According to Amazon.co.uk there seem to be two forthcoming Penguin paperback editions:



Spook Country (paperback) 31 Jul 2008

# Paperback: 384 pages
# Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (31 Jul 2008)
# Language English
# ISBN-10: 014101671X
# ISBN-13: 978-0141016719

Spook Country Export Ed (Paperback) 1 Jun 2008

# Paperback: 288 pages
# Language English
# ISBN-10: 0141035919
# ISBN-13: 978-0141035918

What is the difference between them, apart from 2 months between publication dates and 96 pages ?

There is a huge difference in price:

£3.99 (RRP £7.99) for the UK edition

and

£11.00 for the Export edition

Sounds to me like the Export Edition is a "trade paperback"--larger page size.

In UK I have seen those huge paperbacks labeled "airport edition", the same size and layout as the hardcover, while the other is a pocket sized paperback.

This has been out here for about a week, it's the US-made "international mass market paperback edition for export only". It's that ususal small pb-size.

hmm. what do people think of the UK paperback cover? its a curious looking thing to me. funny how the american paperback looks consistent with the hardback, but the UK ones always rebrand with the new edition. i wonder what the UK publishers were trying to say with that new cover. who is the person on the cover supposed to be?

He's a spook of course.

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:
hmm. what do people think of the UK paperback cover? its a curious looking thing to me. funny how the american paperback looks consistent with the hardback, but the UK ones always rebrand with the new edition. i wonder what the UK publishers were trying to say with that new cover. who is the person on the cover supposed to be?

It is hard to understand why Penguin's cover art department choose any particular image.

The cover photograph is copyright Steve Harries who has published some interesting images of skateboarders set against brutalist urban architecture.

It seems to me that the Brits went with a cover that evoked the international thriller motif so as to grease that proxy category into the minds of eager hands fumbling over the newly released paperbacks.

One might easily mistake the cover for such promising such intrigue and excitement as in a Ludlum novel.

Penguin, like any publisher, makes decisions based on what they think will move product. An American author, who used to write sci-fi, is hard to categorize easily overseas. The cover of the US edition looks decidedly literary. The UK one looks decidedly accessible.

Simpler than that. Booktrade publicity departments prefer covers with people on them. Faces sell books better than objects.