/readers, this situation keeps happening.  I understand the need to increase marketing and sales, I really do but sometimes I feel like the person making the decisions just doesn't care or isn't that bothered about what the fans have to say and this makes me sad.  And WE are the people buying the books.

Let's get something straight.  It is NOT the author's fault and I know that.  Often they have little to no say in what the cover will look like and we've all heard the saying "Don't just a book by it's cover" and "It's what's underneath that counts".  YES.  That's entirely true.  Did I refuse to buy the US hardback of Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer when they changed the cover?  No, I didn't because I wanted to continue with the story but I was pissed off about the cover change, especially as the US Arc was BEAUTIFUL. Have a look for yourself...

This is the original US hardback cover for Nightshade by Andrea Cremer.  When I saw it for the first time, I thought it was incredibly beautiful and yes, it drew me into wanting to read the book. 

This is the original US Arc cover for Wolfsbane and everyone thought this was going to be the final US hardback cover BUT someone decided to overhaul the covers and instead we ended up with....

The thing is, I have nothing against these covers but I much preferred the originals and now my books don't match :( 

Let's look at some other examples.  This is the original cover for the US hardback of Shine by Jeri Smith-Ready.  I thought it was striking when I first saw it.

And Shift, the sequel - equally as nice.

 

THEN, they decided to change the covers completely and this is the final book in the series, Shine.  WHY? WHY? WHY?  The original cover style was lovely, just as it was.     

And another example...

This is the UK original hardback copy of Delirium by Lauren Oliver, which is not unlike the US version and is pretty :) 

Now have a look at the UK original hardback copy of the sequel, Pandemonium.  It does not even remotely look like the same series.  Had I not known, I would have thought this was a standalone by the same author.

This is the original US hardback version of Delirium, which looks different from the ARC but I like it. 

Look at the original US hardback of Pandemonium on the right.  COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.  On the left you will see a "special edition" of Delirium should you wish to purchase it AGAIN so your books match *makes a face*.   I suppose we should be grateful for the option but I'm still frustrated about it. 

 This is the US original hardback of The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney.  

This is the sequel to The Mockingbirds and WOW, has it had a cover overhaul which means that now my hardbacks don't match. 

The original UK release of Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel had a beautiful cover treatment AND it was a hardback (BONUS!) so of course I had no reason to think that the sequel would be any different.  WRONG. 

Stolen Night (p.s. why is it not Stolen Nights like the US title?) is completely different and is a paperback ergo the series doesn't match. 

These are the original US paperback covers for Infinite Days which the one on the right not even being released yet BUT someone, somewhere has decided to overhaul the covers and so here are the new ones:

Now, to be fair I actually quite like this cover redesign despite the fact that besides the UK hardback of the first book, I'd also bought the US paperback and now they won't match.  

Another example of a cover overhaul is the UK release of Divergent by Veronica Roth.  

The top left cover of Divergent is the original UK paperback release which pretty much matched the US hardback copy.  The second picture (top right) is the US hardback of Insurgent, the sequel.  Now check out the bottom two pictures after the UK cover makeover for the series.  Personally, I prefer the originals but maybe that's just me, although I do think they're pretty. 

Now we come to the latest cover overhaul and really, the one that inspired this blog post. 

Across the Universe by Beth Revis WAS and STILL IS one of the prettiest book covers I've ever seen.  Period.  I'm of course referring to the original US hardback release as the UK copy was slightly different.  As you can see, A Million Suns (the sequel) was of the same design and still pretty.   What was incredibly awesome about Across the Universe however, was that the book cover was REVERSIBLE (see below) and this is the first time I'd ever seen such a cool concept!

(Awesome)

It was recently announced that the books had received a cover overhaul and now they are going to look like this...

I hasten to add that the final book in the series, Shades of Earth (and I'm speaking about the US hardback release) will look like the above.  WTF?  I wouldn't mind if this was the paperback release only but to do this to the hardback?  NO.  JUST NO.  I am BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED about this and am hoping that either they reconsider or they bring out a special book sleeve for it that matches the rest of the series otherwise I'm going to be pissed off for a long time to come.

There are countless examples of cover changes - UK cover changes include Blood Red Road by Moira Young (and don't even get me started on why the sequel title has to be different  here than in the US), Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts, and the Vampire Academy trilogy when they brought out the red cover for the final book in the series so it didn't match.

I don't think there is any answer to this to be honest.  The decision makers know that we're not going to stop buying the book so what do they care if we're annoyed at the cover change? We're still going to buy it.  The thing is, often the cover change is completely unnecessary and is often not better than the original in my opinion (although there are of course exceptions to the rule). 

What do you guys think?  Does anyone care about this besides me?