Tie-Ins Ruin Imagination

I was looking for the term used to describe this and then it hit me at the last minute which inspired me to write this in full detail. I have mentioned it before but never gave the full extent of my thoughts, otherwise, it would have derailed the subject.

I love books, but the one thing that annoys me is when the covers are changed to promote a film or TV adaptation of the book. These are called tie-ins and they can either look good or not. They always say don’t judge a book by its cover, but this is the only time that I will be judging.

One of the major problems that I find with them, that many authors in other places have also stated it: The first issue is that the book and the movie/series both take different approaches to the plot. For instance, in the LOTR books: Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Aragorn meet a high elf named Glorfindel who was searching to bring them to Rivendell. He fights off the Nazgul a few times as well and puts Frodo on his steed to send him to Rivendell. Whereas in the film, it is Arwen who finds them instead, takes Frodo on horseback and is pursued by all nine wraiths. She then leads them to a river and uses powerful magic to subdue them before nearly losing Frodo.

Arwen doesn’t have much of a role in the books so it wouldn’t make sense to put the cover of the first film on its novel counterpart. New fans would get the misconception that the book is going to be just like the film in the plot when it isn’t.

Another example of this where this doesn’t work is with the Bridgerton series which I have yet to read. I do not like it when book covers are changed to show what the characters look like in their adaptations. The reason why this bothers me is that reading books allows me to imagine what the people, places, and things look like my own way from the author’s descriptions, especially the people.

This applies to Bridgerton because, from these images above, the showrunners at Netflix decided to make a diverse cast, which is pretty much the norm with anything Shonda Rhimes takes the reins of. However, putting that on your cover can be not only misleading to any people of colour who loved the show and want to pick up the books, but when I look at that on the cover, I shake my head because I want to picture the duke the way he is described in the books, not be spoon-fed the show’s version, regardless of race. What if he’s not actually black in the books? Then well you will mislead me. That is why when I decided I wanted to read this series, I scoured the Internet and local bookstores for paperbacks that didn’t have Netflix tie-in covers and got lucky at Indigo. I was originally going to just get them on my Kobo but the first two books had already been changed to the tie-in covers with the Netflix’s version of the characters so that was a no for me.

Besides, the books are meant to be more historical and an article on The Mary Sue says the characters were pretty much all white in them whereas the show is more of a fantasy regency era by mixing the races. I’m not against diverse casting, but I do not want it to mislead me when I read the books or try to prevent me from imagining things my way as I read.

The only time tie-ins don’t bother me is when say, there’s a sticker on them that says something like “watch on Netflix” or “Now an HBO original series. My box set of His Dark Materials contains the latter on the top of the covers but the original art is still there. I want to see Lyra the way I want to from Philip’s words, not Dafne Keen when I read the books. As long as these particular stamps on the cover don’t interfere with the cover’s art itself then I will tolerate it. Some people don’t like those little patches, but for me I guess it just depends on the size of them. I do agree though that they aren’t necessary because I think everyone knows that this book has been made into a motion picture for example, you don’t have to rub it in when we want to read the book.

On a positive note. I’ll acknowledge that tie-ins have a way of bringing in new readers of those who have seen its film or TV adaptations but I still think they should keep their original covers, or a cover that at least doesn’t depict something similar to what happens in the adaptation. New readers who have seen the film should be prepared for the fact that the book will not take the same direction in plot as the movie did and the best way is to not give them a tie-in cover with the actors on it.

I’ve seen The Martian film. I may want to read the book and thankfully the Kobo version still has the original cover with Mark in a space suit and you can’t see his face. If my dad saw me reading it on my Kobo, he might remind me that he has a paperback copy upstairs in his nightstand that I could borrow instead of spending money. I would then tell him that yes I’m aware but I don’t want to see Matt Damon when I read this book. Get it?

So what do you think of tie-in book covers, do they not bother you or do you dislike them like me? Scratch that, I don’t hate them, it depends. I’m okay with those little patches but for the love of Cthulhu, don’t make tie-in covers with what the characters look like from the adaptations.

Perhaps it would simply be better to just put a sign in bookstores that say “now a major motion picture” or put it in the product description when buying online instead of changing the cover.

👽Emily