Japanese, Brazilian, Taiwanese and UK covers

The Japanese edition of The Long Tail was released today, with the canonical powerlaw front and center. It's been interesting to see how various publishers have dealt with the whole book-named-after-a-curve thing. In the US, Hyperion decided that emphasizing the statistical roots of the book would be offputting to the mainstream audience they were targeting, so they went the Tipping Point route with a simple, somewhat abstract image meant to largely give a subject-matter context for the title, subhead and other text that's actually doing all the work of selling the book. The curve, meanwhile, was relegated to the inside back flap. Whatever you might think about that decision, it worked.

In the UK publishers tend to be a bit more playful with their covers. Here's what Random House UK did with the book (is that a donkey tail? I'll try not to read too much into it...).

[UPDATE] Here's the Brazilian version. Not sure what those arrow things are, but I think it's a graceful and modern design, albeit a bit generic. (Thanks to Luigui Moterani for the heads up that it was out.)

[UPDATE 2] Here's the Taiwanese version. Typography aside, I quite like the integration of the curve into the cover, which evokes the powerlaw without feeling too math-y. Perhaps a path worth considering for the paperback edition in the US?

The book is now being translated into nearly two dozen other languages, so we'll get to see how more countries and cultures deal with the question of how to express a complicated idea simply, and how much math they think their readers can handle.  

As a side note, I'm sorry about having so many self-promotional posts in a row. I've been traveling 22 of the last 30 days (I've just arrived in NYC from Paris, where I keynoted the IDC IT Forum) and next month doesn't look much better. But I'll try to at least update my sadly neglected sidebar over the next week and turn to finishing some proper research-driven posts over the weekend.

Comments

[Valeria Maltoni]

I had noticed the UK cover while Googling key words related to the title of your book -- pretty cheeky. Japanese writing is so visual that the curve works right in the cover.

It will be interesting to see what the book cover will look like in Italy. I remember being puzzled by the choice made for Seth Godin's "All Marketers are Liars" --http://www.lafeltrinelli.it/istituzionale/catalogo/scheda_prodotto.aspx?i=2303708

The cover choice for the US market rocks.

[Luigui Moterani]

Here in Brazil they didn't add a tail or a graphic, just some "<" and ">" sings.

Here's a link to the book cover

http://i.s8.com.br/images/books/cover/img9/1644179_4.jpg

[Claudia]

Hey, Chris, about the arrows on the cover. I guess it means that you´re going from a mass market to a smaller, specialized one. That´s what´s written under the main title.

Regards
Claudia

[Jakob Nielsen]

On the Taiwainese edition, I strongly suspect that you are including the spine in the image. The leftmost vertical group of text should be sliced off to give a better idea of how the front cover looks. If you do that, the design will focus more on the curve and look less busy, though still not as clean as Western ideals prefer. (For example, even after you remove the spine, there are still two copies of the book's English title on the cover. Surely one should be enough.)

[karl]

is there a version in swedish coming up?

[Mike Abundo]

Everything looks cooler in Japanese.

[christmas shopping]

Chris predicted VOIP in 2004 and Skype got sold out for USD 4.1 Billion in 2005, Ofcourse Chris and his team and Wired are in Forecasting business as he says, fantastic stuff, Kudos to Chris!