Now, slight gripage here.

4. One series, one cover style

To all those publishers who decide to change the cover style of books in a series partway through the publication of a series, I both despise and admire you.

I despise you because I can’t stand having books on my shelves that are in a single series but have multiple cover styles. Puffin, you are particularly guilty of this, but the rest of you are not exempt from the circumference of my bile. What’s the matter? Too much marketing budget? Too much boredom amongst the design department? Whatever your excuse is, I’m sure it’s both lame and unnecessary. It is vexing. You are VEXING me. The sight of a line-up of coherently designed titles is internally satisfying to me and promotes healthy and generous emotions towards publishers. The sight of a mishmash of different styles and, horror, different sizes forces me to think incredibly ungenerous things in your direction. Stop it. Stop it NOW.

Amongst all this vexation, I do also have to admire your dark schemes. Because as soon as you change your cover designs partway through a series, people like me who are disturbed at the sight of inconsistency will rush out and purchase all the preceding titles again. Ka-ching! We are the cows you can keep on milking. I should point out that I admire you in the same way as I admire the devious machinations of a dastardly villain, but it is admiration nonetheless.

So, still, stop it. Stop it NOW.