UK Covers vs US Covers

When I was in the States going to Barnes and Noble was a must of course ;). I love browsing through book stores, looking at all the beauties and finding bookish accessories. Walking through the stores reminded me of how different US covers are from the UK covers. That’s not always the case though and it could be different for other genres, but the romance covers don’t show any similarities apart from the title and the author name. So this post is mostly based on romance covers, because it’s my favourite genre and the one I read most. Important for me to say, is that this doesn’t of of course apply to all covers, there are always exceptions.

The romance book covers in the States have a real photo as the center most of the time, the majority have a couple on it. Most of the time they seem pretty simple otherwise, not a lot of colours, some small patterns and then the title and author name in a really bulky and big writing. The fonts are usually very computer like and basic. After three years of book logging I also realised that a lot of types the same model or the same couple is used on different books, sometimes even the pose is the same. This makes them seem very boring and takes away the uniqueness of a cover.

Same couple, same photo, different book

A cover for me is here to describe the story a bit, attract the reader to it and either shows the location, the characters or other parts of the books. I love my bookshelf, I love my books and I love arranging them on the shelf. UK romance covers tend to be very colourful, sweet, romantic and just beautiful. Most of the time there is a “drawn” pictures. The illustrations are very cute and really describe the story. The font is usually in a handwriting font and if not it’s in a really catchy colour, suitable for the rest of the cover. Sometimes the UK covers have certain writing or certain details (like stars or flowers) in a special for, like bold and a bit higher (no idea how to call this). So when you go over it with your fingers you can feel it and it’s also shinier. I love everything shiny, sparkly and colourful, so UK covers are just perfect for my bookshelf. Recently I have realised that also UK covers get repetitive though. Similar background, fonts and if you put them next to each other it’s difficult to see the difference at first. Most of the time this happens within a publisher, I don’t mind, if the book is part of a series, but I see it more and more with books that are not related to each other at all.

Very similar I'd say. 

Sarah Morgan's book - Top: US, Bottom: UK

UK Cover 

US Cover

I have heard and also seen that in other genres it’s quite the opposite, which is really funny. So the UK covers are boring and dull and the US covers are more colourful, which I think I really funny.

Thinking about book covers always gets me to the topic of Harry Potter. I never really liked the German covers, but they were the first ones I got, because I couldn’t even speak English when the first few books came out. My favourites are actually the “dark” adult covers and the white signature covers. They are both really simple, but SO effective. I just love them.

German Covers

So even with the fact that also UK covers get more similar, I still prefer them most of the time, because they just look prettier in my bookshelf in my opinion.

If you google “same cover, different book”, you will see a lot of examples for the same people or photo for a cover, which is just a pity and takes away the special effect of the cover.

Which covers do you prefer, let me know what you think.